Poll: Abdul El-Sayed Took Half of Michigan Jewish Vote, Trailing Fellow Democrats

Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed captured roughly half of the Jewish vote in this month's US midterms, a weaker showing than his fellow Democrats, according to a poll released on Friday.

El-Sayed won his race earlier this month, becoming the first Muslim elected to the US Senate as Democrats posted a sweeping nationwide victory over Republicans. His candidacy had unsettled many in Michigan's Jewish community over his initial equivocation about an attempted terrorist attack on a synagogue near Detroit, his anti-Zionism and hostility toward Israel, and his partnership with the incendiary anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker, among other issues.

Because most American Jews vote Democratic and his contest was viewed as key to the party's bid for Senate control, many Jewish voters faced a difficult choice. The survey, conducted for The Jewish Majority research group, found that 50 percent of Jewish voters backed El-Sayed, while 43 percent chose Republican Mike Rogers. Four percent left the Senate race blank and 3 percent picked another candidate.

The gap with other Democrats was stark. In Michigan's gubernatorial race, Democratic candidate Jocelyn Benson won 69 percent of the Jewish vote, 19 percentage points ahead of El-Sayed. Among respondents who identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning, 93 percent supported Benson compared with 70 percent for El-Sayed, a 23-point spread. Overall, 67 percent of those surveyed identified as Democrats or leaned that way.

Pollsters also asked respondents how they voted in Michigan's 2024 elections and found El-Sayed lagged behind the Democratic candidates in those races as well. Seventy-five percent said they had backed Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin in 2024, with 21 percent supporting Rogers. In that year's presidential contest, 69 percent said they voted for Democrat Kamala Harris and 28 percent for Republican Donald Trump.

In March, a terrorist attempted to attack Temple Israel, a prominent congregation in West Bloomfield near Detroit. Referring to the attacker afterward, El-Sayed said, "Hurt people hurt people." He later apologized "if my statement caused pain."

West Bloomfield sits in Oakland County, a center of Jewish life in Michigan. There, Rogers won the Jewish vote with 52 percent, against 39 percent for El-Sayed, the poll found.

The survey also showed that 98 percent of Michigan Jewish Democrats who opposed El-Sayed said they would likely have voted for a different Democratic candidate. Among those who rejected him, 87 percent cited concerns about antisemitism, 84 percent pointed to his comments following the Temple Israel attack, 83 percent cited his positions on Israel, and 82 percent referenced his treatment of the Jewish community.

The research firm Mercury Public Affairs conducted the poll on behalf of the Jewish Majority, surveying 883 Michigan Jewish voters with a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points. The study combined an early-voter survey from earlier this month with a follow-up round of interviews that concluded on Tuesday.