Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign is pushing back after a resurfaced 2019 photograph tied the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate to prominent socialist activists and the Democratic Socialists of America.
El-Sayed, a self-described “capitalist” who is locked in a tight race against GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, 61, has spent the week fending off questions about the viral image that shows him alongside Linda Sarsour, the controversial activist who once called him DSA’s “newest member.” The photo emerged just days after a heated televised debate Thursday between El-Sayed and Rogers, who trails by roughly 3 points in the RealClearPolitics average.
Sarsour, 46, has backed El-Sayed for nearly a decade, a Post review found. Her support began during his unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial bid against now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, when she traveled with Muslim activists from New York to Michigan to campaign for him. She later described the experience as transformative.
“It led me to my beloved communities in Michigan to build, strategize, inspire and expand an electorate,” she wrote in a social media post at the time. She added that she had coached another socialist, future “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., by telling her “you were made for this” before Tlaib’s successful congressional run.
The 2019 photograph at the center of the current controversy features El-Sayed with Katherine Brezler, who works for the Queens borough president. Brezler posted the selfie on social media, tagging Sarsour and writing that she was pictured with “the newest member of @detroitdsa.” The Detroit DSA account responded enthusiastically: “Welcome to the team comrade @AbdulElSayed!” The group added: “@OrganizerJess36 — you did it!”
Brezler, speaking as a private citizen, later told The Post her comment was simply “a little jokey joke on the Internet.”
The Detroit DSA has continued to tout El-Sayed as a “longtime friend,” highlighting his appearance at its 2019 Douglass-Debs dinner, named partly for socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs. The group also saluted him that February after he “signed onto our bold demand to seize abandoned GM plants & convert them to green, public use,” according to a reply to El-Sayed’s since-deleted X post.
El-Sayed’s New York connections run deeper than the single photograph. He lived in New York City from 2015 to 2018 while attending medical school at Columbia University, a stint that caused residency complications during his gubernatorial campaign. He is also backed by Gustavo Gordillo, 38, co-chair of the DSA’s NYC chapter, who in August posted from LaGuardia Airport about a flight full of canvassers heading to Detroit.
“At LaGuardia going to Detroit and everyone on the flight is going to canvass,” Gordillo wrote on X.
Sarsour’s own political influence extends well beyond El-Sayed. She helped deliver the lefty “Squad” in Congress after serving as executive director of the Arab American Association of New York and co-founding MPower Change. Her efforts also helped give rise to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the nation’s first socialist mayor. She has faced repeated accusations of antisemitism, backed the boycott movement against Israel, and argued that feminism is incompatible with Zionism.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has thrown her support behind El-Sayed as well, gushing at a fundraiser Monday that an El-Sayed victory would prove lefties can win “anywhere.” She announced plans to join him for a three-stop bus tour in Michigan, which she shared in an Instagram post Friday night.
The scrutiny over El-Sayed’s associations has drawn sharp commentary from conservative observers. Jesse Arm, vice president of the Manhattan Institute, tied Sarsour’s network to a broader political project.
“Linda Sarsour has spent years building a political network to elect far-left candidates who share her anti-American worldview, and Abdul El-Sayed has hardly concealed his own hardline ideological commitments,” Arm said. “The ascendant far left is not merely a collection of radical candidates, but an organized political movement with the infrastructure and relationships to translate its Islamist-sympathetic, anti-Western agenda into political power.”
Jake Altman, a former Boston DSA member who says he left the group in disgust, voiced similar concerns about El-Sayed’s agenda.
“There’s a real fear that these DSA candidates or DSA-adjacent candidates are beholden to a hardcore activist class,” Altman said. “He’s brought this mob into the Democratic Party and he’s going to turn them loose again.”
Stu Smith, also of the Manhattan Institute, dismissed El-Sayed’s denials outright.
“It’s a charade,” Smith said. “It’s just bizarre how they really do go out of their way to kind not say they are a member of DSA. Anyone would see if it quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, and floats like a duck, it’s a duck. It just defies imagination on some fronts.”
El-Sayed’s campaign has forcefully rejected the socialist label. “Abdul has said he is not a socialist. He is a capitalist and he has never been a member of the DSA,” campaign spokeswoman Roxy Richner told The Post.
Sarsour, who did not respond to a call seeking comment, has maintained her public support. In May, she posted on Instagram: “It’s very CLEAR to me and has been. @AbdulElSayed is THE CHOICE for U.S. Senate race in Michigan!” She urged followers to knock on doors for him, adding: “So proud of Dr. Abdul and his incredible movement.” She also donated $1,000 to his Senate campaign a week before the Aug. 4 primary.
The residency questions that plagued El-Sayed’s 2018 gubernatorial run against Whitmer have faded, but the ideological questions raised by his longstanding activist alliances now threaten to complicate his closing argument in a race that remains statistically tied.
AOC’s three-stop Michigan bus tour with El-Sayed is expected to begin in the coming days.