Republicans swiftly launched attack advertisements against Abdul El-Sayed following his victory in Tuesday's U.S. Senate Democratic primary election in Michigan. El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director, said Wednesday the ads are racially motivated.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee released an ad that opens with ominous music and refers to El-Sayed by his full name, "Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed," including a middle name he does not use publicly. The NRSC had not used this full name in its press releases before El-Sayed won the primary.
The tactic echoes President Donald Trump's practice of emphasizing "Barack Hussein Obama"—designed to highlight a candidate's Muslim heritage and suggest they are foreign or dangerous.
The ad's voiceover labels El-Sayed "the most radical Senate candidate in America" and features a clip of him saying, "I'm pretty damn dangerous." That clip came from an event where El-Sayed described himself as a left-wing political threat to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic establishment.
The ad also falsely claims El-Sayed "pledged support for the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a designated foreign terrorist group." A review of the 2011 HuffPost op-ed cited by the ad shows no such statement from El-Sayed.
Rep. Mike Rogers, El-Sayed's Republican opponent, posted a video on X with the caption: "You are who your friends are, and Abdul El-Sayed's are radical leftists who hate America." The video includes clips of left-wing Democratic politicians, all people of color, edited to portray them as violent anarchists. One segment features Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. saying she "took a terrorism class." Omar was referring to a college course on terrorism ideology she completed while earning a political science degree from North Dakota State University.
Trump commented on El-Sayed via his social media site, claiming El-Sayed "hates Jews" and asserting that El-Sayed's only chance of winning in Michigan stems from Wayne County, home to Detroit and a high concentration of Arab Americans, being "strictly Third World!"
El-Sayed has previously described Jews as a "light unto the world." A Newsmax anchor also falsely labeled El-Sayed an immigrant and mocked his name.
El-Sayed has embraced his Egyptian heritage, discussing a "dual consciousness" rooted in his African and Muslim backgrounds. He told an interviewer, "My Arab heritage is real, as is my African heritage."
At a Wednesday news conference, El-Sayed said of the Republican strategy: "That's the only play they got."
