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<\/p>\nEoin Higgins is the author<\/a> of \u201cOwned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voice on the Left.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Halloween weekend is<\/span> the last chance for centrist Democrats to stop the nightmare they fear most: Michigan\u2019s Abdul El-Sayed, who could be the first Muslim in the Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Michigan Democrat\u2019s campaign came under pressure from party moderates days out from the general election to denounce an ad produced by The Young Turks presenter Cenk Uygur and his Rebellion PAC. El-Sayed and his campaign were not involved in the production or distribution of the ad, which tied rising domestic prices to U.S. financial backing of the Israel military. But on Thursday, the campaign made the conciliatory gesture of distancing itself.<\/p>\n For centrists, it still wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n Rather than take the win, Haley Stevens, the House member who lost to El-Sayed<\/a> in Michigan\u2019s Democratic primary for Senate<\/a> in August, used that condemnation on Friday as a springboard for a scathing denouncement of her former opponent, framed as a \u201ccelebration\u201d of her magnanimous decision to campaign for El-Sayed this weekend alongside Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. \u2014 and laying out conditions for her support with just a few days to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the statement, in which Stevens assigned herself the role as spokeswoman for Michigan\u2019s Black and Jewish communities \u2014 Stevens herself is a white Protestant \u2014 she all but called El-Sayed an antisemite and a bigot attempting to cozy up to the worst of the far right.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have learned from Democratic Party leaders and emissaries, as reported in the news media, that Dr. El-Sayed has heard the deep concerns of the Jewish community and is now, for the first time in this campaign, formally condemning that ad for what it is,\u201d Stevens wrote. \u201cThat is why I accepted Congressman Clyburn\u2019s invitation to appear with Abdul on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevens\u2019s eleventh-hour ratfuck came after her fianc\u00e9 Jason Turkish, a political donor who supported incumbent Maine Republican Susan Collins this cycle, as well as other politicians of both parties, announced he\u2019d vote for the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers<\/a>, on Tuesday. On Friday night, Turkish told TMZ that his fiancee might join him if El-Sayed didn\u2019t accede to her list<\/a> of demands.<\/p>\n Establishment Democrats see<\/span> El-Sayed, and the politics he represents, as an existential threat. It\u2019s not his rather anodyne liberalism in domestic policy<\/a> \u2014 his policy portfolio isn\u2019t far from that of party stalwart Elizabeth Warren \u2014 but El-Sayed\u2019s opposition to Israel\u2019s genocide of Palestinians<\/a> that\u2019s the issue. It\u2019s a major problem for the entrenched, centrist Democrats who have controlled the party for decades and have tamped down<\/a> any dissent<\/a> on this issue<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recent polling is likely motivating efforts to ding the El-Sayed campaign. Senate polling from The New York Times\/Siena University this week<\/a> showed South Carolina in a dead heat \u2014 an absolute shocker \u2014 with Minnesota comfortably in the Democratic corner. CNN polling<\/a> published on Thursday gave Democrats leads in Texas and Michigan and toss-ups in Maine and Kansas.\u00a0<\/p>\n With a Senate majority on the horizon, centrists need to enforce discipline and regain control. AIPAC is down, but not out; the lobbying group still has a hold<\/a> on the party, even as voters are moving away<\/a> from pro-genocide policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Taking El-Sayed down would be a show of force to keep donors and the party\u2019s right wing happy. If Democrats can win the Senate without him, it would be all the better.<\/p>\n But the effort may be backfiring as a faction of party elites, led by popular former President Barack Obama, are putting their muscle behind the El-Sayed campaign. Obama has been a steady presence in Michigan, and Clyburn will rally for the candidate on Sunday at the aforementioned event that Stevens was set to attend.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anger is also spreading among party members in the state.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no idea what the hell Haley Stevens is doing,\u201d Mallory McMorrow, the Michigan state senator who placed third in the August primary, told CNN<\/a> Friday night. \u201cThis is a moment where we have to recognize the stakes.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stevens \u2014 who also demanded El-Sayed pull an ad showing far-right broadcaster Tucker Carlson saying he would \u201cnever\u201d support the Republican in the race, Rogers \u2014 seems undeterred.\u00a0<\/p>\n Given an inch by the campaign\u2019s willingness to publicly mend fences, Stevens took it several miles, using that ad as a way of implying that El-Sayed was, at best, disinterested in the concerns of Black Michiganders.<\/p>\n This last-minute blitz comes after months of attacks<\/a> on El-Sayed by centrist Democrats, both before and after his primary win. The smears have been normalized and facilitated by a number of Democrats eager to stay on good terms with the party\u2019s powerful but increasingly marginalized pro-Israel wing. El-Sayed\u2019s connection to the streamer Hasan Piker, who helped<\/a> get out the vote in the primary, has been a direct and implied slam on the campaign for over half a year from other members of the party<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday called<\/a> opposition to Israel\u2019s existence as an apartheid ethnostate \u201cmore than concerning, it\u2019s wrong,\u201d on Donny Deutsch\u2019s podcast, adding, \u201cThis new person in Michigan, we\u2019ll see if he gets elected to the Congress.\u201d On CNN Wednesday, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker \u2014 a consistent pro-Israel<\/a> voice \u2014 declined to directly endorse<\/a> El-Sayed by name.\u00a0<\/p>\n Right-wing Democrats aren\u2019t<\/span> stupid. They know their influence over the party is at a historic low. The genocide in Gaza has pushed the base away from supporting Israel, perhaps permanently. Supermajorities of Democrats oppose the occupation and sympathize<\/a> with Palestinians.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the party\u2019s donor class still backs Israel to the hilt and is fomenting a war-on-terror-style<\/a> Islamophobic bigotry toward Muslims. As Perry Bacon noted<\/a> on Thursday in The New Republic, party elites attacked<\/a> then-candidate for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani throughout 2025, then picked up where they left off with El-Sayed, the next prominent Muslim Democrat running for office, in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n The same Democrats who indulge in the attacks on El-Sayed are making hay out of rejecting more openly bigoted attacks from the likes of President Donald Trump<\/a> and Rogers. Rep. Dan Goldman \u2014 an outgoing pro-Israel Democrat who jumped on the Condemn El-Sayed bandwagon earlier<\/a> this week \u2014 called Republican attacks on El-Sayed \u201cIslamaphobia<\/a>\u201d [sic] on Thursday; Booker did the same<\/a>. And Pelosi, just days after her comments on Deutsch\u2019s show, urged Democrats to vote for El-Sayed<\/a>.<\/p>\n Voters don\u2019t seem very interested in the back and forth. In a Marist poll of Michiganders released October 21, 95 percent of the state\u2019s Democrats said they support El-Sayed<\/a>. There\u2019s no split in the party at the state level with respect to the nominee; the fight is at a higher, ideological level with a national stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n