Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is touting endorsements from a Detroit pastor whose nonprofit collected $75,000 from El-Sayed's campaign for "political consulting", a financial relationship neither party disclosed to voters.
Federal Election Commission records show El-Sayed's campaign made 10 payments of $7,500 each to Ecumenical Ministers Alliance, a nonprofit operated by Detroit pastor and radio host Horace Sheffield III, between October 21 and June 1. Sheffield, who hosts The Wake-Up Call on FaithTalk 101.5 FM, endorsed El-Sayed on his radio show at least three times and promoted the candidate in social media posts, all without mentioning the money flowing from the campaign to his organization.
Neither El-Sayed nor Sheffield responded to the Washington Free Beacon's request for comment. The arrangement raises familiar questions about pay-for-endorsement deals in Democratic politics, and about a candidate who told listeners on Sheffield's own show, "You can't buy authenticity."
Sheffield's nonprofit, Ecumenical Ministers Alliance, was incorporated by Sheffield in 2010 and is registered to his home address. FEC disbursement filings list the purpose of each $7,500 payment as "political consulting." What consulting work, if any, the nonprofit performed for the campaign remains unexplained. It is also unclear how much income Sheffield personally takes from the organization.
What is clear is the public endorsement campaign Sheffield ran on El-Sayed's behalf. On December 6, Sheffield pledged on The Wake-Up Call to "put my full force of soldiers" behind El-Sayed. In a social media video recorded June 20 at El-Sayed's campaign headquarters, Sheffield expressed confidence the candidate would defeat Rep. Haley Stevens in the August 4 primary. And in a radio appearance last week, Sheffield urged listeners to make "5 and 10 phone calls" for El-Sayed, adding, "Lord, help this man win."
El-Sayed's campaign website calls Sheffield's backing a source of deep honor. "Deeply honored" were the candidate's words. Ecumenical Ministers Alliance formally endorsed El-Sayed last month. At no point in any of these public appeals did Sheffield or the organization acknowledge the $75,000 financial relationship.
El-Sayed, a left-wing Democrat, is challenging Stevens, a moderate Democrat, in the Michigan Senate primary. Stevens leads El-Sayed by 46 points among Black Michigan voters, a gap that makes Sheffield's radio platform in Detroit an obvious strategic asset for the El-Sayed campaign.
The candidate's record of saying one thing while the financial trail shows another is not new. El-Sayed pocketed $26,000 from the Trump tax cut he publicly called "deplorable," a contradiction his campaign has never reconciled.
Sheffield's arrangement with El-Sayed is not his first time blending paid political work with on-air endorsements. In 2018, Sheffield endorsed gubernatorial candidate Shri Thanedar, now a progressive member of Congress, on his previous station, WFDF, without disclosing that Thanedar's campaign had paid Sheffield's nonprofit tens of thousands of dollars for "consulting."
WFDF owner John Adell suspended Sheffield over the episode. Adell told the Detroit Free Press at the time: "I've got an FCC license that I have to worry about. You have to offer equal time to every candidate." Federal broadcasting rules require stations to give political candidates equal access to the airwaves, rules that undisclosed paid endorsements can undermine.
After the 2018 suspension, Sheffield vowed publicly: "I won't be involved in any more campaigns." That promise lasted until a campaign willing to write $75,000 in checks came along.
Michigan campaign finance records from the same 2018 cycle show three other political candidates, Kevin Robbins, Tracy Green, and Terra Defoe, each paid Sheffield's nonprofit $750 for what the filings bluntly labeled "endorsement fees." The smaller amounts and the candid description on those filings make the contrast with El-Sayed's much larger "consulting" payments all the more striking.
El-Sayed's broader pattern of financial contradictions extends well beyond this arrangement. His partial tax release showed top-one-percent income even as he campaigns as a working-class champion.
Sheffield's current station, FaithTalk 101.5 FM, is owned by Salem Media, which describes itself as a Christian and conservative media company. Salem moved quickly to distance itself from Sheffield's endorsement of El-Sayed once the arrangement came to light.
A Salem Media spokeswoman told the Washington Free Beacon:
"We completely reject the endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed made during this paid programming."
She added that Sheffield "is not a Salem Media employee and has no affiliation with Salem Media other than purchasing airtime for his independently produced program." Salem stated it is supporting Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate and that "the views expressed during this paid program do not reflect the views of our company."
That distinction matters. Sheffield buys airtime and produces his own show. Salem does not employ him or control his content. But the station's FCC license still carries obligations about equal time for political candidates, the same obligations that cost Sheffield his slot at WFDF eight years ago.
El-Sayed's willingness to use undisclosed financial arrangements fits a broader pattern. He called doctors who reject Medicaid racist while his own wife declined to accept it, another gap between his public rhetoric and private conduct.
Sheffield is president of the Michigan chapter of Al Sharpton's National Action Network. In 2015, he received a lifetime achievement award from Sharpton at the organization's headquarters and referred to Sharpton as his "long time friend" on social media.
The connection to Sharpton is more than biographical. In 2024, Kamala Harris's presidential campaign paid $500,000 to Sharpton's National Action Network before Harris appeared on Sharpton's MSNBC show, a pay-for-access arrangement the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time. That report prompted then-president-elect Donald Trump to threaten MSNBC with FCC regulation.
The pattern is consistent: a Democratic campaign writes large checks to a politically connected figure's nonprofit, and that figure then provides favorable media exposure without disclosing the financial relationship. Sheffield's deal with El-Sayed is smaller in dollar terms than Sharpton's arrangement with Harris, but the structure is the same.
Sheffield also used his radio platform to attack El-Sayed's primary opponent. He dismissed Stevens as "the person who is running" and claimed she "has never been seen" in Detroit, a pointed charge aimed at undermining Stevens's standing with the city's voters, delivered by a man whose nonprofit was cashing $7,500 checks from Stevens's rival.
El-Sayed's associations have drawn scrutiny on multiple fronts. He headlined six Democratic Socialists of America events and raised thousands for socialist candidates, then told Michigan voters he is no socialist.
Several questions remain unanswered. What did Ecumenical Ministers Alliance actually do for the El-Sayed campaign in exchange for $75,000? How much of that money went to Sheffield personally? Has any FCC complaint been filed over Sheffield's on-air endorsements on FaithTalk 101.5 FM? Neither the candidate nor the pastor has offered an explanation.
Michigan's Senate primary is August 4. El-Sayed trails Stevens badly among Black voters, the very audience Sheffield reaches on Detroit radio every morning. The campaign's $75,000 investment in Sheffield's nonprofit, paired with Sheffield's enthusiastic and undisclosed on-air advocacy, looks less like consulting and more like a transaction dressed up in nonprofit paperwork.
El-Sayed's broader record of questionable associations and financial contradictions only deepens the concern. Voters deserve to know when the person urging them to pick up the phone for a candidate is on that candidate's payroll.
A candidate who says "you can't buy authenticity" should probably stop trying.
