Jason Turkish, the fiancé of former Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Haley Stevens, accused the party's Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of escalating rhetoric that makes Jewish people unsafe, deepening an intraparty feud days before the midterms. The immediate fight centers partly on a digital advertisement produced by Rebellion PAC, an outside group supporting El-Sayed that describes itself as a movement that rejects “the corporate-driven status quo” and stands “against the establishment.” The advertisement shows a couple grocery shopping and talking about putting back a carton of eggs because “we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians,” before criticizing U.S. military assistance to Israel in its war in Gaza. Representative who lost to El-Sayed in the August primary, characterized the advertisement as antisemitic and called on him to condemn it.
The ad was not broadcast but was shared widely on social media. A spokesperson for his Republican opponent Mike Rogers accused El-Sayed’s allies of “anti-Israel hate,” while the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called the ad a “case study in antisemitism.” El-Sayed did not produce or approve the ad, however, and has distanced himself from it. No one speaks for Abdul but himself and his campaign,” a spokesperson previously told Newsweek.
Stevens also called on El-Sayed, who would become the nation's first Muslim U.S. senator if elected, to apologize for his own comments connecting U.S. spending on Israel with Michigan’s affordability problems and to remove a separate campaign advertisement featuring conservative commentator Tucker Carlson “out of the same respect for Michigan’s Black community.” “Abdul promises to get money out of politics,” Stevens said in a statement. However, Turkish said he's voting for the Republican. I want our Democrats to win; I want to see Abdul do the right thing here.” Meanwhile, El-Sayed's campaign has reportedly asked Stevens not to attend his remaining campaign events, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Politico.
Newsweek reached out to El-Sayed's campaign by email Saturday for comment. During an interview appearance on Fox & Friends on Saturday, Turkish, who is Jewish and a civil rights attorney, said his fiancé "has made it clear to anyone who will listen that she remains on Team Dem,” adding that Stevens' "only ask, small ask, was to say that we not blame all of society’s high costs on one group of people.” “We spend only a few billion dollars a year, and I say that in quotes, on support for a very strategic ally in the Middle East,” Turkish said. But yet, Abdul tells folks that that's what stands in our way.” Turkish also accused the Senate hopeful of using rhetoric that endangers Jewish people.
He added: “Every time he talks about genocide [in Gaza], Jews get death threats.” Turkish also told the newspaper that he would vote for Rogers in what he described as a decision to put “country before party.” El-Sayed has rejected suggestions that his criticism of Israel is antisemitic, saying his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own kids.” The Muslim voter advocacy group Emgage estimates that there are more than 200,000 registered Muslim voters in Michigan. By comparison, Michigan is home to roughly 105,000 Jewish adults, about 1.4 percent of the state's electorate, according to the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University. Republican-aligned estimates run higher, up to 130,000.
"It is important to remember that no state has a higher percentage of Arab-American residents in the U.S. than Michigan. The Jewish population is less than half that of the Arab-American population there," Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, previously told Newsweek. Turnout narrows the gap, Kessler warned.
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