On July 8, Abdul El-Sayed had just wrapped up a campaign stop inside a sweltering church auditorium in Ferndale, Michigan. The room was packed with supporters fanning themselves with campaign signs, many braving the summer heat to hear the progressive Senate candidate make his case against his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens.
Then came the applause.
It wasn’t for Medicare for All or his warnings about the rise of data centers. It was for a message that has come to define what is expected to be the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history.
“The central corrupting feature of our politics right now is the power of money to buy politicians so that government is captured by them, not for us,” El-Sayed said as he fielded questions from the stagefrom the stage, wearing his signature black T-shirt and blue jeans. “AIPAC will spend huge amounts of money if you’re uppity like me and you speak out of turn to beat you, and you’re seeing it play out on TV every day.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliated groups have poured more than $30 million into the race in support of Stevens. It is the largest investment the organization has made in an electoral contest since launching its United Democracy Project super PAC in 2021.
“I have been very clear, consistent and transparent, and I have continued to be,” Stevens said during a recent televised debate when asked about AIPAC’s support for her campaign. “I want to see long-term peace. I want to see a two-state solution. I am deeply proud to represent one of the largest Jewish populations in a congressional district in the country.”
The stakes in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary extend far beyond the state. The winner will face Republican Mike Rogers in one of the country’s marquee general election contests, and Democrats need to win races like Michigan if they hope to take control of the Senate.
But first, Democratic voters are deciding a different question: whether the party’s future lies with its establishment, represented by Stevens, or with an ascendant progressive movement embodied by candidates like El-Sayed. The race has become a proxy fight over money in politics, the influence of pro-Israel groups such as AIPAC, and whether Democratic candidates can openly criticize U.S. support for Israel without sacrificing electability.
It is also unfolding in the shadow of Michigan’s 2024 Uncommitted movement, which turned the state into the epicenter of Democratic dissent over the war in Gaza and exposed fractures that continue to divide the party’s coalition, including an ongoing debate over how much the issue contributed to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat.
We spoke with El-Sayed earlier this summer about AIPAC, electability and what he believes his race means for the future of Democratic politics.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Nearly two years ago, you joined members of the Uncommitted Movement at the Democratic National Convention asking them to have a Palestinian speak on stage. What was your involvement in that group?
I thought we needed to take a shot across the bow to remind the Biden administration that Arab and Muslim voters were an important part of his coalition, and that we would not stand by and watch him use our tax dollars to drop bombs on other people and their kids to do a genocide, and that he was at risk of losing a lot of important voters if they didn’t course correct.
When Vice President Harris became the nominee, I was the first Arab or Muslim leader to endorse her openly. I took it on the chin, you can imagine.
In both instances, I was trying to lead with my values. Because if you saw this election from the eyes of a child in Detroit, where I was leading Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human, and Veteran Services, or you saw it from the eyes of a child in Gaza, Trump would be worse.
But how does that contrast with the idea of where are now, where a number of progressive candidates who have campaigned around the issue of Palestine are winning Democratic primaries across the country?
That’s how democracy works. Democracy is supposed to work by giving the voters a choice about what vision they want. And I think voters are choosing their morals rather than political expediency.
When you started your campaign, it seemed like you had a Bernie-style approach centering on issues like Medicare for All. You even had a video where you interviewed a veteran who responded to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. When did your race become so foreign policy focused?
My campaign is not really this heavy on foreign policy. It just happens to be what all y’all in the media want to talk to me about.
Respectfully, you bring it up yourself sometimes.
When a $30 million super PAC spend is being dropped on your face by an organization whose key interest is something happening over there, then it would be ridiculous not to name it. AIPAC is the biggest spender in this race by far, and that’s pretty insane. And they’re not spending to keep our money here, they’re spending to send our money there. So they’ve made it an issue, and it’s just another example of why we have to get money out of politics. Because so long as they can spend that kind of money buying attack ads against me, we are going to continue to watch as too many politicians bow out of having any kind of moral courage to keep our money here at home and actually do the things that we need here at home.
But I’m running on getting money out of politics, putting money in your pocket, passing Medicare for all.
It just so happens that the question right now that everybody’s asking is, “How are you gonna pay for it?” Well, look at what we’re doing abroad. Look at this ridiculous war we never should have fought or have been fighting. Think about the genocide that we backstopped, the apartheid that continues to be done, the attempted annexation of Lebanon. Like, why?
And what could we do with that money if we kept it here?
So all I’m saying is, if we wanna have nice things here, it’s better to use our money to do nice things here than to do bad things there. It’s not that hard.
You mention AIPAC repeatedly in your campaign speeches, debate responses and on and I’m curious why you think calling them out resonates with voters?
AIPAC is the biggest spender in this race, so you can’t talk about money out of politics without talking about AIPAC. You just can’t. Like, it’d be like ignoring the elephant.
But this is nothing new, no?
But I want people to see it anew. Because you’re right, it’s nothing new. It is so common in our politics that we take it for granted, and that’s some ridiculous shit. Like, it’s ridiculous that we take it for granted that we have a bipartisan consensus on the idea that your US senators wanna send your money to some other country to buy bombs and tanks instead of keeping your money here. And it’s not just about Israel, by the way. It’s also Egypt. It’s also Pakistan. It’s also Saudi Arabia. It’s all of these places where we send foreign military aid where we should not.
What do you say to Democratic old heads who are, you know, might look at your campaign, might look at you and be like, “You’re just throwing some, some red meat to, to the lefties,” so to speak, when it comes to the issue of Palestine, that this is politically advantageous for you?
People are asking two questions: what do you say you’re gonna fight for, and then do I believe that you’re gonna fight for it? The Democratic Party brand is in the shitter because nobody actually believes that we’re gonna show up and fight for the things that we say we wanna fight for. You know why? Because we say we’re for human rights, and then we watch them get viciously violated, and then we say nothing. So what that tells me is you’re gonna back down. So I would tell them, how about our party finds some courage, and I’m just telling you exactly what I believe, come what may. So when we beat $50 million of spending from AIPAC, I’d love to have a conversation with them.
What do you think Palestine or Israel or the two of them together symbolize for this year’s midterms?
Moral Rorschach test. Are you someone who is willing to be courageous and truthful, or are you someone who is willing to bend to money and power? And people are showing themselves in real time.
What do you say to people that think you are being divisive in your rhetoric, and that if you’re trying to coalition build, being this brash or loud only hurts your cause?
I’m building a coalition on the truth. And sometimes when a coalition is built on falsehood, you have to make sure that you can move it to the truth. And I’m finding that we’re building a much bigger coalition than the one that they think, you know, we’re breaking apart, because a lot of people wanna be a part of the truth. They want their kids to have good healthcare. They want to be able to travel good roads. They want good schools, and they wanna know that our tax dollars aren’t hurting other people.
What do you think the outcome of your race will say about the future of the party?
A lot. I think everybody and their mom running for president is watching this race with a very keen eye. And if we can demonstrate that campaigning on, on truth and on courage can win in Michigan, it can win anywhere.
If I prove that you can win statewide, taking on AIPAC and winning, that is catastrophic because of what it says about the future of the party. It is existential to oppose it. I think this race is going to change a lot of minds, and it’s going to scramble a lot of expectations.
This interview was originally conducted as part of an upcoming episode of Reveal, slated for release later this September about the role Israel has in reshaping American politics.
Subscribe to Reveal wherever you get your podcasts to hear the conversation and many more around this topic and other news of the day.
