Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is running from the socialist label even as he campaigns arm-in-arm with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and his years of appearances at Democratic Socialists of America events make the denial a hard sell.
El-Sayed, a Democrat running in Michigan's August 4 Senate primary, sat down with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on her MS NOW program and flatly rejected the idea that he belongs to the democratic socialist movement. Psaki pressed him on the obvious question: if you feature AOC in your ads, campaign alongside Sanders, and count both as close allies, what exactly separates you from the ideology they champion?
His answer amounted to: trust the self-description, not the company he keeps. El-Sayed told Psaki he believes in capitalism, just a regulated version of it, and that his policy positions flow from science and empirical results, not ideology. The problem is that his track record with the DSA, the organization most closely associated with Sanders-style politics in America, runs deeper than a casual acquaintance.
Between 2017 and 2020, El-Sayed attended and spoke at six DSA events, Fox News reported. His involvement began during his 2018 run for Michigan governor and continued well after that campaign ended.
The most revealing appearance came in 2019, when El-Sayed headlined a DSA fundraiser that pulled in $10,000 for the organization. DSA organizers at the event described him as "a longtime friend of Detroit DSA." He was photographed at the fundraiser alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a self-described socialist, both smiling next to a poster depicting a hand labeled "DSA" choking a snake labeled "capitalism."
That image alone makes El-Sayed's current positioning difficult to square. A candidate who headlines fundraisers for an organization whose promotional art depicts the strangling of capitalism does not get to wave away the socialist label by saying he believes in regulated markets.
The MS NOW interview was not the first time El-Sayed tried to put distance between himself and the DSA. He told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, "I'm not technically or practically DSA." In a separate CNN interview, he said, "I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism, I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated."
The fact that El-Sayed has now made this denial across at least three major outlets suggests his campaign recognizes the vulnerability. Michigan is not Brooklyn. A Senate candidate who can be tied to six DSA events, a $10,000 fundraiser, and endorsements from the two most prominent democratic socialists in Congress faces a different electorate than the one that sends AOC back to Washington every two years.
AOC herself has been navigating her own political future, with speculation about a 2028 presidential run keeping her in the national spotlight. Her endorsement of El-Sayed is part of a broader effort by the progressive left to expand its footprint beyond deep-blue urban districts.
When Psaki pointed out that Republicans would try to pin the socialist label on him in a general election, El-Sayed pivoted to offense. He dismissed the concern and attacked his likely Republican opponent.
"We're so concerned about what they're going to say about us that we forget that we also have mouths and can talk about that. Let's talk about Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers is the worst kind of corporatist."
That response reveals the strategy: don't defend the association, redirect. But redirecting only works if the underlying facts stay buried. They haven't.
Mike Rogers, described as the presumptive Republican nominee in the Michigan Senate race, wasted no time responding through his communications director, Alyssa Brouillet. Her statement to Fox News Digital was blunt.
"We all know that if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. This election is about crazy versus common sense. Mike Rogers will hold the line against the Left's socialist takeover and ensure common sense prevails this November."
Brouillet also hit El-Sayed on credibility more broadly, alleging he "lied about being a physician", a claim the Rogers campaign made without further detail in the statement. She contrasted El-Sayed's rhetoric with Rogers' release of a healthcare plan focused on affordability, accessibility, and transparency for working families.
The broader tension within the Democratic Party over how closely to embrace the DSA wing has been playing out for months. Internal DSA fights over endorsements have exposed deep fractures between pragmatists who want to win swing states and ideologues who want to push the party further left.
Credit where it's due: Psaki did not let El-Sayed skate. She asked him directly to explain the difference between his "version of capitalism" and the democratic socialism championed by Sanders and AOC. His answer wandered through Medicare for All, corporate CEO behavior, monopolies, and public investment in schools and infrastructure, landing on the claim that the "public part" of his healthcare vision "would be the insurance" while "the healthcare itself stays private."
"I'm not an ideologue. I'm a lot more interested in empirical results. So, when it comes to Medicare for All, I think that's the best single way to provide folks healthcare in this country."
Medicare for All, a government-run single-payer system that would eliminate private health insurance for most Americans, is the signature policy proposal of the democratic socialist movement. Calling yourself a capitalist while championing the centerpiece of the socialist policy agenda is a distinction without a meaningful difference.
El-Sayed's primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, debated him on Wednesday night, though details of their exchange were not available. The August 4 primary will determine which Democrat faces Rogers in what could be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. Democrats have held both of Michigan's Senate seats for 32 years, according to Brouillet's statement.
Sanders himself has been a polarizing figure even within progressive circles. Recent setbacks for Sanders-aligned candidates have raised questions about whether the democratic socialist brand has reached its ceiling outside of safe blue districts.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders like Ted Cruz have warned that AOC represents the future direction of the Democratic Party, a warning that takes on added weight when candidates like El-Sayed feature her in their ads while simultaneously denying they share her ideology.
El-Sayed can call himself whatever he likes. Voters will judge him on what he proposes to do. And what he proposes, Medicare for All, heavy market regulation, the full progressive infrastructure wish list, lines up point by point with the platform of the democratic socialists whose endorsements he sought, whose fundraisers he headlined, and whose events he attended six times over three years.
The word "socialist" is not the issue. The policies are. And no amount of careful phrasing on cable television changes what those policies would do to American healthcare, American markets, and American taxpayers.
Michigan voters deserve a straight answer, not a branding exercise.
