Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate backed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, insists he is "simply not a socialist", but his years of appearances at Democratic Socialists of America events suggest otherwise.
El-Sayed made the claim during a television interview with Jen Psaki on MS NOW, where the former White House press secretary pressed him on the obvious tension between his endorsements, his policy positions, and his self-description as a capitalist. The exchange laid bare a problem that has dogged El-Sayed's primary campaign against U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens ahead of the August 4 Michigan Democratic Senate primary: he talks like a progressive warrior, campaigns with self-described socialists, and then asks voters to believe the label doesn't fit.
Psaki did not let the contradiction slide. She pointed to El-Sayed's new campaign ad featuring Ocasio-Cortez, his close relationship with Sanders, and the parade of left-wing officials who have stumped for him across the state. "You've also said that you're not a democratic socialist," Psaki told him. "You describe yourself as a capitalist who understands capitalism."
Then she asked the obvious question: what, exactly, is the difference?
El-Sayed's answer was long on buzzwords and short on clarity. As Fox News Digital reported, the candidate told Psaki he believes in "science" and "empirical results," supports Medicare for All, and wants to rethink a financial system he says prioritizes quarterly profits over long-term sustainability. He added that capitalism "works" but "does not work when you have monopolies or oligopolies."
Psaki noted that socialists would also say they believe in science. El-Sayed's response circled back to the same formulation: "It's just a philosophical difference. I'm not an ideologue."
If El-Sayed is not an ideologue, he has spent considerable time in ideological company. Between 2017 and 2020, he attended and spoke at six events organized by the Democratic Socialists of America. His first recorded DSA appearance came during his run for Michigan governor in 2017.
The most revealing event came in 2019, when El-Sayed headlined a DSA fundraiser that raised $10,000 for the organization. DSA organizers introduced him as "a longtime friend of Detroit DSA." A photograph from that evening shows El-Sayed standing next to Rep. Rashida Tlaib, whom the article describes as a self-described socialist, behind a table displaying a poster that depicted a hand labeled "DSA" choking a snake labeled "capitalism."
That image is worth lingering on. A candidate who now tells national television audiences he believes in capitalism once stood smiling beside a poster celebrating its strangulation, at a fundraiser he headlined for the organization doing the strangling.
El-Sayed has tried to create distance from the DSA label in recent weeks. He told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, "I'm not technically or practically DSA." In a separate interview with CNN, he said, "I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism, I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated."
The pattern is consistent: deny the label, keep the allies, and hope voters don't notice the gap. AOC, who has been at the center of internal DSA fights over endorsements and the party's leftward direction, appears in El-Sayed's campaign advertising. Sanders, the most prominent self-identified democratic socialist in American politics, has campaigned alongside him.
El-Sayed wants voters to believe these relationships are incidental, that the endorsements reflect shared "empirical" interests rather than shared ideology. But endorsements are not random acts of kindness. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez back candidates who advance their policy vision. They do not cut ads for moderates.
Mike Rogers, the presumptive Republican nominee for the Michigan Senate seat, wasted no time responding. His communications director, Alyssa Brouillet, issued a statement to Fox News Digital that framed the denial as part of a broader credibility problem.
Brouillet told Fox News Digital:
"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."
She went further, referencing an unspecified claim that El-Sayed had previously misrepresented his credentials: "It's no surprise that the same guy who lied about being a physician is lying about everything else." The specifics of that allegation were not detailed in the report.
Brouillet also announced that Rogers had released a healthcare plan focused on "improving affordability, accessibility, and transparency of healthcare for working families", a direct counter to El-Sayed's Medicare for All pitch. She cast the race in historical terms, noting that Democrats have held both of Michigan's Senate seats for 32 years.
AOC's own political standing has become a subject of debate within the Democratic Party. James Carville has argued she has no viable path to the 2028 presidential nomination, while others in the party see her as its future standard-bearer. Her endorsement of El-Sayed places the Michigan race squarely within that larger factional contest.
When Psaki warned El-Sayed that Republicans would label him a democratic socialist if he won the primary, the candidate tried to shift the conversation. "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. Then he turned his fire on Rogers: "Let's talk about Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers is the worst kind of corporatist."
It was a familiar progressive maneuver, answer a question about your own record by attacking the other side's. But the pivot only underscored the problem. El-Sayed did not explain why he headlined a DSA fundraiser. He did not explain why DSA organizers called him a longtime friend. He did not explain why he posed beside a poster celebrating the destruction of the economic system he now claims to champion.
Instead, he offered policy language that could have come from any number of progressive candidates, Medicare for All, public investment in schools and infrastructure, regulated capitalism, and asked the audience to take his word that these positions are distinct from democratic socialism. The distinction, if it exists, remains opaque.
El-Sayed debated his primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, on Wednesday night. The two reportedly clashed on several issues, though the specific points of disagreement were not detailed. Stevens represents the more traditional wing of the Michigan Democratic Party, and the primary has become a proxy fight over how far left the party's Senate candidates should go.
That internal struggle mirrors broader tensions playing out nationally. Sen. Ted Cruz has warned that AOC is emerging as the Democrats' top presidential contender, a prospect that would pull the party further from the center. Whether El-Sayed's brand of deny-the-label-but-keep-the-allies progressivism can win a general election in Michigan is the question Rogers and Republicans are eager to test.
Sanders and AOC have built their political brands on candor about their ideology. They call themselves democratic socialists and defend the term. El-Sayed wants their endorsements, their volunteers, their fundraising networks, and their campaign ads, but not their label. AOC's growing influence within progressive circles makes that balancing act harder with each election cycle.
Michigan voters heading to the polls on August 4 will decide whether they buy the distinction El-Sayed is selling. But a candidate who headlined a DSA fundraiser, raised $10,000 for the organization, earned the friendship of its local chapter, and stood grinning beside a poster about choking capitalism has a credibility problem that no amount of careful phrasing on cable television can fix.
You can call yourself whatever you like. Your record has a name of its own.
