As Abdul El-Sayed’s one-time primary opponent attempts to redirect closing arguments in the Michigan Senate contest to the topics of Israel and antisemitism, the Democratic nominee has entered the final stretch of the midterms against a barrage of bigoted attacks over his own race and religion.
asserted
nominee → attempt → race
President Donald Trump called him a “jihadist.”
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Trump → call → him
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went on a racist rant against Arabs.
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Jr. → go → Arabs
According to Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a mailer went out showing El-Sayed’s face next to the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.
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mailer → accord → Towers
“They are running the most bigoted, hateful, Islamophobic campaign I’ve ever seen,” McMorrow told a local TV outlet.
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McMorrow → run → outlet
McMorrow, who ran for the Democratic Senate nomination but dropped out before the August primary, is taking a far different tack than Rep. Haley Stevens, the Democratic primary runner-up who has spent the race’s final days painting El-Sayed as an angry antisemite and crossed party lines Sunday to endorse Republican contender Mike Rogers.
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who → run → Rogers
Rogers has sought to portray El-Sayed as anti-American and repeatedly tried to tie his opponent to the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Rogers → seek → Brotherhood
He insists the attacks have nothing to do with faith.
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attacks → insist → faith
But that is exactly how many observers see them, including Muslim Republicans who have been disgusted by the rhetoric.
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who → see → rhetoric
As the election draws to a close, the Islamophobic attacks have taken a backseat to Stevens’s claims of antisemitism — most prominently concerning a PAC ad that connected high grocery prices to U.S. spending on Israeli military aid — and a personal feud between the former primary opponents.
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that → draw → opponents
And some of El-Sayed’s allies worry that the Muslim and Arab-baiting attacks will work.
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attacks → worry → allies
One recent poll found that 38 percent of Michigan voters said they would be less likely to vote for a Muslim candidate.
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they → find → candidate
Michigan’s Muslim and Arab organizers have not been taking the attacks lying down, however.
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organizers → take → attacks
In interviews last month, two prominent leaders in Dearborn’s Arab American community described widespread excitement over the opportunity to vote for the man who would be the first Muslim in the U.S. Senate.
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who → describe → Senate
“It very much feels like when President Obama was running and his whole campaign was around like hope.
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campaign → feel → hope
That’s what it feels like,” Layla Elabed, the organizing director at Arab Americans for Progress, told the Intercept on October 8.
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Elabed → ’ → October
Elabed, the sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was one of the key movers in the Uncommitted movement, which urged Michigan voters to withhold their votes from Joe Biden during the 2024 primary in protest of his support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
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which → urge → Gaza
The movement succeeded in making a statement, but also drew criticism from centrist Democrats for allegedly fracturing party unity.
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movement → succeed → unity
Its canvassers have been knocking on doors to turn out support for El-Sayed and other candidates.
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canvassers → knock → Sayed
“I don’t think many people in Dearborn are surprised by Haley Stevens,” Elabed told The Intercept on Monday.
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Elabed → think → Monday
“Arab American Democrats in Michigan have been sounding the alarm about her for years, warning our fellow Democrats about a pattern of putting political interests ahead of the people she was elected to represent.”
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she → sound → people
She believes the same coalition that came together for Uncommitted could help push El-Sayed over the top this election.
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that → believe → top
“Abdul has been able to really take a stand on all the issues that were really important to anti-war voters and anti-genocide voters,” she said.
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she → take → voters
“It’s not a coincidence that that same coalition, that same base of Democratic voters are now all coming out to support us.”
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coalition → ’ → us
Hers is not the only group seeking to mobilize Muslim and Arab voters, who make up a sizable slice of the Michigan electorate.
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who → seek → electorate
The Arab American Political Action Committee has also endorsed El-Sayed.
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Committee → endorse → Sayed
Its president, Osama Siblani, said there is widespread enthusiasm for El-Sayed in areas with dense Arab populations such as Dearborn.
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president → say → Dearborn
Siblani compared El-Sayed’s potential victory to John F. Kennedy’s pathbreaking election as the first Catholic president.
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Siblani → compare → president
“First of all, he’s qualified.
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he → ’ → all
Second of all, he’s saying the right things, he has a good agenda,” Siblani.
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he → say → Siblani
In addition to all of this, he is breaking the ceiling for our community and for other communities.
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he → break → communities
The goal of the Arab and Muslim-baiting attacks from El-Sayed’s enemies is clear, according to Nazita Lajevardi, an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan.
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goal → accord → Michigan
“Islamophobia is a tried and true strategy for garnering a candidate support and swaying the vote,” she said.
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she → try → vote
Yet it is also possible that the attacks on El-Sayed’s identity will lead to greater turnout in places like Dearborn, she said.
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she → lead → Dearborn
“I think scholarship would tell us that when political elites discriminate, that it does mobilize people into action.
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it → think → action
Past scholarship would say yes, it would, but it’s an open question,” she said.
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she → say → ?
Elabed agreed that the attacks are nothing new.
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attacks → agree → ?
“We’ve watched it play out time and time again,” she told The Intercept.
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she → watch → Intercept
Stevens’s about-face isn’t a major development, she said, “It’s that the rest of the Democratic Party is finally seeing what our communities have been saying all along.
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communities → say → what
We just weren’t being listened to.”
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We → listen → ?
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
