Abdul El-Sayed's campaign reportedly tried to keep Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) away from its remaining events in the closing days of the Michigan Senate race. On Saturday, an adviser to Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) pushed back — and the pushback landed with force.
"This is not Abdul's event," Antjuan Seawright, an adviser to Clyburn, said Saturday afternoon, according to reporting from the New York Times and relayed in a post on X by @PollTracker2024. Seawright said Stevens had been invited to a Sunday church appearance in Detroit and rejected the notion that El-Sayed could pull her invitation, per the same account.
The event in question was arranged by Clyburn and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) to bring El-Sayed and Stevens together after days of public disagreement over Israel and antisemitism. Stevens narrowly lost the August primary to El-Sayed and endorsed him afterward; the two appeared together at party unity events shortly after the vote.
But the truce did not hold. El-Sayed's campaign reportedly told Stevens to stay away from its remaining events, according to the New York Times and Politico. CNN reported Wednesday that the two had not spoken in months, although their campaign teams remained in communication.
The dispute centers on a Rebellion PAC ad linking U.S. military aid to Israel with money unavailable for domestic needs. Stevens and other critics called the ad antisemitic. El-Sayed's campaign denied involvement, while the group's Cenk Uygur defended it as criticism of government spending rather than Jews. Stevens said Friday she accepted Clyburn's invitation after Democrat intermediaries assured her El-Sayed would condemn the ad — and she demanded an apology for his own comments tying Israel aid to domestic funding shortfalls. She also called on him to remove a campaign ad featuring footage of Tucker Carlson criticizing Rogers.
El-Sayed accused Stevens of "relitigating a primary that ended three months ago" and urged Democrats to focus on defeating Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers. Asked Saturday whether he wanted Stevens at Sunday's church appearance, he did not answer directly. "I don't want any distractions," he said, per the New York Times.
The refusal to give a straight answer is telling. El-Sayed appears to have concluded he can win on his own terms in a race both sides are watching — one that could help decide control of the Senate. But the church in Detroit is not his stage, and the invitations were not his to revoke. That is the message from Clyburn's operation, and it is the kind of factional fight Democrats have spent months insisting does not exist.
Stevens's allies have pointed to her genuine relationships with Black voters and Black elected officials in Michigan. As one X user, @PollTracker2024, put it in a prediction posted over the weekend, the likely outcome was that Clyburn and Stevens would show up while El-Sayed skipped — "then Clyburn and Stevens get to explain to a church full of voters what the deal is."
Stevens's office and the El-Sayed campaign did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday's event as of publication (check). It is not yet known whether El-Sayed will attend the church appearance he portrayed as a distraction.
Our Take
Here is what the national press keeps missing while it focuses on the ad: El-Sayed is showing Democrats exactly how their coalition fractures. He didn't want to share a stage with the woman he beat, so his campaign asked her to stay home from events that were arranged by a South Carolina congressman and a Michigan congresswoman. That isn't unity. That's a candidate who believes the general election is a formality and the voters will simply fall in line.
Clyburn's team said it plainly — this isn't Abdul's event. It is a church service in Detroit, and the people in the pews will decide for themselves whether they take orders from a campaign that has been in office for zero days.
Patriots, watch Michigan closely. The same progressive politics that produced this mess are on the ballot in Senate races across the country. If El-Sayed wins, this is what the next six years look like: a senator who doesn't answer questions, doesn't show up for the people who helped build the party, and treats every institution as his personal property.
If he loses, Democrats will have to explain why they let a three-month-old primary grudge cost them a Senate seat. Either way, the voters of Michigan get the final word on Sunday — and they should use it.
