Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Targeted by Islamophobic National-Security Smears
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Right-wing commentators and so-called security experts are attacking Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee, with thinly veiled Islamophobic rhetoric, raising baseless concerns about his access to classified information due to his associations with Arab and Muslim community leaders.
If Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed wins the November election, he would, like all senators, be eligible to receive classified briefings without undergoing the executive-branch security-clearance process. Yet, conservative voices amplified by Fox News Digital are exploiting this fact to stoke fear and suspicion, citing El-Sayed’s supposed 'appearances' with figures who have expressed support for Palestinian resistance and other causes demonized by the right.
Daniel Samet, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute—a conservative think tank—claimed that El-Sayed’s connections to individuals supportive of the intifada and so-called 'radical Islamist ideology' could pose a risk, even going so far as to invoke the name of leftist commentator Hasan Piker, whom El-Sayed has already criticized. This guilt-by-association tactic is a familiar tool used to smear progressive candidates, especially those from marginalized backgrounds.
The campaign has been forced to address El-Sayed’s introduction of a rally with Amir Makled and his later appearance with Sheikh Fadhel al-Sahlani, both of whom have been targeted by right-wing media for their statements on Middle Eastern politics. El-Sayed also accepted an endorsement from Osama Siblani, a respected Arab-American commentator. Despite El-Sayed’s clear rejection of Piker’s inflammatory remarks about 9/11, conservatives continue to demand further denunciations, holding him to an impossible standard not applied to white candidates.
El-Sayed’s campaign spokesperson, Cole Wozniak, rightfully pointed out the hypocrisy of Republican opponent Mike Rogers, who has profited from dealings with Chinese and Saudi-linked firms—real threats to U.S. security that the right conveniently ignores. Rogers’ office, unsurprisingly, declined to comment.
Heritage Action’s Chip Wyatt and other right-wing operatives have seized on El-Sayed’s principled stance against ICE and even dragged his half-sister into the mud, weaponizing her social media post about the 2023 Hamas attack to smear El-Sayed by association. El-Sayed has made clear they disagree on foreign policy, but that nuance is lost in the right’s relentless campaign of fearmongering.
Figures like America First Works president Ashley Hayek have attempted to broaden the smear campaign, targeting progressive candidates with tenuous claims about funding from activist networks, including Neville Singham, as reported by the New York Times. These guilt-by-association tactics are designed to undermine progressive movements and silence dissent.
Legal analyst Bryce Poole of Advancing American Freedom, another conservative group, used the opportunity to call for more oversight and training, further perpetuating the baseless narrative that progressive senators are a security risk. This campaign against El-Sayed is a clear example of Islamophobic and anti-progressive fearmongering in American politics.