Democrat Candidate In Key Senate Race Reiterates Cost-Of-Living Message Ahead Of Midterms, Dismisses 'Faith'-Related Attacks

The Democrat nominee for Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, has claimed that his opponent in the race, the Republican Mike Rogers, has no retort to Sayed's cost-of-living-focused message beyond criticizing El-Sayed's belief in Islam.

"His [Roger's] only strategy is to point to me and my name and my faith and to say that we're different and that you should suspect people simply because they are different than you in how they pray," El-Sayed told NBC's Kristen Welker in an interview that aired on Sunday.

If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim member of the Senate.

"He has no ideas. I want to talk about gas prices, I want to talk about grocery prices, I want to talk about seeing a doctor," the Democrat continued.

Sayed also emphasized his opposition to what he perceived to be a warmongering foreign policy pursued by the administration of President Donald Trump because of its effect on the cost of living in Michigan and elsewhere in the U.S.

"We shouldn't be fighting these wars, whether it's a tariff war on Canada or a hot war in Iran. They're costing us. $5,600 dollars for this ridiculous tariff war with Canada, $1,600 dollars and counting for this Iran war." El-Sayed claimed.

El-Sayed is referring to a study from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, which estimates that executive tariffs have cost Michigan households, on average, an extra $5,600 since January 2025.

El-Sayed's campaign strategy seems to be working. According to MSNOW's poll tracker, El-Sayed was leading Rogers by four percentage points on Sunday. Michigan is a traditional swing state, with President Donald Trump winning the rust belt state by a margin of 1.42 percent in the 2024 presidential election.

The Michigan race is one of the most highly-anticipated contests of the November midterm elections, and is expected to be close.

On Thursday Rogers and El-Sayed faced off in a heated televised debate, in which Rogers questioned whether El-Sayed's opposition to the installation of AI-powered surveillance cameras was because a member of his family might be on a "watchlist" of some kind.

In turn, El-Sayed called Rogers a "sock puppet for the Trump administration" and, in his interview with NBC, claimed that Rogers would be incapable of standing up to the Trump administration if it mishandled key issues.

Rogers did, however, say during the debate he wanted to "get rid of" some of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and said that the immigration crackdown by ICE that took place in Minnesota at the behest of the Trump administration had gone too far.

Rogers also accused El-Sayed's "biggest funders" belonging to a group that supports the Muslim Brotherhood, an islamist movement which emerged in Egypt. Several branches of the Muslim Brotherhood are blacklisted as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

State news outlet Bridge Michigan fact-checked Rogers' claim, stating that there was no evidence that El-Sayed had any ties to the organization.

For his part, President Trump has also repeatedly attacked El-Sayed's religion.

"Someone said his name is not Mohammed. It's Abdul ... I'm the president. I can call him whatever the hell I want. To me, he's Mohammed, and he is a radical jihadist. Look at his statements from two years ago. He is a jihadist. i don't want a jihadist as a senator for Michigan." Trump told supporters during a rally in Tennessee on Saturday.