Attacks from Rogers fueled El-Sayed’s message that the Republican Senate candidate was more interested in him than in Michigan voters’ concerns.
As he faced Abdul El-Sayed on a Michigan debate stage Thursday night, Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers pulled out the oldest trick in the book: going after his opponent’s mother.
But Rogers’s attack, which came late in the first of two debates scheduled before the midterm elections, did little to faze the Democrat El-Sayed — who claimed throughout the hour-long contest that the former GOP congressman was more interested in talking about him than addressing Michigan voters’ concerns.
Rogers, trailing El-Sayed in the polls going into Thursday’s debate, wasted no time taking aim at his opponent, telling viewers the Democrat’s progressive platform was “the best con I think I’ve ever seen.”
“Listen to this guy and what he’s trying to sell here today,” the Republican Senate hopeful said in response to a question about the rising price of gas. “You’re going to find out that this guy is not what he says he is.”
Rogers and El-Sayed sparred over the cost of living, tariffs, and the Democrats’ support for single-payer healthcare, which his opponent claimed would add tens of thousands of dollars in new taxes for Michiganders. But the evening’s tensest moments came when the candidates answered questions about foreign policy — where Rogers fell back on familiar conservative attack lines against El-Sayed.
“He can’t condemn Hamas,” Rogers said. “He can’t condemn the Muslim Brotherhood. He says his home is Egypt.”
El-Sayed has explicitly condemned Hamas, and fact-checkers have roundly debunked claims by the Rogers campaign that he’s connected with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. And the Democrat on Thursday was unmoved by those charges.
“Don’t make stuff up,” he said dismissively. “Don’t make stuff up.”
But things got especially testy between the two candidates during a conversation about government surveillance, when Rogers insinuated that El-Sayed’s criticism of technology such as Flock cameras was motivated because of “someone in your family that might be on a watchlist.”
“Go ahead and say it,” El-Sayed fired back. “You’ve been tiptoeing around it the whole time. You’re gonna go after my mom?”
Rogers complied, accusing the Democrat’s mother of working for an organization “that was indicted for funneling money” to Al Qaeda.
“That’s your mom,” he said. “My mom worked at a small chamber of commerce. I’ll put her up any day for that.”
The Republican candidate was referring to El-Sayed’s biological mother, Fatten Elkomy, a nurse practitioner who worked in the early 2000s for the Islamic American Relief Agency — a nonprofit humanitarian group that served as the U.S. branch of the Sudan-based Islamic African Relief Agency.
The latter organization was designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in 2004, which said at the time the group provided financial support to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, among others. The U.S. arm was shut down after that designation, and some of its former leaders were later charged with violating sanctions on Iraq.
Elkomy, however, was never charged with any crime, and fact-checkers have pointed out that no evidence shows she was even aware the IARA was involved in illegal activity. El-Sayed, for his part, was raised by his stepmother.
Despite Rogers’ apparent attempt to get under his opponent’s skin, El-Sayed repeated a claim that became his refrain throughout Thursday’s debate.
“He wants this to be about anything but his own record,” he said of the Republican. “[He’s] going after my mom, my sister, but he’s got nothing to actually say about me.”
The candidate’s message to voters: I’m interested in you.
“I understand that gas is too expensive, groceries are unaffordable,” said El-Sayed in closing remarks. “I understand that it’s really hard to see a doctor, and I want to solve that. The reason we haven’t is because we’ve got corporate politicians who are going to do the bidding of people like Donald Trump. Ask yourself if that’s helped you.”
Given the last word Thursday, Rogers lobbed one last punch at his opponent. “We cannot afford Abdul, and we cannot risk his ideology,” the Republican said.
Thursday’s debate comes a little under a month before the midterm elections, and as Republicans face something of an uphill battle for control of the Senate. In Michigan, El-Sayed still holds a narrow lead over Rogers.
President Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on the Democrat in recent days, writing in a post on Truth Social Wednesday that “Mohammed” El-Sayed was a “terrible candidate” and urging Michiganders to back Rogers.
“Mohammed goes back to the days of the Jihad,” wrote the president, repeatedly and apparently intentionally calling El-Sayed by the wrong name. “He is a RADICAL Extremist, Terrorist Sympathizer, and no different from his best friend, America Hating Hasan Piker.”
El-Sayed, meanwhile, seems to have largely united national Democrats despite initial concern over his progressive platform. Former President Barack Obama is slated to campaign with him in Detroit later this month, joining a growing list of party heavyweights backing the Michigan Senate hopeful.
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