AIPAC’s Michigan Dilemma
Why spend $50 million to defeat Abdul El-Sayed in the primary when Mike Rogers is acceptable?
Outside organizations have poured close to $50 million into supporting Representative Haley Stevens or attacking Abdul El-Sayed. Roughly $30 million can be directly associated with AIPAC and its affiliates. The source of the remaining pro-Stevens spending is less clear. A Stronger Michigan has spent approximately $12 million without disclosing its donors.
Why should AIPAC spend so much on this primary when the Republican nominee Mike Rogers is relatively moderate, at least to the extent where any Republican can be described as moderate, and strongly supportive of Israel.
The unacceptable outcome is Senator Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed’s response to the March attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield helps explain that concern. He unequivocally condemned the attack, declared that antisemitism had no place in the community and said there was “never a justification” for attacking innocent people or a house of worship. But he then repeatedly invoked the phrase “hurt people hurt people,” emphasized that the attacker had recently lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike and argued that events 6,000 miles away could produce violence in Michigan. The FBI subsequently described the attacker as Hezbollah-inspired and Israeli intelligence claims the attackers brother was a commander in Hezbollah.
His more recent remarks have been still more explicit. El-Sayed has described Israel as a “rogue state,” accused it of genocide and apartheid, previously equated the Israeli government’s evil with that of Hamas, and repeatedly refused to say that Israel should continue to exist as a Jewish state. When asked whether he supported one state or two, he said that was not his choice to make.
American Jews are routinely expected to restrain Israel, criticize its government and prove that their attachment to it does not override their American obligations. Comparable pressure is rarely placed on Arab or Muslim political leaders to moderate rhetoric denying Jewish self-determination or attributing anti-Jewish violence to Israel; in El-Sayed’s case, the rhetoric has intensified as the campaign has progressed.
AIPAC therefore has a legitimate reason to oppose him. The question is when.
Defeating El-Sayed in the primary would send a clear warning that a Democrat who crosses a particular political line may never reach the general election. But it would also create a dangerous political outcome. Michigan Democrats are badly divided, and in my view either Democratic nominee is likely to lose to Rogers.
If Stevens wins the primary after nearly $50 million in outside intervention and then loses in November, progressives will claim that AIPAC and other centrist organizations purchased the nomination, rejected the candidate preferred by Democratic voters and still lost the seat. The defeat would be a disaster not only for centrist Democrats but also for AIPAC’s influence within the party.
An El-Sayed nomination followed by a general-election defeat would produce a much clearer result. The progressive wing would have chosen the nominee and would bear responsibility for losing a competitive Senate seat. The defeat would be a blunt message to the Democratic Party: nominate candidates who alienate Jewish voters and other supporters of Israel, and Republicans may win elections even in a state like Michigan where the current governor and both senators are Democrats.
The least risky strategy for AIPAC would therefore be to stay out of the Democratic primary. If El-Sayed wins the nomination, AIPAC and its allies could then spend heavily to destroy him in the general election.
That approach would prevent AIPAC from being blamed for a Stevens defeat, force progressives to defend their own candidate before the full Michigan electorate and still produce an acceptable senator—either Stevens or Rogers. The only risk is that El-Sayed might win, not an impossible outcome in a year where the overall political outlook increasingly resembles the one that existed in 2006 and 2018 two blue-wave years.