Michigan Senate Race Heated by Middle East Conflict and Controversial Influencer Alliance

Democratic Senate Candidates Divided Over Hasan Piker and Israel Policy

LANSING — A bitter rift has emerged between progressive and establishment Democratic candidates in Michigan's tight U.S. Senate race, sparked by a heated debate over criticism of Israel and political influencer Hasan Piker's role on the left.

The controversy is playing out in real-time as the three-way Democratic primary takes shape, with the race widely expected to determine whether Democrats can regain control of the Senate in this critical swing state.

Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive physician and former Wayne County health official, last week announced plans to rally with Piker, a Twitch streamer with 3 million followers who frequently voices strong criticism of Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

In response, establishment Democrats including State Senator Mallory McMorrow, who is favored by much of the party's base, have gone on the offensive. McMorrow and her surrogates have said Piker should be shunned because the rallies come less than a month after the Temple Israel synagogue attack, which was widely condemned by the Arab American community in Michigan.

"That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state," McMorrow told Jewish Insider while highlighting that children were at the synagogue. "You don't fan the flames."

El-Sayed, the other Democratic Senate hopeful, expressed a similar sentiment about the Arab community's pain, telling the Guardian: "The Arab community, their voice and their pain has been rendered insignificant or, even worse, an inconvenient aspect of our political situation."

The controversy unfolds amid Israel's assault on southern Lebanon, and as Israel and its military action are deeply unpopular among Democrats. The ongoing debate likely marks a preview of things to come as the midterm and 2028 election seasons ramp up.

A Crucial Swing State

Michigan holds the nation's largest Arab American population per capita in the United States, anchored by a huge Lebanese diaspora largely from southern Lebanon. Virtually every one of the 120,000 Lebanese American people in Michigan have family members or friends who have been displaced or killed by Israel, Arab Americans who spoke with the Guardian said.

The controversy is particularly sensitive given that President Kamala Harris lost Michigan in 2024 by a narrow 80,000 votes. By one estimate, support for Israel cost her 100,000 votes in the state. A November 2024 Guardian analysis found a 22,000-vote swing away from Democrats in the three cities with the largest Arab American and Muslim populations alone.

Seven Arab American leaders who spoke with the Guardian say centrist Democrats' attack on El-Sayed and Piker are strategic and moral blunders that show the party is making the same mistakes that fueled their 2024 electoral demise in this critical swing state and nationally.

"They are not showing empathy toward Lebanese and Muslim communities," said Basim Elkarra, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations Action. "Some in the Democratic party haven't learned from 2024. Especially in a battleground state, I think they're going to suffer the consequences in 2028 if they don't rectify their strategy."

The Influencer Factor

Piker, who is Muslim and has an audience of 3 million on the Twitch streaming platform, often strongly criticizes Israel over its assault on Gaza, Lebanon invasion, war with Iran, treatment of Palestinian people, and other issues, sometimes in provocative terms. He has described Hamas as "a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state."

He is also a heavyweight political force with a massive following among younger voters: Piker interviewed and earned praise from Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, and was invited by the Harris campaign to livestream from the Democratic national convention in August 2024.

Piker called the Temple Israel attack a "heinous act of violence." But he also believes it is "Islamophobic" to shun him because of his association with the streamer.

National Democrats Weigh In

The debate over Piker has extended beyond Michigan, with national Democratic figures taking sides.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) recently said he hadn't even heard of Piker until recently, telling "Pod Save America" that he had "never heard their name, and I still haven't heard him speak even. I haven't heard anything he's done."

Booker said his communications director had asked him about going on Piker's show after telling him "four or five of the most outrageous things Piker has said."

Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has defended his decision to go on Piker's stream in the past and said Democrats should follow his lead and have "tough conversations." Khanna added that there was "obviously a line," but that "the line should not be with Hasan Piker, who has millions of followers, and largely what his view has been has been critical of the blank check we gave Netanyahu for the war in Gaza."

The Middle Ground

In the middle of this debate is U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, the incumbent Democrat who is backed by Aipac, the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Stevens has not publicly taken a strong stance on the Piker controversy, but her endorsement base includes moderate and pro-Israel figures.

The race has also drawn attention from moderate organizations. Jonathan Cowan, co-founder and president of Third Way, an organization that champions moderate policies, and Lily Cohen, its press adviser, recently wrote an op-ed calling out Piker for referring to ultra-Orthodox Jews as "inbred" and saying "Hamas is a thousand times better" than Israel.

Community Perspectives

The controversy highlights deep tensions within the Democratic Party's base, particularly among Arab American and Muslim communities who feel alienated by what they perceive as a deliberate political maneuver.

James Zogby, a Lebanese American member of the Democratic National Committee, said: "There is an asymmetry of compassion and asymmetry of political pressure – Arabs get the pressure and Israel gets compassion. No one will pay attention to the human element of the situation, which is that their ancestral village is gone, and their homes demolished."

Israel's Lebanon invasion has displaced more than 1 million civilians in recent months, and the IDF has begun wiping out Lebanese villages that some Michiganders or their families are from "in accordance with the model in Gaza," in the words of Israel's defense minister.

El-Sayed expressed a similar sentiment: "The Arab community, their voice and their pain has been rendered insignificant or, even worse, an inconvenient aspect of our political situation."

What's at Stake

The 2024 Senate race in Michigan was decided by 0.3 percentage points, with Elissa Slotkin (D) defeating Mike Rogers (R) 48.6%-48.3%. With former U.S. Sen. Gary Peters announcing he would not seek re-election, the race has taken on even greater significance.

Currently, Republicans hold a 53-45 majority in the Senate. The outcome of the Michigan race will affect the partisan balance of the U.S. Senate in the 120th Congress, with 33 seats up for election this year.

As the primary season heats up, the debate over how the Democratic Party engages with progressive voices like Piker, and how it handles criticism of Israel, may prove as consequential as any policy position in determining the party's success in this crucial swing state.