El-Sayed’s Swipe At Usha Vance Will Cost Him

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Minnesota, has pushed Democratic supporters of Israel to declare their intention to support Republican Mike Rogers because of El-Sayed’s insensate attacks on the Jewish state, including his accusation that Israel commits “genocide” and his refusal to concede that Israel has a “right to exist as a Jewish state.” He has now alienated another part of the electorate. These are Hindu-Americans, who were already, and quite understandably, reluctant to vote for a Muslim, given that the Muslim rulers of India — the Mughals — murdered between 70 and 80 million Hindus during their reign. He has also further alienated female voters with a display of misogyny in the same sentence.

More on how El-Sayed is widening the circle of those opposed to his candidacy can be found here: “Abdul El-Sayed’s racist swipe at Usha Vance badly backfiring with Indian-Americans, women,” by Geoff Earle, New York Post, August 29, 2026:

Radical Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s racially charged swipe at Second Lady Usha Vance is badly backfiring, threatening to alienate Michigan’s 130,000 Indian-Americans and crucial female voters, insiders told The Post….

The category “Indian-Americans” includes both Muslims and Hindus. It is the Hindus El-Sayed has alienated with a swipe at Usha, the Hindu-American wife of JD Vance.

Republicans see an opportunity to try to peel away South Asian voters from El-Sayed, whose parents are Egyptian immigrants, in a race that pits him against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.).

No Muslim voters in Michigan from South Asia or anywhere else will stop supporting El-Sayed. He has a permanent lock on the Muslim vote.

El-Sayed leads Rogers by less than a percentage point in the RealClearPolitics average….

As the campaign continues, ever more Democrats, not just Jewish ones, offended by El-Sayed’s endless attacks on Israel and by the antisemitic company he keeps, are likely to switch their allegiance to Republican Mike Rogers.

Republicans say the comments could bounce back and hurt El-Sayed with women voters and Indian-Americans in Michigan.

Reddy predicted it would hurt El-Sayed with middle-aged women, Indian-Americans, and other ethnic groups, and slammed him for dragging Usha’s recent pregnancy into his attacks….

By “Indian-Americans,” Reddy surely means only Hindu-Americans just like himself. Muslims from India will stick with supporting their fellow Muslim, Abdul El-Sayed.

The Usha flap comes as El-Sayed is trying to insulate himself against critics from within his own party demanding he end his association with Hasan Piker, who is accused of antisemitism and said “America deserved 9/11.” He appeared with Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a prominent Jewish House member, and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich) in Ann Arbor Thursday.

“Don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker,” Dingell told a crowd of supporters. “It’s not what November is about.”

Not so fast, Debbie Dingell. The November election is about many things, and that includes the company the candidates keep. El-Sayed has chosen to campaign alongside the virulent antisemite Hasan Piker, whose antisemitism apparently does not bother him. And asked to comment on Piker’s remark that “Americans deserved 9/11,” all El-Sayed could bring himself to say was that it was “dumb.” Not outrageous, intolerable, disgusting. Just “dumb.”

Former Bill Clinton advisor James Carville wasn’t so willing to side-step the issue in a race that has El-Sayed leading by less than a percentage point in the RealClearPolitics average.

“I find this guy [El-Sayed] to be really, really troubling. I think he’d do himself some good if he made very clear the specific things that Hasan Piker said that he disagrees with, because I gotta tell you, they make me really, really uncomfortable,” Carville said on his “Politics War Room” podcast.

Even a Democratic election maven like James Carville, who invented the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid, knows that El-Sayed’s refusal to categorically denounce Hasan Piker will sink him in November. And should El-Sayed at this point try to distance himself completely from Piker, that will be too little, too late. He’s just alienated still further Hindu-Americans enraged by his attacks on Usha Vance. And by choosing to attack her simply because she is Vance’s wife, he has made some women voters in Michigan deeply uneasy. I don’t think El-Sayed can recover.