Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens fired back at Senate primary opponent Abdul El-Sayed after he attacked AIPAC and Chuck Schumer on video, accusing him of wanting to "blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans."
Stevens, a U.S. representative running to fill retiring Sen. Gary Peters' seat, posted her response on X after El-Sayed released a video on the platform accusing AIPAC of picking "the least capable candidate in America" and charging that the pro-Israel lobby and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were "doubling down" on their support for her. Stevens' post did not hold back.
El-Sayed, who has drawn endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has made outside spending a central grievance of his campaign. Stevens, backed by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and a constellation of super PACs, has positioned herself as the establishment favorite in a race that has become one of the most expensive Democratic primaries in the country.
The exchange laid bare a fault line that Democratic leaders would rather keep quiet: the growing tension between the party's progressive, anti-Israel wing and its traditional pro-Israel donor base. Stevens chose not to let it stay quiet.
In her X post, Stevens went beyond the antisemitism accusation and challenged El-Sayed's record directly. She reminded voters that both of them appeared on the ballot in 2018, she won her competitive House primary and general election, while El-Sayed lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary to Whitmer by more than twenty points.
Stevens wrote on X:
"Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans. But buddy, let me be very clear, I will lower the costs of groceries, ban stock trading for elected officials, stop Trump's abuses of power, and protect Michigan manufacturing."
She added a pointed warning about the general election, where the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers, would be waiting.
"You lost. You lost by over twenty points to Gretchen Whitmer and you will lose to Mike Rogers by talking like this."
El-Sayed's video struck a different tone. He framed the race as a fight against monied interests and pitched himself as the populist alternative. His language centered on AIPAC and Schumer by name, a choice Stevens clearly read as something more than a policy disagreement about campaign finance.
In the video, El-Sayed said:
"If you think you can beat money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all, come."
The spending gap between the two campaigns is staggering. Breitbart News' Jasmyn Jordan reported on the final debate between Stevens and El-Sayed, citing figures that show Stevens' campaign and six super PACs supporting her have spent more than $61 million on primary ads, per AdImpact data shared by CBS. El-Sayed's campaign and its allied outside groups have spent more than $15.3 million combined, per FEC reports also cited by CBS.
The New York Times, as cited in Jordan's reporting, put a finer point on the outside-money picture. United Democracy Project, AIPAC's main super PAC, spent $30.6 million on advertising backing Stevens. Six additional super PACs that had not disclosed their donors spent a combined $29.4 million on her behalf.
That means roughly $60 million in outside money flowed to Stevens from groups whose donors are partially or fully unknown to voters. El-Sayed has seized on that disparity as proof that the Democratic establishment is rigging the primary against him. Stevens, for her part, has not apologized for the support, and her willingness to accuse El-Sayed of antisemitism suggests she views his attacks on AIPAC as crossing a line, not merely criticizing a lobbying organization.
The broader pattern is familiar. Progressive Democrats who target AIPAC by name often frame their criticism as opposition to money in politics. But when the specific target is a Jewish political organization and the specific villain is a Jewish Senate leader, the line between campaign-finance populism and something uglier gets thin fast. Stevens decided to say so out loud.
The endorsement battle underscores how seriously both wings of the party are treating this race. Gov. Whitmer endorsed Stevens on or around July 24, a move designed to consolidate establishment support in the final stretch before the primary. Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, has also backed El-Sayed, a signal that the race has become a proxy fight between the party's center-left and its progressive flank, much like earlier intraparty clashes that have drawn scrutiny to Sanders' endorsement choices.
Warren endorsed El-Sayed around July 20, adding her national profile to his insurgent bid. The dueling endorsements turned the Michigan Senate primary into a test case for whether the Democratic establishment can still hold off progressive challengers, or whether the energy on the party's left will overwhelm the donor class and its preferred candidates.
Michigan's Democratic politics have produced no shortage of controversy in recent cycles. A prominent Michigan Democratic donor faced 16 felony charges tied to an alleged scheme involving a taxpayer-funded grant, and the state's political scene has been roiled by scandals that cut across the party's factions.
El-Sayed's campaign has also faced its own uncomfortable associations. A former staffer for a leading Michigan Democratic Senate candidate was charged in a federal conspiracy case tied to alleged pro-Hamas vandalism, a reminder that the tensions around Israel policy in the Michigan primary are not abstract.
For years, Democratic leaders have tried to manage the growing rift between their pro-Israel donor base and a progressive wing that views organizations like AIPAC with open hostility. El-Sayed's video, singling out AIPAC and Schumer by name, calling Stevens "the least capable candidate in America", forced Stevens to choose between ignoring the provocation and confronting it head-on.
She chose confrontation. And her framing, that El-Sayed wants to "blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans", is a serious charge, one that goes beyond the usual primary-season sparring. It places the accusation of antisemitism squarely inside a Democratic primary, not as a Republican attack line but as an indictment from one Democrat against another.
Whether that charge sticks with Michigan voters will depend on how they interpret El-Sayed's remarks. He did not use antisemitic language in the quoted portions of his video. But his decision to name AIPAC and Schumer as the villains of his campaign, rather than, say, dark money or corporate PACs in general, gave Stevens an opening she was clearly prepared to exploit.
The spending figures add another layer. When a candidate rails against a specific Jewish political organization while being outspent four-to-one, the populist framing writes itself. But so does the counterargument: that choosing a Jewish organization as your foil, when plenty of non-Jewish super PACs are also in the mix, reveals something about which enemies a candidate finds most useful.
Democrats elsewhere have faced similar reckonings. A Wisconsin Democrat recently scrambled to distance herself from a far-left media figure after the association became politically toxic, a reminder that the party's progressive wing can be as much a liability as an asset in competitive races.
Several key details remain unclear. El-Sayed's response to Stevens' antisemitism accusation, if he offered one, does not appear in the available reporting. The exact date of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary is not stated. And the full content of El-Sayed's video, beyond the portions quoted, has not been detailed, leaving open the question of whether additional remarks gave Stevens further cause for her charge or whether the quoted excerpts represent the full scope of his comments about AIPAC and Schumer.
The relationship between the $61 million total ad spend attributed to Stevens' side and the specific super PAC figures, $30.6 million from United Democracy Project and $29.4 million from undisclosed-donor PACs, also remains imprecise. Whether those figures overlap or are additive is not clarified in the available data.
What is clear is that this race has become a national flashpoint. The money, the endorsements, the antisemitism accusation, and the ideological stakes have elevated a Michigan Senate primary into a referendum on what the Democratic Party is willing to tolerate from its left flank, and what it is willing to say about it.
When Democrats start accusing each other of scapegoating Jewish Americans, the party's internal fault lines are no longer cracks. They are canyons, and no amount of outside money can build a bridge across them.
