OPINION:
“This is a despicable betrayal from Rep. Stevens,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, wrote on X on Sunday, after Haley Stevens endorsed Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers over Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, to whom she lost in the primary.
Mr. El-Sayed will not definitively say whether Israel has the right to exist, has suggested that it is as great a threat to the U.S. as Iran and would not condemn an ad depicting U.S. aid to Israel as the reason Michiganders have problems affording bananas at the grocery store.
He campaigned with Hasan Piker, who said: “America deserved 9/11.” Both Mr. El-Sayed’s family and extended family have connections to terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Mr. El-Sayed penned an essay expressing support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
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If anyone is “despicable,” it is Mr. Schumer, whose job it is to recruit Democratic candidates to run for U.S. Senate. A simple background check on Mr. El-Sayed would have revealed him to be a problematic choice for the moderate, working-class state.
Michigan swings between parties: Donald Trump won it by a narrow margin of 0.23% in 2016, Joseph R. Biden carried it by 2.78% in 2020, then Mr. Trump flipped it back in 2024, defeating Kamala Harris by 1.42%.
Yet Mr. Schumer remained quiet after Mr. El-Sayed won the primary — notable given that Mr. Schumer had backed Ms. Stevens during the primary race. He then chose to endorse Mr. El-Sayed and ignore his antisemitism. Instead of condemning the hate, he embraced it in hopes of winning a Senate seat.
It was political malpractice. Mr. El-Sayed’s campaign has focused more on Doha than on Detroit, and he has proved unable to pivot to the middle in the general election. Ms. Stevens endorsed Mr. El-Sayed and volunteered to campaign with him, but all her overtures were rejected, simply because she supports the state of Israel.
Mr. El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic primary against Ms. Stevens, defeating her by 14,893 votes, or about 1 percentage point. Her voters, Black and Jewish Michiganders, are finding it hard to come home to a Democratic Party that has spurned them.
All this would have been easily predicted had Mr. Schumer had moral clarity. However, because he valued political power over the country, he was blinded to Mr. El-Sayed’s obvious liabilities. Now, Democrats are fretting that they will lose Michigan, a Senate seat easily defended, had their nominee not been so radical.
Mr. Schumer made the same mistake in Maine.
The party apparatus rallied around Graham Platner, a man with a tattoo widely identified as a Nazi symbol. His past social media posts would have raised red flags had anyone read or cared about them: disparaging U.S. troops, rural White Maine residents, the police and rape victims.
It was only after a woman accused Mr. Platner of sexual assault that Democrats called for his withdrawal from the race.
Former state Senate President Troy Jackson was then selected to run in the general. This is a man whose longtime partner is his second cousin. Mr. Jackson has told Sen. Susan M. Collins, a Republican, to “shut up” during their final televised debate.
He has been unable to articulate the difference between Medicare and Medicaid and drew a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel.
Maine is the only state where Ms. Harris won in 2024 and is up for grabs this cycle, and it should be a slam dunk for Democrats. Instead, it too is a toss-up.
Then there is Alaska.
In an “October surprise,” The New York Times revealed that Democratic operatives, including those within Mr. Schumer’s Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, worked to find and recruit Dan J. Sullivan to run for the Senate in Alaska as a spoiler to Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan.
They were successful in their election rigging, as Democrat Mary Peltola is now running against Dan S. Sullivan and Dan J. Sullivan, the Democratic decoy.
Regardless of the legality of such a maneuver, the political trick is so blatantly dirty that it is sure to turn off some voters. The late-breaking news is now jeopardizing what appeared to be a Democratic pickup.
Blame Mr. Schumer for again choosing political power over country — and being sloppy about it.
Historically, Democrats should have a good night Tuesday, as the party out of power usually picks up seats in midterm elections. None of their success will be because of the so-called leadership of Mr. Schumer.
He has acted despicably.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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