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Michigan Senate Race Tightens Between Rogers and El-Sayed

19 sources · updated 2026-10-26
Left 47% Center 5% Right 47%
9 left · 1 center · 9 right

What happened

On October 25, 2026, President Donald Trump campaigned in Port Huron, Michigan, for Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative and House Intelligence Committee chairman, against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan-born former Detroit and Wayne County health official, in a closely polled race for an open Senate seat ahead of the November 3 election. At the rally Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and “Muslim Brotherhood member,” said he would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate,” and likened keeping him from a Senate seat to passengers who fought hijackers on United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001; speaker David Beamer, whose son Todd died on that flight, said a birth certificate “doesn’t make you an American,” though both candidates were born in Michigan. The same day on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rogers said “I’ve never called him a terrorist” and that the contest is “me versus Abdul.” El-Sayed, who has denied any Muslim Brotherhood affiliation, told a Grand Rapids audience the next day, “I will be Senator Muhammad to you, bro,” after Trump referred to him as “Muhammad”; former President Barack Obama had rallied for him in Detroit on October 24.
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 19 articles

8 of 16 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report. Former Rep. Mike Rogers denied part of it on the record.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 8 of 16
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Former Rep. Mike Rogers, Donald Trump, David Beamer, Bishara Bahbah, Lon Johnson and Kristen Welker
Primary evidence · cites a document or data 0 of 16
Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: None cited.
Credits another outlet 0 of 16
The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
Unnamed sources 0 of 16
The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
On-record denial 2
A named person or institution says the claim, or part of it, is not true. It is on the record — someone signed their name to it — but it is not confirmation, so it never counts toward On the record. Criticizing or dissenting from a decision is not a denial. The count is how many people or institutions deny it; each is listed with the first article that carried the denial. Here: Former Rep. Mike Rogers (The Hill, Oct 26, 12:48 UTC); Abdul El-Sayed (The Guardian, Oct 26, 15:54 UTC)
How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 24, 20:04 UTC by Breitbart, naming its source.
Not counted 3
Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Left-leaning coverage treats Trump's Michigan rally as a faith-based smear and leaves out the documents Rogers cites against El-Sayed. Bloomberg said Trump portrayed the Democrat as sympathetic to extremism "without offering any evidence." That same coverage does not report a 2012 letter right-leaning outlets say El-Sayed signed backing Mohamed Morsi and urging a purge of Egypt's police and press. Without that item, the race reads as insult versus denial, not as a fight over a paper trail. Left-leaning pieces lead with Rogers denying he has called El-Sayed a terrorist. Right-leaning coverage leads instead with Democratic voters Rogers claims El-Sayed has already lost, including a former Michigan party chairman. Has anyone put the 2012 letter's actual sentences in front of El-Sayed and recorded his answer to those words?
Bottom line

Rogers is campaigning on a letter backing Mohamed Morsi that Breitbart treated as the race. Trump is campaigning on calling El-Sayed a "jihadist," and that is the only version Bloomberg tells.

The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • El-Sayed was identified as a signatory to a November 2012 letter backing Mohamed Morsi and urging a purge of Egypt's police and media contextin Breitbart, Fox News · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Former Michigan Democratic Party chairman Lon Johnson wrote that he will not vote for El-Sayed official statementin Breitbart, Daily Wire · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Trump compared stopping El-Sayed from entering the Senate to passengers fighting hijackers on United Flight 93 official statementin NBC News, The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Rally speaker David Beamer said El-Sayed's birth certificate does not make him an American contextin NBC News · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, called Trump's statements racist official statementin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets treated the Port Huron speech as Islamophobic rhetoric that recast a Muslim American’s faith and Egyptian heritage as a security threat “without offering any evidence,” citing Trump’s “jihadist” and metal-detector lines, the Flight 93 comparison, and Beamer’s claim that El-Sayed is not American. The New York Times headlined an “Islamophobic Rant” in which Trump said El-Sayed would “invite hordes of jihadis to our shores”; NBC and the Guardian reported Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, calling the remarks “racist” and “crossing a red line.” They stressed that El-Sayed has called loyalty attacks “shameful,” and that Obama warned opponents would use “your faith” to paint him as “less patriotic and less American.” Coverage also noted Rogers would not repeat Trump’s “terrorist” label while dodging whether he is a MAGA Republican and declining to clarify his position on tariffs on Canada, and framed El-Sayed’s costs and Medicare for All message—and Sen. Bernie Sanders’s charge that Trump was using racism because Republicans had little to say about working families—as the substance being displaced by smears.
The Right View
Right-leaning outlets framed the race as a national-security fight over El-Sayed’s ideology, not his religion. Rogers told Breitbart “this is about the heart and soul of America” and “not about the way you pray,” citing a 2012 letter El-Sayed signed backing Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi and calling for a purge of police and press, alleged Muslim Student Association and family Brotherhood links, CAIR money he said had “funneled about $400,000 into his campaign,” and donors he associated with Hamas and Hezbollah. He said El-Sayed “could not even get a security clearance,” “cannot condemn a Hezbollah-inspired terrorist attack on a synagogue here in Michigan,” and would not condemn the IRGC, and that Jewish Democrats, Black voters in Detroit, Pontiac, and Flint, and former Michigan Democratic Party chair Lon Johnson—“We’re not going to vote for him”—had already ruled him out. On Meet the Press, Rogers accused the host of “giving him a pass”; his campaign said El-Sayed “deflects, gets angry and dismisses” Brotherhood questions and has not put out a clear statement “disavowing a terrorist organization.”
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that Trump and a featured speaker applied “jihadist,” terrorist, 9/11, and “doesn’t make you an American” language to a U.S.-born candidate without evidence El-Sayed engaged in terrorism—an attack a founder of Arab Americans for Trump called “racist,” and that Rogers himself would not echo. The right’s strongest argument is the 2012 Morsi letter’s call to purge police and press, together with reported organizational and donor associations and on-record Democratic refusals such as Lon Johnson’s, which Rogers says El-Sayed still answers with deflection rather than a plain disavowal, a fitness issue he insists is “not about the way you pray.” The unresolved tension is whether that record is a legitimate Senate-level national-security inquiry or a faith-coded substitute for debating the candidates’ economic and security positions.

19 sources

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