Democrats face ‘do-or-die’ split with key voting bloc in razor-close Senate race

DETROIT — After falling just 20,000 votes shy of winning the U.S.

Senate election in battleground Michigan two years ago, Republican Mike Rogers is urging Democrats, including Jewish voters, to cross party lines and vote for him as he makes a second straight Senate bid.

After a combustible and divisive Democratic Senate primary in which Abdul El-Sayed narrowly edged more moderate Rep.

Haley Stevens for the nomination, Rogers is heavily courting Democrats disaffected with their left-wing nominee as he works to flip a must-hold seat for the Democrats in the midterm elections .

A key part of Rogers' pitch is directed toward Jewish Democrats, who are uneasy with El–Sayed's vocal criticism of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and who are outraged by El-Sayed's association with controversial online streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly railed against Israel to his massive online audience.

"I usually vote Democrat, but I'm going to be voting for Mike Rogers," Rabbi Asher Lopatin said as he stood next to Rogers this week as the former congressman and former FBI agent unveiled his Democrats for Mike coalition at a campaign event on Detroit's west side.

DEMOCRATS 'WHO NEVER VOTED REPUBLICAN' BACKING THIS GOP SENATE NOMINEE A former Wayne County Health Department director, El-Sayed, if elected in November, would make history as the nation's first Muslim senator.

The epidemiologist who unsuccessfully ran for governor as an insurgent candidate in 2018 has made support for Medicare-for-all a major component of his campaign and has also called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

But it's El-Sayed's stance and comments on Israel that have offended some Jewish people in Michigan, a state that also has a large Arab and Muslim population.

El-Sayed used the word "bloodthirsty" to characterize Israel's military moves in Gaza in an MS NOW interview this month and accused Israeli leadership of genocide against Palestinians.

He has argued against unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel, as have other progressive politicians.

And El-Sayed has repeatedly declined to directly answer whether Israel has the right to exist.

But El-Sayed has also stated that he stands "in solidarity with my Jewish sisters and brothers" to "condemn antisemitism." Lopatin, a rabbi in suburban Detroit who has made trips to the Middle East in search of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, argued that El-Sayed "has shown contempt for the Jewish community and, frankly, for American values by making Hasan Piker, a vicious antisemite and racist, his campaign surrogate and somebody he buddies up with." Piker, who endorsed El-Sayed in the nomination battle, appeared at some of the candidate's campaign events, including the primary night party in Detroit.