El-Sayed leads Rogers in polls as antisemitism debate continues
Antisemitism remains a key issue in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, as progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers.
This weekend, prominent Jewish leaders will join Democratic Jewish voters from across Michigan in a voter forum.
“With voting underway and Election Day approaching, the question is no longer only what El-Sayed will do – but what Jewish voters will do,” said the Nonnegotiable Michigan coalition, which is organizing the forum.
The coalition’s statewide campaign has called on El-Sayed to commit to five “baseline commitments” addressing the needs of Jewish communities. The commitments focus on Jewish safety, identity, statehood, and political participation.
This comes as recent research from the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based conservative foreign policy think tank, found El-Sayed has “solicited votes” from inside Michigan mosques and Islamic centers whose leaders use “extreme rhetoric from the pulpit,” especially against Israel and Zionists.
“Several of these institutions take taxpayer money and host officials of both parties,” a spokesperson for the MEF told The Center Square. “Every Michigan official should be asked whether they stand by those appearances.”
MFF would not provide the name of the spokesperson for the group.
Some of the organizations listed in MEF’s report receive taxpayer funds, while others have an IRS-granted tax-exempt status as a house of worship.
El-Sayed did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment on the forum’s research.
Despite ongoing concerns though, El-Sayed continues to lead in the polls, with the most-recent polling has the 41-year-old leading Rogers 49.8% to 44%.
That is according to the average of the five most recent polls compiled by 270toWin, with the most-recent posted on Oct. 29.
Prediction markets also give El-Sayed a 76% chance of winning, to Rogers’ 24%. This is according to Prediction.com, which aggregates prediction-market data from multiple platforms.
AJ Francia, head of product at that site, highlighted the growing role betting markets are playing in predicting elections.
“They’ve turned into a second scoreboard,” Francia told The Center Square in an exclusive interview. “For a long time the only numbers people had between elections were polls, which come out every week or two and carry a margin of error. A prediction market prices a race every second, with real money behind the number. So when a debate goes badly or a story breaks, you can watch the odds move that afternoon instead of waiting for the next poll.”
The race is considered one of the most-important U.S. Senate races in the nation as the party-makeup of the 120th Congress hangs in the balance.
Democrats were divided during the primary between El-Sayed and establishment-backed U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens. El-Sayed narrowly won that race. Since then, the Democratic Party establishment has rallied around him.
In 2024, Michigan’s U.S. Senate race was decided by less than half a percentage point, with Democrat Elissa Slotkin narrowly defeating Rogers. Rogers returned as the Republican nominee in 2026 after securing the party’s nomination unopposed.
El-Sayed is seeking to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. He has cast himself as a progressive and faced constant allegations of “extremism” throughout his campaign.
Last weekend, President Donald Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and “on the side of the terrorists.”
The Democrat responded to the president’s quips.
“I don’t even care that he remembers my whole name because he can just go on and call me ‘senator’ after November,” El-Sayed said. “I will be Senator Muhammad to you, bro.”
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