A bitter Michigan Senate race rattles Jewish and Muslim voters already on edge over the war in Gaza

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) — For many voters in Michigan, the U.S. Senate race has become about far more than which party controls Washington .

In the Detroit suburbs, some Jewish Democrats are confronting deeply personal questions about faith and identity as they weigh whether they can support their party’s nominee . Just miles away in Dearborn, Arab American leaders who backed President Donald Trump two years ago are growing increasingly alarmed by Republican rhetoric .

The concerns are rippling through communities already shaken by Israel’s war in Gaza . Now they are central players in the bitter open-seat race between Republican Mike Rogers , a onetime congressman, and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed , a former public health official who would be the country’s first Muslim senator if elected on Nov. 3.

Rogers has increasingly portrayed El-Sayed as an extremist and a threat to Jewish voters as the Republican tries to win over a traditionally Democratic constituency. Rogers laughed when a visiting Republican senator said El-Sayed slept in an Osama bin Laden jersey, and he agreed with a social media post calling El-Sayed a terrorist.

Emotions were already raw before the latest escalation.

In West Bloomfield, a synagogue recovering from an attack this year is only a half-hour drive from the “Wall of Tears” in downtown Dearborn memorializing children killed in Gaza.

The race has even divided close friends like Lori Goldman and Mimi Price-Miletic.

Goldman, a Jewish Democratic activist, described Rogers' message as "a fear campaign.”

“It’s spreading and it’s not spreading slowly," she said. "It’s spreading insidiously and widely and effectively.”

Price-Miletic, a member of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, sees things differently. She is not supporting El-Sayed and has not ruled out voting for Rogers.

“Lori Goldman is my best friend,” said Price-Miletic. “This summer I said we cannot discuss Abdul. I don’t want to hear his name. We’ve agreed to disagree and we don’t talk about it.”

“She adores him,” she added. “And I feel the exact opposite of her.”

Central to Rogers’ strategy has been winning over Jewish voters after the fierce Democratic primary between El-Sayed and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in which Israel became a focal point.

Stevens, one of Israel's staunchest supporters in Congress, benefited from roughly $30 million in spending by groups affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

Stevens represents much of Oakland County, just north of Detroit and home to a significant portion of Michigan’s Jewish population. Rogers has focused heavily on the area and is holding an event later in October with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that's billed as “Who Will Keep Us Safe? Rogers vs. El-Sayed in the Wake of October 7th and the Temple Israel Attack.”

Vance Patrick, chair of the Oakland County Republican Party, said Rogers was “definitely making some headway” among Jewish voters and that the community is “listening to the Republican Party this time."

Patrick added that Rogers has visited synagogues across the county, including Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, where a man rammed a truck loaded with fireworks and gasoline into the building and exchanged gunfire with a security guard in March.

The attacker, a naturalized citizen originally from Lebanon who lived in Dearborn Heights, had recently lost family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native country.

El-Sayed condemned the Temple Israel attack but drew criticism for saying “hurt people hurt people." He later apologized by saying "to anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry."

Rogers and his allies have repeatedly invoked those comments, with Rogers claiming El-Sayed “can’t condemn terrorism in our own country because he’s so close to the people who are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Trump went further Wednesday, claiming El-Sayed was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

There is no evidence that El-Sayed has any affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, wrote on social media in 2012 that “my family has long been MB” and described a conversation with her mother about involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1970s.

El-Sayed, who was born in Michigan to Egyptian immigrant parents and was raised by his father, told NBC this week the social media posts are “hearsay.”

The Trump administration designated the Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations earlier this year.

Democrats are still struggling to unite behind El-Sayed after the primary exposed deep disagreements over Israel.

Oakland County is one of Michigan’s largest and most politically consequential counties, with roughly 1.3 million residents. Once a Republican stronghold, it has shifted steadily toward Democrats over the past two decades.

But many of the country's top Democrats have kept an arm's length from El-Sayed.

State Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is Jewish and is running for a U.S. House seat encompassing much of Oakland County, has not endorsed El-Sayed. Stevens has endorsed El-Sayed, but has not campaigned with him.

Price-Miletic, who supported Stevens in the primary, said part of the reason she will not vote for El-Sayed is his past appearances with controversial streamer Hasan Piker , who has made comments described as antisemitic.

Goldman, the founder of grassroots organization Fems for Dems, said she believes much of the rhetoric spread about El-Sayed is not true and that Republicans “are preying upon the fears that are engendered in every Jewish person because past is prologue.”

Surrogates for El-Sayed, including local leaders and high-profile Democratic officials, have been holding house party events throughout the state to talk with undecided Jewish voters. Former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin of Michigan, who is Jewish and is supporting El-Sayed, has taken part in many of them.

“We don't take a hard sell approach at all,” Levin said. “It's more like a bunch of Jews coming together and saying, ‘OK, let’s all talk about our fears, our hopes, our anxieties.’”

Dearborn, just south of Oakland County, has been a focal point for political divisions over Gaza. Many Arab American voters turned against Democrats in 2024 over President Joe Biden's support for Israel. Trump won the city of nearly 100,000 residents by 6 percentage points.

But the community has grown increasingly critical of Trump since he took office in January 2025. The rhetoric from Rogers and other Republicans about El-Sayed has added to those frustrations.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat who did not endorse in the 2024 election, said Republicans' words about El-Sayed and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, another prominent Muslim politician, have been “very problematic.”

“You've seen Sen. Cruz and other U.S. senators bringing poster boards onto the Senate floor, basically trying to tie them to terrorist organizations or call them terrorists themselves, just because of their faith,” Hammoud said.

The criticism has also come from some of the Arab American leaders who were instrumental when Trump won the state two years ago.

“Any attack based on a person’s religion is not acceptable,” said Bishara Bahbah, who helped lead Trump’s outreach in Michigan in 2024. “Abdul El-Sayed was born and raised in the United States. He’s as American as they come.”

Bahbah, who renamed his group Arab Americans for Trump to Arab Americans for Peace early in Trump’s term, said the president’s rhetoric toward El-Sayed crossed a “red line."

“President Trump several times thanked the Arab American population for their support of his candidacy. I think the people around him should remember that,” Bahbah said. “Because elections are coming up.”