Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed on Wednesday indicated he would no longer campaign with Hasan Piker after stoking scrutiny for associating with him due to controversial positions the Twitch streamer holds.
Throughout his campaign, el Sayed has repeatedly appeared with Piker, including during campus rallies at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan in April, and at a Detroit event earlier this month. Their relationship has raised eyebrows due to accusations that Piker employs antisemitic rhetoric.
After moving to distance himself from Piker following his primary win on Aug. 5, el Sayed told Semafor on Wednesday evening he has “no plans” to campaign with him. The shift comes roughly two months ahead of the general election, where the Senate hopeful must amass majority support in one of the country’s tightest races to clinch a victory over former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.
The development comes after Republicans and more centrist Democrats have raised concerns that Piker is antisemitic, pointing to his repeated denials or downplaying of sweeping sexual violence against Jews in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Piker has said he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time” and called Hamas “a thousand times better” than Israel.
Piker has also drawn scrutiny for saying in 2019 that the United States “deserved” the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He later walked back the statement, saying it was taken out of context.
After declining to disavow Piker’s 9/11 comment before the primary election, el Sayed called the remark “a dumb statement” on Aug. 9.
“And of course I think Hasan himself would say that was a dumb statement,” el Sayed said. “But you know, to sit here and play gotcha politics with a dumb thing somebody said out of context that they disavowed themselves … I want to be held accountable for what I say and what I do rather than this idea that we’re so stuck in cancel culture that all of us agreed was a bad idea back in 2020.”
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On Wednesday, el Sayed called “the effort to make this race about a streamer in LA … actually kind of laughable.”
“Most people are a lot more worried about things like, what are you going to do about my groceries? What are you going to do about my healthcare? What are you going to do about the fact that I cannot afford [to enroll] my kid in baseball, even though my kid’s a really great baseball player?” el Sayed said in Detroit. “Those are the things I’m talking about, and the effort to make this race about a streamer in LA is actually kind of laughable.”