DEARBORN, Mich. — Abdul El-Sayed hoped to spend the final days of Michigan’s Senate race showcasing Democratic unity. Instead, he’s still dealing with the fallout from his bruising primary battle against Haley Stevens over his views on Israel.
Months after defeating the former congresswoman in a hard-fought Democratic primary, Mr. El-Sayed remains at odds with his former rival, who drew strong backing from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups during the contest.
Ms. Stevens, a staunch ally of Israel, has endorsed Mr. El-Sayed, but her support has often appeared reluctant. She continues to criticize his views on the U.S.-Israel relationship in a race that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate the next two years.
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The tensions flared again this week after Ms. Stevens’ boyfriend announced he was backing former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee. Things became even more awkward Friday.
Ms. Stevens announced she would join Mr. El-Sayed and Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina at a Detroit-area church event on Sunday, part of the Democrat’s closing push to energize Black voters.
But in the same statement, she renewed her criticism of Mr. El-Sayed over an online advertisement released by Rebellion PAC, a group led by liberal commentator Cenk Uygur. The ad features grocery shoppers criticizing the billions of dollars in U.S. aid sent to Israel and saying taxpayer money is being used to “kill Palestinians.”
Ms. Stevens said she agreed to attend the event only after learning Mr. El-Sayed had condemned the ad, though she argued the message reflected comments he has made throughout the campaign.
“I urge voters and the press to confirm it with Abdul directly,” she said, adding that the “ad did not invent this argument.”
“It dramatized one Dr. El-Sayed has made in his own words throughout this campaign: that Israel is the reason Michigan cannot afford schools, health care, and child care,” she said.
“If those words are wrong when a Political Action Committee supporting his campaign says them, then they are equally wrong when Abdul says them, and Abdul has said them from the start. I therefore expect him to apologize for those statements as well.”
Mr. El-Sayed did not address Ms. Stevens’ demand during a pair of campaign stops here on Friday. Instead, he released a statement late in the day, saying he remained “focused on addressing the high gas, grocery and health care challenges facing voters.”
He argued that message helped him overcome “a historic $70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens” in their primary race.
“So while Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on litigating a primary that ended three months ago, let’s all focus on the task at hand: that’s beating Mike Rogers, holding Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All,” he said.
The El-Sayed campaign has said it had nothing to do with the controversial ad.
Still, the lingering intraparty dispute over the party’s posture toward Israel threatens to overshadow what he hoped would be a strong closing stretch in a highly competitive race against Mr. Rogers.
In his closing message, Mr. El-Sayed has continued to talk about his desire to end foreign assistance as part of a broader argument on how the government should focus on spending that money on domestic programs that make life easier for Americans at home.
“It just should be this hard in the richest, most powerful country in the world to afford a tank of gas,” he often says in his stump speech. “It shouldn’t be this hard to buy a second bag of groceries. It shouldn’t be this hard to see a doctor, and it shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money is going to be spent on you and your kids rather than dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids.”
Mr. Rogers, meanwhile, has spent the campaign’s final weeks portraying Mr. El-Sayed as outside the political mainstream, highlighting his and his family’s alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and questioning his loyalty to the United States.
Mr. Rogers has also repeatedly pointed to Mr. El-Sayed’s performance in their first debate, where he declined to say whether Israel or Iran poses the greater threat to the U.S., arguing the exchange underscored how far outside the mainstream his views are.
That appears to be one reason Ms. Stevens’ boyfriend, Jason Turkish, a Jewish lawyer who describes himself as a lifelong Democrat, decided to back Mr. Rogers. He joined the Republican nominee at a campaign event Wednesday.
The renewed tensions come at a delicate moment for Mr. El-Sayed.
Democrats have spent months trying to unify after a divisive primary and present a united front against Mr. Rogers in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races. Instead, disagreements from the primary are spilling back into public view just as voters begin making their final decisions.
Ms. Stevens’ actions have left some Democrats baffled.
“I have no idea what the hell Haley Stevens is doing,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who also ran in the Democratic primary, said on CNN. “This is a moment where we have to recognize the stakes.”
Liberal commentator Roland S. Martin was even more blunt.
“Shut the f—- up,” he said in a video posted on X, arguing Democrats should be singularly focused on winning the race to provide a check on President Trump and Republicans. “I’m talking to you, Congresswoman Haley Stevens. I’m talking about your stupid-ass boyfriend.”
Mr. Rogers, meanwhile, quickly came to Ms. Stevens’ defense, calling her a “courageous leader” and backing her call for Mr. El-Sayed to denounce the Rebellion PAC ad.
“And she was right to call on him to apologize for espousing the same hateful ideology behind it,” he said.
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