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Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed recently escalated his feud with Republican nominee Mike Rogers, who is more than 20 years older than El-Sayed, challenging the former FBI agent to a bout of tackle football after accusing Rogers of being “too afraid” to debate him.
“Since you’re too afraid to debate me, how about you ‘hold me accountable’ on a football field instead,” El-Sayed posted to X on Wednesday. “Tackle, no pads like we used to play when we were kids. I’d be happy to show you [how] much I love football.”
Rogers is 63, and El-Sayed is 41.
The unusual challenge comes as Rogers seeks to turn El-Sayed’s past criticism of football culture into a campaign liability, while El-Sayed has increasingly leaned into sports, fitness and a defense of masculinity as he courts male voters. The exchange quickly became personal, with Rogers’ campaign mocking El-Sayed’s height rather than accepting the challenge.
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El-Sayed’s X post was in response to a clip of Rogers criticizing him for past comments he made on topics such as football and the 4th of July.
“This guy spent hours hating on what most Michiganders would enjoy in their pastimes, and he should be held to account for that,” Rogers said on Fox News. “These are views that he held, that he was pretty strong about, but he knew that he had to delete them all. … If people really knew who he was, they wouldn’t vote for him.”
In an October 2021 essay, El-Sayed wrote that “the toxic masculinity at the heart of America’s most popular sport — and men’s sports culture more generally — is way deeper than a few emails or a Jay-Z turnaround.”
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Though some have argued that this is evidence of El-Sayed hating football, the Democratic Senate hopeful played football growing up and was the captain of his high school team. He called sports his “lifeline.”
While El-Sayed has sharply criticized toxic elements of male sports culture, he has also defended masculinity and chided Democrats for talking down to men, often posting fitness-related content as part of his strategy to appeal to male voters.
Rogers’ campaign fired back at El-Sayed’s post by mocking his height.
“That’s an awfully tall threat coming from down there,” the Mike Rogers War Room X account posted.
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Rogers’ official campaign account posted a GIF of Will Ferrell saying “he’s an angry elf” in response to El-Sayed’s challenge.
El-Sayed was listed at 5 feet, 9 inches during his University of Michigan lacrosse career. A 2008 news story, however, listed him at 5 feet, 8 inches.
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The El-Sayed campaign did not respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital Wednesday.
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