Republican Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers released a new advertisement on Saturday criticizing his Democratic opponent Abdul el Sayed for past comments he has made about football.
“My dad was a football coach at Redford Union,” Rogers says in the advertisement while donning a University of Michigan shirt. “I played football all through high school. On the gridiron, I learned about teamwork, and toughness. Abdul, well, he says football is racist, sexist, and dominated by toxic masculinity.”
Roger’s criticism stems from a 2021 essay el Sayed wrote in which he references the “toxic masculinity at the heart of America’s most popular sport.” El Sayed also discussed his relationship with football earlier in the week while on Fox News’s Jesse Watter’s Primetime, and pivoted to affordability when asked, “You said the [National Football League] was racist; what did you mean by that?”
Rogers has looked to capitalize throughout his campaign on el Sayed’s socialist beliefs and other controversial comments he’s made in the past, including expressing support for defunding the police and calling to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Common sense vs. crazy; that’s Michigan’s choice,” Rogers said in closing, referencing a common attack line Republicans have deployed in recent weeks and months as socialist figures such as el Sayed have become more mainstream among Democrats. “Abdul thinks football is bad,” he also says in the clip, “but men playing women’s sports is good. That’s just not who we are in Michigan.”
ABDUL EL SAYED APOLOGIZES TO MICHIGAN JEWS FOR CONTROVERSIAL SYNAGOGUE ATTACK STATEMENT
The race otherwise progressed on Saturday as el Sayed apologized to a group of Jewish Democrats for a controversial statement he made in the spring in response to an antisemitic attack at a Michigan synagogue. He has come under fire throughout the summer for his anti-Israel views and ties to internet personality Hasan Piker, who has said America deserved the September 11th attacks.
The statewide Democratic Party also hosted its final convention before November’s midterm elections on Saturday. El Sayed attempted to further distance himself from Piker while speaking to reporters after the event, saying, “I am not interested in a conversation about a social media person in California.”