Two right-leaning opinion pieces criticise Abdul El-Sayed's Michigan Senate campaign

Right · 2Abdul El-Sayed recently won the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Michigan, and two opinion columns published on 7 October criticise his campaign from different angles. 1 2 Right · 1In the Washington Examiner, Hazem Alghabra, a Washington consultant and former State Department official, writes that El-Sayed's message is that America's domestic policies are broken and that ending aid to Israel is the way to fix them. Alghabra calls this a "reductive argument" that is resonating with voters. 1 Right · 1Alghabra cites figures to rebut it: he says combined federal, state and local spending on social insurance, welfare and education exceeds $5 trillion a year, against a fiscal 2026 foreign assistance budget of about $50 billion. He puts Foreign Military Financing for Israel at $3.3 billion a year out of a roughly $5.52 trillion federal budget. 1

Right · 1He describes Foreign Military Financing as credit used to buy US-made defence equipment rather than unrestricted cash. He says Congress raised it by about $500 million for fiscal 2027 to support joint missile-defence research, and that it began with the Camp David Accords. 1 Right · 1Alghabra also argues that interviewers rarely ask El-Sayed to show his work, and that more than half of the foreign assistance budget goes to development, disaster relief and global health. He compares El-Sayed's proposals to "snake oil" and invokes New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's record as a warning. 1 Right · 1In JNS, columnist Jonathan S. Tobin focuses on Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who is campaigning for El-Sayed. Slotkin says she wants someone on "Team Fight" rather than "Team Flight" against President Donald Trump. 2

Right · 1Tobin calls El-Sayed an "open antisemite". He says El-Sayed won the primary by accusing Jewish supporters of Israel of trying to buy Congress and by portraying Rep. Haley Stevens as a stooge of AIPAC. He also cites El-Sayed's use of words such as "genocide" and "apartheid" about Israel and his refusal to condemn the Muslim Brotherhood. These are Tobin's characterisations, and the article does not carry a response from El-Sayed. 2 Right · 1Tobin quotes Slotkin telling MS NOW, "There’s no such thing as the Jewish voters, just like there’s no such thing as the Muslim voters or the black voters." He agrees that citizens vote as individuals but argues she is in effect telling Jews who disagree to "shut up and fall in line". He also criticises Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for putting party loyalty ahead of opposition to antisemitism. 2 Right · 2Both columns link El-Sayed to Mamdani and place the race in a wider fight over the Democratic Party's direction. 1 2