Rogers camp accused of scorched-earth campaign against El-Sayed

A Lansing City Pulse column by Kyle Melinn published October 14, 2026, says Michigan's U.S. Senate race is turning into a scorched-earth contest as Republican Mike Rogers and his supporters try to link Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and his family to terrorist organizations.

According to the column, Rogers said during last Thursday's debate that El-Sayed's mother, Fatten Elkomy, worked for an organization that “funneled money to al Qaeda,” a reference to her 1999-2004 work with the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the U.S. Treasury Department shut down in late 2004. Elkomy was never prosecuted. The Senate Leadership Fund also released an ad tying five CAIR staff members who donated to El-Sayed to Hamas; CAIR was never charged and has called such links “pure McCarthyism,” according to Bridge Michigan.

The column also reports that the National Republican Senatorial Committee shared an article flagging El-Sayed's support from Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News, whom it called a “pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas activist.” Siblani told Melinn that Rogers met him and about 15 to 20 other Arab American leaders at a Dearborn restaurant in April 2024 to ask for their support against Elissa Slotkin, and asked that the meeting be kept quiet.

Rogers separately told Fox News that El-Sayed allegedly wrote an op-ed in Arabic supporting the Muslim Brotherhood; Bridge Michigan looked into the claim and found no evidence of it, the column says, adding that Melinn's own requests for evidence went unanswered.

Recent polls put Rogers one to three points behind El-Sayed, and nearly $300 million in TV spending has been spent or reserved on the race, making it the nation's third-most expensive this cycle, according to AdImpact.