Middle East Eye Has Lost the Plot on Dr. Abdul El-Sayed
With days until the 2026 Midterm Election Day, as Americans face an abundance of campaign ads, town halls, and propaganda, the Middle East Eye has decided to hand its primarily Muslim audience two hit pieces on Michigan Senate Candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. The first piece Abdul El-Sayed helps launch the unforgivable rehabilitation of Kamala Harris written by Nazia Kazi was posted on September 24th, while the second piece Progressives rally behind war criminal Obama’s attacks on Trump is written by Joseph Massad and posted on October 30th, a mere four days before Election Day. Just this week, El-Sayed was attacked by President Trump at a Port Huron rally, saying that El-Sayed wants Sharia law and “should be the first one that's tried” (Al Jazeera). While his opponents are using his religion as a campaign tactic, MEE just told its audience that campaigning with Obama is a moral failure. Skepticism towards politicians is healthy, and no aspiring or serving politician should be immune to criticism, but there is a time and place for criticism, and there has to be an objective attached to it. Unfortunately, both Middle East Eye pieces seem to have no objective except to express anger and perform a takedown. The articles stem from an anger toward the politicians who have chosen to support El-Sayed, and although this anger is justified, the question must be asked: what exactly are the authors expecting to gain from expressing this anger?
In a race where Muslim turnout is already lagging, when the candidate faces historic Islamophobia from both parties, the effect of these articles is essentially support for those who want El-Sayed to lose.
The Skepticism
The Nazia Kazi opinion piece asks some legitimate questions, but draws problematic conclusions with insufficient evidence. On the other hand, Joseph Massad spends the majority of his article listing out former President Obama’s record, to an audience who is likely very familiar with the topic. Massad tries to hammer home “Obama’s wars” – which he inherited from George W. Bush – as well as the drone strikes and his support for Israel and even the Nobel Peace prize, none of which have anything to do with Dr. Abdul El Sayed. Both pieces read like Middle Eastern Muslims who know very little about American politics complaining about the track record of American politicians; it’s hard to believe the authors are professors at American Universities.
The one thing Kazi does get right in her article is establishing that Harris was a central participant in the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, not a bystander. This is her article’s most factual claim, and impossible to argue with. However, the central claim of Kazi’s headline and much of the article is that standing alongside Harris and embracing her endorsement is a betrayal of El Sayed’s pro-Palestinian stance (the primary reason many, especially in the Arab and Muslim community, voted for him in the Primary). His actions since winning the Democratic nomination have, according to Kazi, demonstrated a “retreat from his criticism of Israel and its lobby,” and call into question whether “his positions [were] ever genuine?” However Kazi neglected to state that El-Sayed differs on Gaza policy with Harris – and has since 2024 – when he publicly called for her to break from Biden’s policy when she took over his Presidential ticket as the Democratic nomination. In El-Sayed’s own words: “I’ll tell you this: my disagreements with the then vice president’s positions on Gaza are clear, and I still disagree with the position on which she ran in 2024” (CNN). Kazi leaves out this critical distinction in her naming of both the 2026 Senate campaign pairing and El-Sayed’s endorsement of Harris in 2024.
It is incumbent on voters to meet all politicians, including El Sayed, with skepticism. Muslim voters and pro-Palestine voters have been promised too much by too many people to hand anyone a blank check. To Massad’s one credit, Muslims were very hopeful with the election of Barack Obama, but left utterly devastated to then see their elected President turn around and bomb their homelands. But our skepticism has to have a purpose: in this case, ensuring we elect politicians with reasonable alignment to our positions and holding those politicians accountable so they deliver the outcomes we want. Instead, it seems Kazi and Massad are applying the standard of an activist to disqualify an aspiring Senator and the Middle East Eye is willfully sharing the message to their readers and followers.
The Stakes
El-Sayed is absorbing anti-Muslim attacks from Republicans and pressure from centrist Democrats at the same time. He has also faced a historic amount of money spent against him during his run for the Michigan Senate seat, with a whopping $70 million in the primary and $158 million in the general election.
