- Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed appealed to young voters at Michigan State and was expected at University of Michigan
- Campaign appearances with internet streamer Hasan Piker drew criticism from other US Senate candidates and advocacy groups
- El-Sayed criticized Iran war and reiterated campaign themes of Medicare for All and removing corporate influence from politics
EAST LANSING — In an appeal to college students, Michigan Democratic US Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed on Tuesday vowed to continue pushing for affordable health care, less corporate influence in politics and an end to the Iran war — even when it invites controversy.
El-Sayed spoke to a crowd of hundreds at Michigan State University, where he was joined by Hasan Piker, a progressive political commentator and internet personality with a large following who has faced accusations of antisemitism.
“I’m not talking down to young people — I’m talking specifically to the challenges they face, because I believe that they’ve got the greatest stake in our future, and we need to build a politics that is responsive to them,” El-Sayed told reporters after the speech in East Lansing.
“If we’re serious about building a politics that unlocks for the folks who feel locked out, you’ve got to be serious about going to the places where they actually are,” he continued.
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El-Sayed, Piker and US Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania were also expected to rally with students at the University of Michigan later Tuesday in an attempt to rally the kind of young voters who propelled progressive US Sen. Bernie Sanders to victory in the state’s 2016 presidential primary.
With three candidates currently locked in a statistical dead heat, Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary is viewed by state and national observers alike as a fight for the future of the party. Strong support among college students — a reliably Democratic faction — could be a key.
El-Sayed’s decision to campaign with Piker drew heavy criticism from his political opponents and Jewish advocacy groups.
In remarks at Michigan State, Piker said he didn’t realize how much backlash his involvement would generate, but he told college students gathered at the event that he would “do it again just the same, regardless.”
“He’s a real fighter,” Piker said of El-Sayed. “He’s honest, he doesn’t treat people like they’re stupid. He understands that voters have demands, and he will respond to those demands.”
El-Sayed, a former Wayne County public health official and 2018 candidate for governor, is in a highly competitive Democratic primary with US Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.
The winner will likely face Mike Rogers, a Republican who on Tuesday said in a statement that El-Sayed’s decision to campaign with Piker proves “there’s no limit to how far left Democrats will go.”
A controversial surrogate
With more than 3 million followers, the 34-year-old Piker is one of the most popular figures on Twitch, a live-streaming video platform where he regularly offers political and social commentary.
On Monday, for instance, Piker streamed from Michigan, offering live reactions to President Donald Trump’s White House press conference on the Iran war. “Will he do terror tomorrow?” Piker asked in the stream, which had about 30,000 realtime viewers, according to one analytics site, and had been watched more than 730,000 times by Tuesday morning.
By comparison, about 523,000 people had watched the White House’s YouTube stream of the Trump press conference as of Tuesday morning.
Piker’s oft-irreverent criticism of US foreign policy and Israel has drawn rebukes. In 2019, Piker suggested during a livestream that the US “deserved 9/11,” though he later called it an inappropriate attempt at satire. In a January social media post, he called Hamas “a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state.”
“The decision to appear with Piker is yet another example of the growing normalization of extreme anti-Zionism in mainstream spaces,” Elyssa Schmeir, regional director of ADL Michigan, said in a statement.
Both Stevens and McMorrow have said they were concerned about El-Sayed’s willingness to give a platform to Piker’s controversial views.
In separate comments to Jewish Insider last month, Stevens said Piker is “the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” and McMorrow likened Piker to a left-wing version of Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and conservative livestreamer.
Rogers also criticized the connection. A social media video released by the Rogers campaign ahead of the rallies highlighted several of Piker’s past comments and argued that El-Sayed’s willingness to appear with Piker makes him “too radical for Michigan.”
Ahead of the speech, Michigan State University President Kevin M. Guskiewicz and the MSU Board of Trustees said universities have “a role in supporting free speech and encouraging diversity of thought,” but acknowledged the “pain and concern” past comments have caused.
In criticizing Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Iran, Piker has said he opposes the Israeli government, not Jewish people.
Addressing his critics Tuesday, Piker said simply: “Fuck ‘em.”
“For the last two and a half years, they smeared people like myself and people like yourselves and said that we were radical, we were wrong,” he said. “And yet we persevered, and we understood the violence that was taking place.”
Denouncing Iran war
In his remarks at Michigan State, El-Sayed said he loves and reveres Jewish people but criticized Israel’s actions in the Middle East, saying he “will not sit idly by while our tax dollars go to fund a genocide on behalf of a foreign government.”
“When you stand up and say, ‘That’s some bullshit,’” they come at you,” he told the East Lansing crowd.
El-Sayed said he wants to see taxpayer dollars currently being spent on the Iran war redirected toward domestic needs, arguing that there is “no legal authorization” for President Donald Trump to continue the conflict.
His comments came shortly before Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in Iran, backing off his Tuesday morning warning that a “whole civilization will die” if the country did not agree to his demands for ending the war.
If elected to the Senate, El-Sayed promised to vote against any funding authorization to continue the war.
“It’s not enough to hold the seat if you’re going to do exactly the same thing your MAGA opponent would have done,” he said.
A student focus
El-Sayed said his campaign is working to prioritize young voters by meeting them where they’re at. That includes moving beyond the traditional media circuit and engaging with livestreamers like Piker and other alternative media sources popular among young adults.
“Too often, politicians are having this debate that is completely divorced from the lived experience of young people,” he told reporters Tuesday. “And then we show up on Election Day like, ‘How come young people didn’t vote?’ Well, you didn’t give them anything to vote for.”
El-Sayed’s message to a largely student audience featured several longtime policy focuses of his campaign, including support for a Medicare for All government-run health care system, improving economic affordability and removing corporate influence on politics.
He also reiterated his support for abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency on the frontlines of Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Josh Reformado, a student fellow for the campaign who spoke ahead of the East Lansing rally, highlighted the role Gen Z played in electing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdami, arguing Michigan’s youth could make a similar difference this fall.
“We can no longer have…elites tell us that we’re not part of the political system, as we are the ones that are suffering from it,” he said. “It’s time for Gen Z to fight in this room, and fight all across Michigan.”
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