Exclusive / El-Sayed says ‘no plans’ to campaign with Piker

FARMINGTON HILLS, MICH. — Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed put more distance between himself and Hasan Piker on Wednesday night, telling Semafor in an interview that he has “no plans” to campaign with the controversial streamer.

El-Sayed has taken heat from some in his party over his associations with Piker, the left-wing streamer whose comments about American Jews have faced intense criticism in recent days. Democrats pushed for El-Sayed to more directly condemn Piker and his comments, though El-Sayed framed the whole episode as a nonissue in the election.

“Most people are a lot more worried about things like, what are you going to do about my groceries? What are you going to do about my healthcare? What are you going to do about the fact that I cannot afford [to enroll] my kid in baseball, even though my kid’s a really great baseball player?” El-Sayed said at a banquet hall in the Detroit suburbs. “Those are the things I’m talking about, and the effort to make this race about a streamer in LA is actually kind of laughable.”

He said he hasn’t talked to Senate Democratic leadership or the caucus’ campaign arm about Piker. But his record of publicly interacting with Piker — including at a pool party just before the primary — remains a sore point among some Michigan Democrats. Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten, who’d backed El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, has signaled she won’t yet endorse El-Sayed over his links to Piker, whom she’s said is endangering Democrats’ chances of winning a majority. And the brouhaha over Piker’s singling out of Democratic House candidate Jeremy Moss on his livestream discouraged Moss from endorsing El-Sayed.

The back-and-forth over Piker has irked other Michigan Democrats, who see it as a sideshow distracting from their efforts to hold outgoing Sen. Gary Peters’ seat and flip several House districts.

At an earlier El-Sayed event in Ann Arbor, Rep. Debbie Dingell vented her frustrations onstage: “Don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker,” she said, calling the controversey a move by Republicans to divide Democrats.

“Is the reason he exercises and looks buff why he has so many followers?” she quipped.

“Perhaps it’s because I’ve been fighting for progressive values that many Americans identify with for over a decade and many recognize it despite the manufactured outrage from reactionary media outlets?” Piker replied.

Meanwhile, Republicans have reveled in the Democratic divides, with the GOP Senate nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, and the state party knocking El-Sayed for his associations with Piker. “Conman Abdul El-Sayed still refuses to name and condemn his campaign spokesman, Hasan Piker, for the vile antisemitic rhetoric numerous Democrats across the country are finally denouncing,” Michigan Republican Party spokesperson Greg Manz said in a statement.

El-Sayed dismissed a potential fundraising gap in the race, which could occur if donors were pushed towards Rogers or if outside groups like AIPAC intervened on Rogers’ behalf.

“I’m not particularly worried about how much money the super PACs and the corporate PACs and AIPAC are going to spend to try and support him,” he said. “I’m a lot more focused on conversations I want to have with Michigan voters about the contrast between us.”