A Former High-Ranking Michigan Democratic Is Imploring Voters To Leave the Senate Box Blank in Protest of ‘Extremist’ El-Sayed

A former Michigan state Democratic Party chairman is telling his fellow Democrats to simply not cast a vote in the Senate race in protest of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the party’s progressive nominee who is in a tight race with his GOP opponent. The former chairman says he refuses to be “complicit in excusing or accepting extremism to beat extremism.”Dr. El-Sayed has been trying for months to heal the divides that plagued his party during an especially ugly primary contest over the summer. Some officials are not sold, however. After winning the primary by less than one point, Dr. El-Sayed, for the most part, has been successful in shoring up his base, according to polling. The high-profile dissenters will matter a great deal, though, with the Senate race as tight as it is. A former state Democratic Party chairman, Lon Johnson, is not backing GOP nominee Mike Rogers, but he is urging Democrats to leave the Senate box on their ballots blank next month in a protest against Dr. El-Sayed. Mr. Johnson supported Ms. Stevens this year. “For me, the only dignified choice is to leave the Senate race blank — an undervote representing a rejection of ideological absolutism,” Mr. Johnson wrote on X Monday. “This makes me no less a Democrat. I refuse to be complicit in excusing or accepting extremism to beat extremism. The madness has to stop somewhere.”A Democratic lawmaker from west Michigan, Congresswoman Hillary Scholten, has still refused to back Dr. El-Sayed, citing his ties with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. A Jewish state representative, Noah Arbit, has similarly refused to endorse his party’s Senate nominee. In an interview with Jewish Insider last month, Mr. Arbit said Dr. El-Sayed “at the very least” is aligning himself “with people who want to purge the Democratic Party and American life of Zionists and, therefore, most Jews.” He called that “unacceptable.”“The definition of antisemitism as just a shorthand for hating Jews is useless because you don’t have to hate Jews to be a vector for conspiracy theories,” Mr. Arbit told the outlet. “I think it’s very, very clear that the fulcrum of Abdul’s campaign was an antisemitic conspiracy about AIPAC being the No. 1 obstacle toward universal healthcare, better schools and better roads in Michigan and in America.”Several Democrats have broken with their party to back Mr. Rogers, whom some Democrats see as a more palatable Republican than, say, President Trump. Another former state Democratic Party chairman, Bobby Shostak, is actively backing Mr. Rogers, as is state representative Karen Whitsett. Dr. El-Sayed’s weak spots were very apparent after the primary, as he lost handily in heavily Black and Jewish areas of the state. The state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, took more than a month to officially endorse Dr. El-Sayed even after other Democrats quickly embraced him. Shortly after Dr. El-Sayed won his primary in August, Mr. Rogers, began trying to make efforts to court disaffected Democrats who did not want someone as left-wing as their nominee to serve in the Senate. He began running ads targeting Black voters in Detroit — a community in which Dr. El-Sayed struggled in the primary. “El-Sayed only cares about one issue,” a new ad from Mr. Rogers states, followed by video of Dr. El-Sayed repeatedly saying “Gaza.”“And Black voters know it,” the text of Mr. Rogers’ ad reads. “What he thinks and his ideas don’t align with what I think is best for the party,” Melanie Rutherford, a Black woman and former Pontiac City Councilwoman, says in a clip from a Fox News interview which is featured in Mr. Rogers’ ad. “El-Sayed wants to represent Palestine. Rogers wants to represent Michigan,” the ad concludes. Republicans supporting Mr. Rogers’ campaign also set up social media accounts and a spending group called “Democrats for Mike Rogers,” which has spent more than $4 million in the general election so far. That group is largely funded by Republicans. In an ad being run by the group, Black voters speak directly to camera about Dr. El-Sayed, arguing that he cares more about Palestinians than he does about Michiganders. “Abdul El-Sayed is for Palestine, but Mike Rogers is for Michigan,” an older Black woman says in an ad being run by the group. “I think Abdul cares more about the West Bank than West Detroit,” another Black voter says in the ad. “We need someone who is speaking for us first,” says a third. Though Mr. Rogers has made a real effort to win over the heavily Democratic Black community in the state, polls appear that it is not working. The most recent nonpartisan poll from YouGov shows Dr. El-Sayed actually doing better than the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, secretary of state Jocelyn Benson, among Black voters, even though Ms. Benson is beating her GOP opponent by nearly ten points and Dr. El-Sayed is leading Mr. Rogers by only about three points in the polling aggregates. Some Black voters have still expressed concern about Dr. El-Sayed. One man, JD Chapman, confronted Dr. El-Sayed last week about possible issues with the Black community not being able to trust the nominee. Dr. El-Sayed responded to say he had a great deal of respect and admiration for Michigan’s Black community and those who fought for civil rights. Mr. Chapman later told the Washington Sun that he planned to leave his Senate ballot blank next month.

A Former High-Ranking Michigan Democratic Is Imploring Voters To Leave the Senate Box Blank in Protest of ‘Extremist’ El-Sayed

A Former High-Ranking Michigan Democratic Is Imploring Voters To Leave the Senate Box Blank in Protest of ‘Extremist’ El-Sayed

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