Abdul El-Sayed appears to be collecting plenty of attention after winning Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary this week. Some of that attention, though, probably will not be showing up in campaign advertisements anytime soon.
One notable example came from Ikhwan Online, a media outlet associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Midwesterner, a Michigan-based conservative news site, reported that the outlet published an enthusiastic article celebrating El-Sayed’s primary victory.
That reaction is drawing attention because questions about El-Sayed’s political and personal connections to organizations accused of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood have already followed his campaign. Those concerns are likely to become even more prominent now that he has moved from a Democratic primary into a statewide general election.
After El-Sayed narrowly defeated U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, Ikhwan Online published a strikingly positive account of the result. The article also celebrated Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s primary victory in Michigan.
According to a computer translation of the Arabic article, the outlet described El-Sayed’s victory as a defeat for pro-Israel political groups and portrayed Stevens as a leading supporter of what it called the “occupation.” The piece emphasized El-Sayed’s progressive politics and his support for Palestinian rights while criticizing Stevens’ relationship with pro-Israel organizations.
Calling Stevens one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent “pro-occupation” figures seems like a stretch. She has never exactly been one of the party’s most nationally recognizable voices on Middle East policy. But by the standards of an outlet that views American politics through a sharply anti-Israel lens, apparently being positioned to the right of Rashida Tlaib is enough.
The headline was even less restrained. According to the report, it essentially declared that El-Sayed had defeated the “Zionists” and was now headed toward a Senate campaign.
Republicans quickly seized on the story.
The larger issue is not whether Muslim Brotherhood leaders formally endorsed El-Sayed. There is no clear evidence presented here that they did. What makes the article politically significant is that it adds another layer to the controversy surrounding people and organizations connected to El-Sayed.
The Washington Free Beacon reported in July that El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, had been a major donor to a super PAC supporting El-Sayed and had also held a leadership role in the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 terrorism-financing case.
According to court documents cited by the Free Beacon, federal prosecutors described ISNA as one of several organizations whose members had connections to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
Jukaku also previously served as president of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR was likewise named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the same 2007 case, although being named as an unindicted co-conspirator is not the same thing as being charged with or convicted of a crime.
Those associations are almost certain to become campaign material for Republicans as the general election gets underway.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was already making that argument during a Senate hearing following El-Sayed’s victory. Cruz accused the Democratic political establishment of embracing organizations he considers hostile to the United States and argued that El-Sayed’s rise is connected to a much larger institutional network.
Whether voters ultimately find those arguments persuasive is another matter. But politically, the optics are difficult to ignore. When a Muslim Brotherhood-associated outlet reacts to an American Senate primary victory with language portraying it as a triumph over “Zionists,” opponents are going to make sure voters hear about it.