ABC News: El-Sayed says attacks on his faith are meant to distract from Americans' struggles
In the final days of his tight Senate race in Michigan, Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed said attacks by President Donald Trump and Republicans on his faith and ethnicity are meant to distract from the struggles Americans are facing, ABC News reported.
"They think they can point to my name and my faith and distract us from the fact that we can't afford our gas and we can't afford our groceries," El-Sayed told ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis. ABC said a Fox News poll conducted in late September found his race against Republican Mike Rogers essentially tied among likely voters, with El-Sayed at 50% and Rogers at 49%, within the margin of error.
ABC said Trump has repeatedly called El-Sayed by his middle name, "Mohammed," and has urged voters to reject candidates like him to "preserve our religion, our values, and our heritage." El-Sayed was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan, to Egyptian immigrant parents, ABC said.
El-Sayed, who has long opposed unchecked U.S. military support for Israel, said: "An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn't be fighting is not an ally. I think it's time for us to realize that like, Israel is not actually our friend." ABC noted that the White House has strongly denied that it was pushed into war in Iran by Israel.
ABC said El-Sayed was criticized after a town hall last month for not directly answering whether he condemned Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Asked again, he said: "I condemn a lot of their action, but if you want a pathway to peace with folks, you're going to have to figure out how to get to a position of peace." He added: "They've engaged in horrific acts. There's no question about that."
Speaking in Sault Ste. Marie, El-Sayed called a tariff war with Canada "an insane thing to do. And we pay for it." ABC cited a National Taxpayers Union Foundation study finding that Michigan households have seen an average additional cost of $5,600 from tariffs since January 2025, the most of any state.
On Medicare for All, El-Sayed compared the goal to "climbing Mt. Everest" and said he sees steps that increase healthcare access and reduce the power of big corporations as viable steps toward it, ABC reported.