As a candidate positioned at the center of what researchers say are the worst Islamophobic attacks seen since the aftermath of 9/11, many would expect Abdul El-Sayed to simply defend himself and move on. Instead, the Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan has repeatedly demanded those who question his positions on Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood, and his faith, explain the premise of their enquiry. Rather than let others put his loyalties on trial, he has tried to put their assumptions on trial.
The clearest example is a town hall exchange from this weekend that has been viewed more than 50m times. A man in the crowd demanded he disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. Then: “What are you implying?
Do you assume that I wouldn’t?” For five minutes he stayed on it, comparing the question to the doubts people once had about JFK’s Catholicism, and asking the man whether he would disavow reading religious doctrine into American law. The man said he wouldn’t. El-Sayed told him he was the one who needed to understand the constitution.
The man turned out to be Thomas Teepell, a former aide to the Republican senator Josh Hawley. His father’s firm was paid $250,000 by a non-profit for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed, according to an FEC filing, though nothing shows the son was paid. The connection did not establish that the question was coordinated, but it added another dimension to an exchange that showed El-Sayed’s preferred method in action.
His direct approach has yielded a nickname: “Mean Mamdani”, or “Meandami”. While New York City mayor and fellow Muslim Zohran Mamdani wins people over with warmth, El-Sayed goes at his critics head-on. Both have made establishment resistance part of their political identity, but El-Sayed treats confrontation itself as a way to expose what he sees as a rigged political debate.
It is an approach the Democratic establishment doesn’t quite know what to do with. When Mamdani-backed challengers beat establishment favorites in New York primaries, the party’s minority leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, played the wins down. In Michigan, state governor Gretchen Whitmer and senator Gary Peters backed El-Sayed’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Haley Stevens, and more than $60m in outside money, mostly from pro-Israel groups, went her way.
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