SAUGATUCK, Mich. — When Democrats gathered this week in a West Michigan congressional district they're trying to flip blue, they wanted to talk about the cost of living under President Donald Trump. But it didn't take long for the conversation to turn to a controversy dividing their party.
One attendee chided U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten for failing to support Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
“Your inflammatory rhetoric has nothing to do with creating a better economic future for the people of West Michigan, and everything to do with protecting the pipeline of our tax dollars to Israel,” the woman said.
The exchange captured a problem confronting Democrats as they head toward November. Party leaders believe concerns about the economy have given them an opening to win control of Congress, but internal divisions are making it harder to keep the focus there.
Nowhere is that tension more pronounced than Michigan, where Democrats are trying to regroup after a bruising Senate primary that El-Sayed won over U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens earlier this month. Disputes over Israel, antisemitism and El-Sayed's association with controversial online commentator Hasan Piker have complicated the party's effort to turn its attention to Republican Mike Rogers.
With the election fast approaching, Scholten and some other Democrats have withheld their support for El-Sayed for now.
“I think it’s up to the top of the ticket to unify the top of the ticket,” Scholten said Tuesday.
Democratic divisions haven’t disappeared
El-Sayed, who would be the country's first Muslim senator, has denounced antisemitism while fiercely criticizing Israel for its military operations in Gaza.
Some members of his party have balked at his rhetoric.
Michigan state Rep. Jeremy Moss, the Democratic nominee for a House seat outside Detroit, has also withheld his support. In an interview with The Atlantic’s David Frum released Wednesday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, said El-Sayed should not “make excuses” for domestic terrorism.
She was referencing a video statement he put out in March following an attack on Temple Israel synagogue outside Detroit when he said “hurt people hurt people.”
Some Democrats outside Michigan have gone further in criticizing El-Sayed.
“There’s no way I’m ever coming out for El-Sayed, right now,” New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer said on CNN, adding that El-Sayed has “refused to back off his views towards Jewish Americans.”
El-Sayed’s appearances on the campaign trail with Piker have become a particular flashpoint in the disagreement. Piker is a popular streamer with a history of controversial remarks that include saying America “deserved 9/11.”
Piker recently became embroiled in controversy again when he argued against the idea that opposing Israel is antisemitic. American Jews are not uniformly supportive of Israel, he said, but many “Jewish institutions” are “teaching people the idea that Jews are monolithic” and “it's a very dangerous mode of propaganda.”
“If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel mind you, but against American Jews,” he said.
The backlash was swift among Democrats, with critics saying Piker was suggesting that American Jews who support Israel were inviting violence.
"Hasan Piker’s dangerous and hateful language targeting Jewish Americans has no place in our civic discourse," Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, wrote on social media. “Suggesting that Jewish Americans bear responsibility for hatred or violence directed against them is wrong, dangerous, and antisemitic.”
Piker rejected that interpretation in a phone interview, saying he was warning that associating American Jews broadly with Israel’s actions could fuel antisemitism, much as Muslims in the United States have been associated with Islamic terrorist groups.
He said he was never particularly close with El-Sayed’s campaign — despite appearing with him at various events during the primary — and said that he did not want the race to become a conversation about him. He said he did not regret the remarks, however.
“I’m just a platform, I’m just a megaphone for people’s anger and frustration,” Piker said. “Even if I was going to go away tomorrow, I don’t think this problem would go away for our politicians.”
While El-Sayed has put some distance between himself and Piker amid the controversies, he has refused to cut ties completely. In a statement, he said “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokesperson.”
Republicans see an opportunity in the continued dispute.
“It’s great,” said Republican strategist Jason Roe. “You can tell these Democrats are not going to distance themselves. Piker is to Democrats what Trump is to Republicans. You embrace him, it’s not helpful, and distance is also not helpful.”
Democrats try to turn toward November
Democrats who have rallied behind El-Sayed are increasingly eager to move beyond the fight.
“I am done. So don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker. It’s not what November is about,” Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell said Wednesday. “I don’t agree with Hasan Piker on a lot of stuff.”
She appeared alongside El-Sayed and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland at a campaign event in Ann Arbor on Wednesday. The day prior, El-Sayed stood beside Eli Savit, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, the party’s nominee for secretary of state, at a press conference.
Democrats who have backed El-Sayed argue that the party is largely unified and that the remaining disagreements are a natural part of moving beyond a contentious primary. Raskin, who is Jewish, described it as a “process that we go through” after the primary.
“The Democratic Party is a big, sometimes an unruly family, but we’re all going to be together in the end,” Raskin said.
Michigan Democrats from across the state are expected to gather this weekend for a convention in Lansing to finalize the party's November ticket. Ahead of the convention, all the party's nominees and party chair, Curtis Hertel, sent a letter saying that “disruptive behavior or harassment of any kind will not be tolerated."
“This convention is our moment to celebrate our candidates,” the letter read.
El-Sayed at Wednesday's event in Ann Arbor expressed frustration with the continued focus on Piker.
“You would think if you turn on any media that this whole campaign is about a streamer in California,” El-Sayed said at the Ann Arbor event. He added that he’s “less interested in going to the sort of tabloid version of our politics where we cover this like, who’s in, who’s out, who’s up, who’s down, who’s talking to who?”
But El-Sayed acknowledged that some Democrats have yet to put the primary behind them.
“There are a few people who are still nursing wounds or grievances from the primary,” El-Sayed said. “I get it. Losing is hard.”
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Associated Press reporter Jesse Bedayn contributed to this report.
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