From the Right
October 25, 2026 Port Huron Michigan: United States President Donald Trump joined El-Sayed’s opponent Mike Rogers at a rally to reinforce the Islamophobic narratives that are driving Republican campaigns nationwide. While Rogers claimed links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and said he should be denied airline seats and put through a metal detector to enter the Senate (Al Jazeera). But the racist attacks aren’t limited to rallies. Attack ads against El-Sayed pushed out by the GOP have been circulating Michigan TV channels and social media for months. Ads by the Senate Leadership Fund – the top GOP Senate super PAC – claims that El-Sayed takes “dirty money” from an extremist group “tied to Hamas” (NBC via Yahoo). In fact, the GOP began the fear-mongering ads within hours of his primary win by immediately putting out ads using his full name: Abdulrahman. The main goal of the right is to wedge ads and divide Michigan communities: one ad features a Persian American man tying El-Sayed to radical Islam and al-Qaeda; another features Black Michiganders and the line "He cares more about the West Bank than West Detroit" (there is no West Detroit) (American Prospect).
From “Centrist” Democrats
In the primary, scholars told The Intercept that both parties and their allies used Islamophobic and anti-Arab tropes. AIPAC's roughly $30M funded ads painted him as a terrorist sympathizer, and Stevens questioned his party loyalty by pointing to his ties to Arab and Muslim Michigan. In the general election, many in the Democrat party refused to directly endorse El-Sayed whether for his views on Israel or “association” with Hasan Piker. Notable names such as Cory Booker and Nancy Pelosi have held back on speaking out in favor of El-Sayed, with Pelosi even speaking against him on the behest of Israel (The Guardian). The icing on the cake, however, is El-Sayed’s former opponent Haley Stevens’s fiance – an AIPAC handler – declaring his vote for Mike Rogers and Stevens asking El-Sayed to condemn an ad his campaign did not make.
It’s imperative our community understand that intra-community attacks land harder. An attack at Republican rallies Muslims to El-Sayed, but an attack from a trusted Muslim outlet gives disengaged voters a reason to stay home. Pollster Richard Czuba told The Hill that each Trump attack pushes primary-scarred Democrats to rally to El-Sayed. MEE’s pieces, however, push the other way.
The Electoral Math Middle East Eye Ignores
In the primary, El-Sayed won by about 15,000 votes on Arab turnout, lost Black Detroit badly, and now needs both. Looking at the numbers, the Arab/Muslim turnout is fragile. Arab civic groups had hoped for roughly double the turnout. A Michigan strategist told the Prospect the Arab vote is "just a very small percentage of the vote": decisive in a close race, but it can't win alone. The Black vote is the hinge. In the primary, El-Sayed won only 31% of the Black vote in Detroit, helped along by Stevens’s misleading Obama ad (Bridge Michigan).
The MEE piece also ignores the historical tension in Michigan’s Arab American and Black communities. El-Sayed himself explains some of this conflict in his appearance on Jon Stewart’s Weekly Show, but a Black Macomb County commissioner described Harris's 2024 loss as Black voters feeling their candidate was abandoned (The Prospect) by the Arab community. The Harris and Obama endorsements are thus crucial to El-Sayed’s ability to win the Michigan senate seat. Harris, the first Black vice president, held a Black maternal health roundtable in Detroit; Obama rallied in a city that is three-quarters Black. Obama also confronted the Islamophobia directly, comparing the attacks to those he faced in 2008 (The Grio). When the Middle East Eye frames these partnerships and appearances as betrayal, they are attacking the bridge El-Sayed needs between the two communities. It is not the duty of a candidate to answer for the crimes or statements of those on their campaign trail. We found it outrageous when the right asked El-Sayed to disavow the words of Hasan Piker, why then are we asking him to disavow the actions of Kamala Harris and Barack Obama?
Cutting Off Our Own Legs
This is a recurring dynamic for the Muslim community, not two isolated op-eds: maximalist critique from within, amplified online, in the final weeks of a race. In 2024, a CAIR exit poll found Michigan Muslim voters went 59% Stein, 22% Trump, 14% Harris (Newsweek). The challenge to the Democrats in 2024 was in hopes of disproving AIPAC’s 100% success rate in American elections and a reduction in AIPAC/Israel’s power over U.S. politics (Jalal, 2024). Abdul El-Sayed’s primary accomplished this. To then go back and welcome the disintegration of the Democrat party as done by Massad (Middle East Eye) is handing a win to Mike Rogers and Donald Trump. Kazi, on the other hand, takes to insulting not only El-Sayed, but also his voters. She belittles the attacks on El-Sayed, claims they lead to “a cult of personality”, and calls him the “lesser evil” (Middle East Eye). Kazi even refers to El-Sayed’s “fans”, which is incredibly condescending to Muslim voters. Celebrating a historic candidate under siege is not surrendering judgment. Not only would El-Sayed be the first Muslim senator, “he would also be the first anti-war senator from Michigan” (the Prospect).
