Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is drawing fire from strategists in both parties over a web of associations that includes a union leader who traveled to Venezuela to meet with allies of Nicolás Maduro, a wealthy fundraiser who praised Fidel Castro, donors steeped in Marxist ideology, and a Michigan imam who eulogized Iran's supreme leader. The controversy deepened after El-Sayed refused to distance himself from Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, whose past inflammatory remarks, including a comment that "America deserved 9/11", have become a flashpoint in a crowded and contentious primary.
The picture emerging around El-Sayed is not one stray association or a single bad headline. It is a pattern, one that Republican and Democratic critics alike say makes him unelectable in a battleground state where the Senate seat could determine control of the chamber.
Fox News Digital reported that El-Sayed has spoken at or attended at least five events organized or sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America since 2019. Back in 2018, running for governor, he told interviewers he shared "a lot of ideals" with the DSA but dodged the socialist label. His explanation at the time was revealing.
"I come from that world, where we pick our words very carefully and very thoughtfully. And I think that the term 'socialism' is too slippery of a word right now, and it evokes too many different things to too many different people."
That careful word-picking has become a theme. El-Sayed has repeatedly declined to condemn or separate himself from figures whose records would alarm most Michigan voters, choosing instead to frame every challenge as "cancel culture" or a "gotcha game."
Last month, El-Sayed touted an endorsement from IATSE Local 26, the stagehands' union. Its president, Tom Burke, is also the organizational secretary of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a group whose stated goal is to build a new Communist Party in America. In a recent interview with Fight Back! Radio, Burke laid out his vision plainly.
"We want social change that builds upon the civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement, the LGBTQ movements of the 70s and 80s, and especially the labor movement. We want to build up those movements to create a new society from the ashes of the one that the billionaires are destroying."
Burke's record goes well beyond domestic activism. In 2022, he traveled to Caracas to attend the political convention of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Maduro's ruling party. Two years earlier, he met with the president of Venezuela's elections agency, an institution accused of interfering in elections. Fox News Digital reported that photos appear to show Burke alongside individuals who met with the Maduro-backing Bolivarian Militia, though the outlet said it could not independently verify those images.
In a 2023 radio interview, Burke called Maduro "very popular with people." When Maduro was later captured by the Trump administration and sent to court on narcoterrorism charges, Burke called the arrest "disgraceful."
El-Sayed has not addressed Burke's Venezuela ties or his openly communist organizing. Fox News Digital said it reached out to El-Sayed for comment and did not receive a response.
El-Sayed also campaigned alongside Anas "Andy" Shallal, a wealthy Iraqi-American business owner based in Washington, D.C., who held a fundraiser for the candidate. Shallal's social media tells its own story. In November, he wrote on Instagram that "Fidel Castro was a bigger than life figure whose impact reached far beyond his beloved country, Cuba." In February, he posted a letter from activist Alice Walker praising Castro. He visited the Cuban Embassy as recently as last year.
El-Sayed's donor rolls add another layer. Nancy Romer, a professor who has lambasted what she called "savage capitalism" and claims she helped launch a statewide Michigan chapter of the Human Rights Party decades ago, has supported his campaign. Robert Meister, a philosopher and Marxism expert who previously directed The Bruce Initiative on Rethinking Capitalism, donated thousands to El-Sayed.
None of these associations, taken alone, would necessarily define a candidacy. Taken together, they form a constellation that strategists say is politically lethal in a general election. El-Sayed also faces separate scrutiny over dark money ties that have dogged his campaign.
Fox News Digital previously reported that El-Sayed was among Michigan candidates and politicians pictured with Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, who leads prayers at the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights. After Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by U.S. forces in February, Elahi eulogized the Iranian supreme leader and held formal events honoring his death. In his remarks, Elahi complained that Khamenei had been taken out by "the most wretched hands on Earth."
