In a narrow Michigan election, courting the Jewish vote could be decisive for Rogers over El-Sayed

In Michigan, where razor-thin margins have dominated in recent elections, Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s struggle to win over the state's small Jewish community could prove decisive in the race against Republican Mike Rogers that could determine control of the upper chamber. 

El-Sayed has been at the center of a controversy in the state for seemingly having downplayed the guilt of the alleged perpetrator of a Detroit-area synagogue shooting earlier this year, which appears to have opened a window for Rogers to win over at least some of the state's Jewish Democratic voters.

In that attack on Temple Israel, in West Bloomfield Township, a gunman rammed the synagogue with his vehicle and opened fire. The suspect, who is originally from Lebanon, was motivated to carry out the attack after some of his relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike during the country’s war against the terrorist group Hezbollah.

At the time, El-Sayed condemned the synagogue attack, saying there was “never a justification for attacking innocent people” but added that “violence is a cycle” and “hurt people hurt people.” 

He faced backlash for his comments, even from members of his own party already wary of his far-left campaign agenda. Some Jewish Democrats still do not feel comfortable backing El-Sayed, even after he delivered an apology at a party conference in the city of Lansing this past weekend.

El-Sayed narrowly defeated the more moderate Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens in the party primary last month. 

Unlike El-Sayed, who is a Muslim and has been a fierce critic of Israel in ways that have reportedly made some Jewish voters uncomfortable, Stevens repeatedly voiced her support for Israel. 

She was also backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After her loss to El-Sayed, Stevens said that Michigan Jewish voters would “need to make a personal and private decision” about which candidate to support in the November election. 

Because of the small margins in recent Michigan elections, if even a fraction of Democratic Jewish voters in the state defect from El-Sayed, it could prove decisive in the outcome of the race. 

In the state's 2024 Senate race, Rogers lost to then-Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin by just 19,006 votes out of the more than 5.4 million total cast. This time, Rogers is running against El-Sayed for the open seat of retiring Democrat Sen. Gary Peters. Right now, he trails El-Sayed by just 2.3 points, according to the most recent RealClearPolitics.com polling average. 

There are an estimated 100,000 adult Jewish Michiganders, heavily concentrated around the Detroit metro area.

According to a 2021 study, part of the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University, Michigan Jewish voters skewed more Democratic than other Michigan adults on average. Sixty-one percent of Michigan Jewish voters identify as Democrats while only 31% identify as Republicans. Thus, a Democratic candidate is largely predisposed to receive the vast majority of Jewish support in the state’s elections.  

There is no polling available to indicate who exactly Jewish Democratic voters backed in the state’s primary elections, but county-level election results show that Stevens won the most votes in the counties that are home to the largest Jewish populations in Michigan – after campaigning explicitly on her support for the community and for Israel. After conceding to El-Sayed, Stevens has urged the state’s Democratic voters to get behind the Senate nominee. 

But Jewish Democrats in particular are skeptical of El-Sayed for several reasons. 

In addition to his comments about the Temple Israel attack earlier this year, El-Sayed has spent months fielding questions about his relationship with left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who previously told his audience that the United States “deserved” the 9/11 attack. 

During the primary, he repeatedly campaigned alongside Piker and, at first, declined to condemn his remarks. In August, El-Sayed dismissed Piker’s comment as “a dumb statement.” 

Piker is known for his incendiary remarks that target the state of Israel and also recently American Jews. In one of his latest controversial statements on the subject, Piker suggested Jews who support Israel could face backlash or violence in the United States. 

“If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they’re singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone will come around and take action – not against Israel, mind you, but against American Jews,” Piker said. 

Several senior Democrats put out statements denouncing Piker’s warning to American Jews as a veiled threat. 

“In a time where political violence and antisemitism has been spiking – and where just six months ago Michigan had a nearly deadly event of antisemitic mass violence at Temple Israel – no one should causally be suggesting that anyone, Jews or otherwise, are to blame for being targeted,” Slotkin said in a post to social media.  

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said bluntly: The malicious claim that American Jews are inviting violence against themselves is dangerous and antisemitic."

The string of controversies has pushed El-Sayed to apologize to Jewish Democrats in Michigan, but he has so far declined to cut ties with Piker as the campaign heads into the final stretch. 

In his bid to staunch the bleeding with Jewish Democrats, El-Sayed also apologized this past weekend before the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I should have issued a statement, of course, condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop.” 

The nominee argued he wanted to “offer broader context” but did not properly acknowledge the dignity that fear and that pain should have been afforded. He also said: “If my statement caused pain, I’m sorry. That was not what I intended.”  

Ultimately, however, El-Sayed has declined to dump Piker, despite making attempts to distance himself from the streamer's many controversial comments. 

While El-Sayed’s apology was enough for some Jewish Democrats, others believe the candidate has not gone far enough or are still questioning whether to support him. 

One board member of the Michigan Jewish Democrats flat out said that he would support Rogers. “I’m a Mike Rogers supporter,” Troy Zukowski-Serlin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s signed, sealed and delivered with me.”

Zukowski-Serlin’s wife, who also attended the speech, told the outlet that she would write in state Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish and who has publicly criticized El-Sayed. 

Other critics, such as Jewish Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, said that El-Sayed’s apology was “a step in the right direction.” 

“It has lingered in the Jewish community for the last six months,” Moss said of the synagogue attack. “And I appreciate that this is something that he recognized there needed to be a reckoning with, and amends toward.”

Rogers has sought to exploit the hesitations of some Democrats to back El-Sayed, especially the state’s Jewish voters. 

At a recent campaign event launching his Democrats for Mike coalition, a Jewish rabbi told the press that he would back Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent, despite his historical support for Democrats. 

“I usually vote Democrat, but I'm going to be voting for Mike Rogers,” Rabbi Asher Lopatin said. 

“I do have a lot of issues with a lot of policies of the Trump administration," Lopatin separately told Fox News Digital. "But it's more important to make a statement that we cannot let someone like Abdul El-Sayed get into the Senate.”

Prominent Jewish Democratic donor bundlers hosted a fundraiser for Rogers last month and an open letter is currently circulating urging Jewish Democrats and independents to support Rogers in the race.  

Rogers recently said that El-Sayed’s recent apology to Jewish Democrats was a change in tone dictated by bad polling and not a true change of heart. 

“When someone says you might have been offended by what I said, that’s not an apology,” Rogers told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade. “He has a long history, Brian, of antisemitic comments, inflammatory comments. He’s angry. He’s aggressive.”

“The polling said, hey, he needed to change this,” Rogers continued, saying that a growing number of Jewish Democrats are supporting his campaign. “We’ve had big events. That group is swelling by the day. So that was his sad attempt, I think, to try to stem that bleeding.”