Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, confirmed Sunday that he spoke to Barack Obama following his primary victory last week and said he hopes the former president will join him on the campaign trail this fall.
“It was a really warm and inspiring conversation,” El-Sayed told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” about his call with Obama.
“I was grateful for his advice,” he added. “It was very warm, very inviting, and I know that he knows the critical role that Michigan is going to play in holding [President Donald] Trump accountable, in winning back the Senate, and in building forward the future that we need.”
Asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker whether the former president plans to join El-Sayed on the campaign trail this fall, the Democratic Senate nominee said, “I really hope so.”
El-Sayed on Tuesday narrowly beat Rep. Haley Stevens in the state’s Democratic primary for Senate, kicking off a fresh round of dialogue nationally about the future of the Democratic Party.
El-Sayed, a former county health department director, won the primary with the backing of several heavyweight national progressive figures including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
On Sunday, El-Sayed dismissed concerns about his support in Michigan after Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who ran in the primary but suspended her campaign in July, drew more votes combined than the eventual Democratic Senate nominee in Tuesday’s primary.
“Five hundred thousand more Democrats voted than did Republicans in that election,” El-Sayed told Welker. “If that happens [in November], we are going to win in a landslide.”
“I know that we had it out with a very tough primary,” he continued. “There were a lot of issues that were discussed and differences that were identified and fixated on, but I will tell you this: that all of us agree that our differences are far smaller than what we agree on. And what we agree on is that Donald Trump has been an existential threat to our democracy.”
El-Sayed also drew scrutiny for his friendship and campaign appearances with progressive media figures like Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who previously said on a livestream that “America deserved 9/11.” Piker has since apologized for the remark.
On Sunday, El-Sayed called Piker’s comments about 9/11 “dumb” and said the resurfacing of those statements was “gotcha politics.” He didn’t commit to campaigning with or without Piker during the general election, instead saying that he’ll need a broad coalition of voters to win in November, including those who follow Piker.
“I’m less concerned now with who I’m campaigning with [and] a lot more concerned about who I’m campaigning to. We’ve got a lot of work to do to continue to build the coalition that’s going to beat Mike Rogers,” El-Sayed said.
He added, when pressed by Welker, “I think we have this notion sometimes on shows like this that we cannot or should not talk to certain groups of people, and I will tell you that the 3 million people who listen to Hasan are people I want to make sure understand that there’s a pathway into our politics around getting money out of politics.”
“I’m going to continue to have the conversations with those folks who we desperately need to reach out to. Just like I’m going to continue to have conversations with seniors in senior homes, folks up north, folks in Detroit, folks in Grand Rapids,” he said.
El-Sayed ran as an unabashed progressive, rejecting money from special interest groups during the campaign and pledging, if elected, to vote against support for Israel and in favor of “Medicare for All.”
Stevens, meanwhile, ran in the moderate lane, taking in tens of millions of dollars from industry groups and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC — a bipartisan group that backs politicians who support Israel. El-Sayed made Stevens’ support from AIPAC a cornerstone of his campaign against her, capitalizing on plummeting support for Israel’s government among members of his party.
The general election, where El-Sayed faces GOP nominee Mike Rogers in what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races this year, will be a major test of whether El-Sayed’s progressive brand of politics can win in a general election in a battleground state.
Republicans in Michigan and nationally have already begun to attack El-Sayed as a “radical” and “dangerous,” using his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, in videos released this week by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm.
El-Sayed characterized the attacks as similar to those from Republicans who have used Obama’s full name — Barack Hussein Obama — to attack him.
“We always knew they were going to go here. I mean, notice how they chose to use my full name in echoes to exactly what they did against President Obama,” El-Sayed told Welker.
“At the end of the day, it’s not radical to believe that people should be able to afford their groceries,” he added. “It’s not radical to believe that you should have healthcare in this country.”
Since his primary win on Tuesday, prominent Democrats who were skeptical of El-Sayed during the primary or endorsed Stevens quickly rallied around their party’s nominee.
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he had a “very good talk” that day with El-Sayed.
“I’m feeling optimistic about winning the Senate and with Michigan,” he added to reporters at the Capitol. “We are going to win in Michigan. We’re going to beat Rogers, and we’re going to take back the Senate.”
And on Thursday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., campaigned alongside her party’s Democratic nominees for statewide office, including El-Sayed.
Stevens, too, quickly backed El-Sayed this week after losing to him in the primary, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press NOW” that there’s “no drama” between the two.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who appeared later on “Meet the Press,” said he was excited to join El-Sayed on the campaign trail and that he expected that a lot of his fellow Senate Democrats would travel to Michigan this fall.
“I think you’ll see a lot of my colleagues in Michigan. I’ll be there supporting him because he’s presenting a strong contrast with a candidate who is pro-corporate, who is pro-Trump, who is pro-war,” Murphy told Welker. “I think he’s going to do incredibly well in that campaign.”