El-Sayed recently said on the Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know podcast “if Michigan wins, nobody dies [...] when Red or Blue wins in politics there are some real consequences, wars we fight or we don’t fight, healthcare that’s given or taken away, food that’s affordable or not” (Minhaj, 2026). Anyone watching interviews or rallies of the Michigan Senate hopeful has by now heard stories of his teta and cousins back in Egypt. While it is vital that Muslim voters are skeptical of the candidates presented to us, it is also essential that we treat them as human. Name-calling a fellow Muslim a traitor to take out our own anger on betrayals from former politicians does us no good but get in our own way for future progress.
With a 15,000-vote primary win and a 20,000-vote 2024 Senate race, a small dip in Muslim turnout could decide the seat. By publishing such hateful, ill-informed opinion pieces to their large audience, the Middle East Eye has shown a lack of awareness and understanding for American politics. This is irresponsible behavior that cultivates a pattern of infighting that has gone so far it allows others to take advantage of our community. We should be able to expect better from our networks and journalists than to platform this media. We’re on the verge of the first Muslim Senator in America, elected over chants of “jihadist”, by a coalition of Black-Arab-progressives that his own community media tried to attack.
Please remember to vote this November 3rd. Try to vote early, and tell those around you to vote.
References/Learn More
Abdul El-Sayed faces Islamophobic attacks from GOP and Democratic establishment. (2026, July 27). The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2026/07/27/abdul-el-sayed-haley-stevens-aipac-senate-michigan/
Abdul El-Sayed fends off ramped up anti-Muslim campaign attacks from Donald Trump. (2026, October 28†). The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/analysis/6173711-el-sayed-trump-islamophobic-attacks-michigan/
Abdul El-Sayed vs. Mike Rogers: These voting groups may decide the Michigan race. (2026, October 28†). Bridge Michigan. https://bridgemi.com/michigan-politics/abdul-el-sayed-vs-mike-rogers-these-voting-groups-may-decide-the-michigan-race/
AIPAC, Soros and the money that has shaped Michigan’s Senate race. (2026, October 8†). Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/aipac-soros-money-shaping-michigans-senate-race-12532088
AIPAC’s super PAC starts spending again in the Michigan Senate race. (2026, October 11†). NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/aipac-super-pac-starts-spending-michigan-senate-race-rcna602597
Answer hate at the ballot box: Turn out, stand firm and make history. (2026, October 30). The Arab American News. https://arabamericannews.com/2026/10/30/answer-hate-at-the-ballot-box-on-november-3-our-vote-our-power-our-place-in-history/
Arab American voters reshape Michigan’s political landscape. (2026, August 14). The Arab American News. https://arabamericannews.com/2026/08/14/dearborn-area-arab-american-voters-proved-decisive-in-el-sayeds-historic-victory/
Associated Press. (2026, October 25†). Obama in Midwest assails cruelty and indecency from Trump and his allies in the midterm campaign. The National Herald. https://www.thenationalherald.com/obama-in-midwest-assails-cruelty-and-indecency-from-trump-and-his-allies-in-the-midterm-campaign/
Centrist Democrats are trying hard to lose the midterms. (2026, October 31†). The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-sabotage-midterms/
“Democrats for Mike Rogers” PAC is funded by Republicans, records show. (2026, October 16). Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/democrats-for-mike-rogers-pac-is-funded-by-republicans-records-show/
Democrats have an Islamophobia problem too. (2026, October 30†). The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/217306/democratic-stop-maligning-muslim-politicians
Did Obama, UAW endorse Haley Stevens? No, but voters think so. (2026, July 17†). Straight Arrow News. https://san.com/cc/did-obama-uaw-endorse-haley-stevens-no-but-voters-think-so/
El-Sayed, A. [@AbdulElSayed]. (2024, July 21). [Post about Kamala Harris’s candidacy] [Post]. X. https://x.com/AbdulElSayed/status/1815189464634864024
El-Sayed amps up hostility towards Israel amid pushback from Dem hosts. (2026, September). Jewish Insider. https://jewishinsider.com/2026/09/el-sayed-amps-up-hostility-towards-israel-amid-pushback-from-dem-hosts/
El-Sayed apologizes to Jewish Democrats for statement about synagogue attack. (2026, August 29). CNN via KEYT. https://keyt.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2026/08/29/el-sayed-apologizes-to-jewish-democrats-for-statement-about-synagogue-attack
El-Sayed works to stitch together a diverse majority. (2026, October 15). The American Prospect. https://prospect.org/2026/10/15/el-sayed-works-to-stitch-together-diverse-majority-michigan-senate/
