Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is working overtime to distance himself from the socialist label, even as he campaigns alongside self-described democratic socialists and headlines fundraisers for their organizations.
El-Sayed sat down with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC's MS NOW this week and faced a straightforward question: If you're endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and running ads with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, why aren't you a democratic socialist? His answer amounted to: trust the label I give myself, not the company I keep.
The Michigan Democrat, who faces U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in an August 4 primary, told Psaki he believes in capitalism, just a version with heavy government regulation, public insurance, and federal investment in schools and infrastructure. That distinction may satisfy editorial boards. Whether it satisfies Michigan voters is another question, and his Republican opponent is betting it won't.
El-Sayed's denials run into a stubborn factual problem: his own calendar. Between 2017 and 2020, he attended and spoke at six Democratic Socialists of America events. His first appearance came during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, and by 2019 he was headlining a DSA fundraiser that pulled in $10,000 for the organization.
At that 2019 event, DSA organizers introduced El-Sayed as "a longtime friend of Detroit DSA." He was photographed standing with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a self-described socialist, behind a table displaying a poster that depicted a hand labeled "DSA" choking a snake labeled "capitalism." That is not the imagery of a man with a casual acquaintance with the movement.
El-Sayed has since tried to put daylight between himself and the group. He told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that he is "not technically or practically DSA." In a separate CNN interview, he repeated the formula: "I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism, I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated."
Yet his new campaign ad features Ocasio-Cortez, a card-carrying DSA member. And Sanders, an independent who has proudly called himself a democratic socialist for decades, remains one of his most prominent backers. El-Sayed wants the energy, the volunteers, and the small-dollar fundraising that come with the socialist left's endorsement infrastructure, he just doesn't want the word.
As we previously reported, AOC's endorsement of El-Sayed was itself a direct challenge to Senate Democratic leadership, which had backed a different candidate in the race.
Psaki, to her credit, did not let the question go after one pass. She pointed out that democratic socialists also claim to believe in science and evidence-based policy, and she pushed El-Sayed to explain the actual substantive gap between his platform and theirs.
El-Sayed's response leaned on Medicare for All, a single-payer healthcare proposal, and government investment in infrastructure and public schools. He framed these as empirical conclusions rather than ideological commitments, telling Psaki:
"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."
He added that "the public part would be the insurance" while "the healthcare itself stays private." That framing is a familiar progressive move: describe a government takeover of an entire industry's financing as merely an administrative adjustment. Whether voters see the elimination of private health insurance as a modest tweak remains to be tested at the ballot box.
El-Sayed's broader positioning in the primary, running to the left of the Democratic establishment while pledging to challenge party leadership, has defined his campaign from the start.
Mike Rogers, the presumptive Republican nominee, did not wait long to respond. His communications director, Alyssa Brouillet, issued a statement to Fox News Digital that dispensed with subtlety:
"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 took a shot at El-Sayed's credibility more broadly, saying "the same guy who lied about being a physician is lying about everything else." The factual basis for the physician claim was not detailed in the Rogers campaign statement, and El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to it in the available reporting.
The Rogers campaign used the moment to contrast policy, noting that Rogers had released a healthcare plan focused on "improving affordability, accessibility, and transparency of healthcare for working families." The campaign framed it as one example of "cleaning up the mess Democrats, like Abdul, created during their 32-year monopoly over Michigan's two Senate seats."
The Democratic primary field has already narrowed. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race earlier, leaving El-Sayed and Stevens as the two major candidates heading into August 4.
When Psaki warned El-Sayed that Republicans would try to label him a democratic socialist, he pivoted to offense. "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," he said, before calling Rogers "the worst kind of corporatist."
That instinct, deflect a question about your own record by attacking the other side, is standard political survival. But it does not resolve the underlying tension. El-Sayed headlined a DSA fundraiser that raised $10,000. He spoke at six DSA events over three years. He stood for a photo behind anti-capitalism imagery with a self-described socialist congresswoman. And he is now running ads with AOC, whose DSA membership is a matter of public record.
A deeper look at El-Sayed's relationship with the DSA, including those six events and the fundraiser, paints a picture that his recent interviews have struggled to explain away. We covered that record in detail here.
El-Sayed and Stevens debated Wednesday night and clashed on several issues, though the specifics of those exchanges were not detailed in the available reporting. The August 4 primary will determine which Democrat faces Rogers in November for a seat that has been in Democratic hands for more than three decades.
Meanwhile, the broader progressive endorsement landscape continues to shift. AOC's willingness to back insurgent candidates like El-Sayed, even as other progressive champions have pulled back from similar races, suggests the left sees Michigan as winnable ground for its agenda.
Voters will sort out the labels on August 4. But a candidate who headlines socialist fundraisers, campaigns with socialist endorsers, and runs ads featuring socialist allies shouldn't be surprised when people take him at his associations rather than his disclaimers.
