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Despite Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed denying ties to socialism, a Republican Michigan lawmaker warned his policy agenda tells a different story and predicted voters will reject it in November.
“Abdul El-Sayed can’t define what a woman is, so I’m not surprised he can’t define what socialist is,” Michigan state Rep. Bill G. Schuette told Fox News Digital.
“The facts are all the policies he supports are emblematic of the DSA movement and of this really far-left socialist idea.”
El-Sayed, a former public health official, narrowly defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., securing an upset victory for the party’s progressive wing in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary earlier this month. His nomination follows multiple primary victories by candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including in New York, Florida and Colorado.
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While El-Sayed has pushed back on the socialist label, he has drawn support from political heavyweights and DSA members like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
El-Sayed previously told CBS News he wants to build a “broad coalition” of supporters of President Donald Trump and DSA members, saying he doesn’t “do ideology” but favors “solutions that solve problems.” He separately told CNN, “I believe in capitalism, I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated.”
According to Schuette, El-Sayed’s victory is evidence that the Democratic Party has “jumped the shark” by embracing more progressive candidates.
“They’ve gone down a policy rabbit hole of far-left socialism that is at odds with our way of life in Michigan and our way of life in the United States of America writ large,” he said.
Schuette said his biggest concern is that El-Sayed wants to put Michigan on “a completely different track.”
“I’m more concerned about the policies that he’s advocating for that, again, I think are at really sharp odds with the way you can start a business, start a family and live your life in Michigan,” he said.
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Some of El-Sayed’s campaign priorities are abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Medicare for All, taxing billionaire wealth and ending U.S. military aid to Israel.
Schuette said affordability will be key in the midterms, saying that El-Sayed’s policies run counter to the “spirit of America.”
“The spirit of America is about entrepreneurship and American ingenuity, hard work,” he said. “Those are the types of policies that Abdul El-Sayed would work directly against.”
Schuette also took aim at El-Sayed’s association with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who has roughly 10 million social media followers and has said “America deserved 9/11.” Piker endorsed El-Sayed and has attended several of his campaign events.
“The fact that he associates with people like Hasan Piker, who say that America deserves 9/11, I mean, that’s disgusting,” he said.
El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker after the streamer’s comments about Jewish Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, the Democratic nominee in the state’s 11th Congressional District. A recent viral audio clip, which Moss has said is fake, appeared to suggest that his entire reason for running for Congress is to make sure that America continues to support Israel.
Reacting to the clip, Piker said, “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”
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“I want to be crystal clear, nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople,” El-Sayed said in a statement Monday responding to Piker’s comments.
Highlighting the importance of representing Michiganders, Schuette argued El-Sayed doesn’t align with the state, pointing to his resurfaced remarks that he “hates” Mackinac Island and linking football to “toxic masculinity.”
“It doesn’t seem that he likes Michigan very much or our way in America very much either,” he said.
With the midterm elections approaching in November, Schuette said he believes voters will reject socialism and choose “an idea that looks for ways to give the American people more freedom and opportunity and more of their own money back in their own wallets.”
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“I’m confident the people in Michigan will choose that,” he said.
El-Sayed will face Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers for retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’ seat in a race that could determine control of the Senate.
Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment.
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