Fact check: Where does Barack Obama stand on Michigan’s Senate race? (2026, July 20). Bridge Michigan. https://bridgemi.com/michigan-politics/fact-check-where-does-barack-obama-stand-on-michigans-senate-race/
GOP closes campaign with unapologetic bigotry. (2026, October 26†). The Bulwark. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/gop-closes-campaign-with-unapologetic-bigotry-abdul-el-sayed-michigan-mike-rogers-sharia
Harb, A. [@Harbpeace]. (2026, August 5†). Abdul El-Sayed got an 11,000-vote lead over Haley Stevens in Dearborn [Post]. X. https://x.com/Harbpeace/status/2084862898791219709
How much has AIPAC spent against Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed? And why? (2026, August 2). Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/2/how-much-has-aipac-spent-against-michigans-abdul-el-sayed-and-why
How the Obamas are motivating Black voters in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. (2026, July 15†). Michigan Chronicle. https://michiganchronicle.com/how-the-obamas-are-motivating-black-voters-in-michigans-u-s-senate-race/
Kazi, N. (2026, September 24). Abdul El-Sayed helps launch the unforgivable rehabilitation of Kamala Harris. Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/abdul-el-sayed-helps-launch-unforgivable-rehabilitation-kamala-harris
Lanard, N. (2026, July 31). How Michigan became the most expensive Democratic primary ever. Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/how-michigan-became-most-expensive-democratic-primary-ever-haley-stevens-abdul-el-sayed-aipac/
League of Women Voters of Michigan. (2023). Fact sheet: 2022 election [Fact sheet]. https://lwvmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fact-Sheet-2022-Election.pdf
Massad, J. (2026, October 30). US midterms: Progressives rally behind war criminal Obama’s attacks on Trump. Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-midterms-democrats-rally-war-criminal-obama-attack-trump
Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary too close to call. (2026, August 5). Michigan Advance. https://michiganadvance.com/2026/08/05/michigans-democratic-u-s-senate-primary-too-close-to-call/
Mike Rogers touts Democratic defectors as he seeks to exploit divisions over Abdul El-Sayed. (2026, August 20). Michigan Advance. https://michiganadvance.com/2026/08/20/mike-rogers-touts-democratic-defectors-as-he-seeks-to-exploit-divisions-over-abdul-el-sayed/
Moore, D. (2026, October 29). AIPAC-linked super PAC spends $12.7 million against El-Sayed. Sludge. https://readsludge.com/2026/10/29/aipac-linked-super-pac-spends-12-7-million-against-el-sayed/
Obama hypes up El-Sayed, Benson in Detroit. (2026, October 25). Michigan Public. https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2026-10-25/obama-hypes-up-el-sayed-benson-in-detroit
Outside spending floods Michigan’s US Senate race — most for Haley Stevens. (2026, July 21†). Bridge Michigan. https://bridgemi.com/michigan-politics/outside-spending-floods-michigans-us-senate-race-most-for-haley-stevens/
Rogers-El-Sayed US Senate race breaks Michigan spending record. (2026, October 9). The Detroit News. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2026/10/09/michigan-senate-race-tv-ad-spending-mike-rogers-abdul-el-sayed/92169289007/
Senate Leadership Fund. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Leadership_Fund
Trump dials up Islamophobia against Abdul El-Sayed at Michigan Senate rally. (2026, October 26). Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/26/trump-dials-up-islamophobia-at-michigan-senate-rally-against-abdul-el-sayed
Trump voters may help Abdul El-Sayed defeat Mike Rogers in Michigan. (2026, October 29†). Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-voters-may-help-abdul-el-sayed-defeat-mike-rogers-in-michigan-12632123
Trump’s anti-Muslim attacks dominate Michigan’s election homestretch. (2026, October 30†). NBC News via Yahoo News. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-anti-muslim-attacks-dominate-090000159.html
VoteLog. (2026a). Michigan Senate primary 2026: Stevens vs. El-Sayed money tracker. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://votelog.org/investigations/michigan-senate-primary-money
VoteLog. (2026b). Michigan Senate race 2026: Rogers vs. El-Sayed money tracker. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://votelog.org/investigations/michigan-senate-general-money
Warikoo, N. [@nwarikoo]. (2026, August 5†). Final results from Dearborn are in. Abdul El-Sayed wins easily, with 77.6% of the vote [Post]. X. https://x.com/nwarikoo/status/2084849176991441146
Why are moderate Dems bashing Abdul El-Sayed right before election? (2026, October 31†). The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/post/217395/nancy-pelosi-abdul-el-sayed-election