Deleted social media photos referenced in the reporting showed Elahi regularly meeting with Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. At the latest such gathering, attendees included the co-founder of CODEPINK and Scott Ritter, a former U.S. intelligence official whose house was raided by the FBI for what Ritter himself described as a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
El-Sayed was seen with Elahi as recently as 2023. When pressed on Fox News Channel's "America's Newsroom" about the Khamenei matter, El-Sayed said he preferred to stay silent about the death of Iran's supreme leader. As we previously reported, leaked audio caught El-Sayed dodging the Khamenei killing to protect his standing with Muslim voters in Dearborn, and when that audio surfaced, he ran the exact deflection playbook the tape had captured.
The most visible controversy involves Hasan Piker, the Twitch streamer and podcaster who appeared with El-Sayed at a campaign event at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on April 7. Piker has described himself as a socialist and Marxist. He once said "you really don't need suicide bombing anymore" and called an unspecified objective an "honorable end goal." His remark that America deserved the September 11 attacks has become the single most cited line in the backlash.
El-Sayed's Democratic primary rivals wasted no time. Haley Stevens said El-Sayed is "choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric." Mallory McMorrow called Piker someone who "says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers."
When Fox News asked El-Sayed about the association, he fell back on a familiar line. The Washington Free Beacon reported that El-Sayed told Fox & Friends, "It's important to talk about context," and insisted he does not believe 9/11 was justified. He accused critics of using out-of-context quotes to attack him and Piker.
On his broader approach, El-Sayed has been consistent, consistently evasive. The Washington Examiner reported that he told reporters flatly: "I'm not here to disavow people's views. This whole gotcha game, platform policing, cancel culture, I thought we were over it."
He also told Fox News: "Just because you invite somebody to campaign with you, or you're engaging with them, does not mean that you agree with them."
A longtime Democratic strategist offered a blunt assessment of El-Sayed's general-election prospects: "Abdul El-Sayed cannot win a general election in Michigan, full stop." The same strategist pointed to El-Sayed's record on law enforcement.
"This is a candidate who spent years calling police 'standing armies we deploy against our own people,' posted more than a dozen times in support of defunding the police, and then deleted his entire social media history the moment he decided to run statewide, hoping Michigan voters wouldn't notice. They will notice. And so will Mike Rogers."
Jessica Anderson, president of the conservative Sentinel Action Fund, connected the dots more directly.
"Abdul El-Sayed is campaigning with, and for, extremists. If his recent comments weren't bad enough, El-Sayed's ties to the DSA, Maduro cronies, and Iranian regime sympathizers check all the boxes of radical leftism that has become all too commonplace in the Democrat Party."
Anderson added: "Michiganders are tired of the chaos and extremism. That's why we see support growing for commonsense leaders like Mike Rogers."
Republican strategist Collin Reed framed the problem in terms the other Democratic primary candidates should heed.
"You are the company you keep, and the other Democrats competing in this primary would be wise to use these revelations to disqualify Mr. El-Sayed in the eyes of their voters. If they don't, it will be another sign that the tail is wagging the dog and the far left driving the debate in these primary contests, which is poised to shape the overall contours of the midterm elections."
The Michigan Senate primary is shaping up as a test case for internal Democratic divisions over Israel, antisemitism, and the party's leftward drift. El-Sayed has said he would not accept funds from AIPAC, while rival Stevens has received more than $9 million from AIPAC or other pro-Israel groups over her career, according to Track AIPAC.
The candidate also faces a separate age and gender discrimination lawsuit alleging he refused to work with "anyone over 40", another headache for a campaign already struggling to explain its associations.
Meanwhile, polling already shows Democrats facing headwinds heading into the 2026 midterms. A candidate who has to spend his primary explaining away ties to Maduro allies, Castro admirers, Marxist donors, and a streamer who said America deserved 9/11 is not solving that problem. He is the problem.
Michigan voters don't need a lecture about "context." They need a senator who doesn't require one.
