The leading candidates in Michigan’s heated Senate race have faced off in their first televised debate, with less than a month remaining before the United States midterm elections. Thursday’s hour-long debate was a microcosm of how tense the toss-up race has become. Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, formerly the health director for Wayne County, repeatedly sought to paint his Republican adversary Mike Rogers as a yacht-owning millionaire out of touch with ordinary voters.
For his part, Rogers, a former member of the US House of Representatives, lobbed accusations at El-Sayed that he was soft on “terrorism” and had foreign sympathies. The Michigan-born El-Sayed has repeatedly faced Islamophobic attacks while on the campaign trail, with Republican President Donald Trump labelling him an “extremist, terrorist sympathizer” whose history “goes back to the days of the Jihad”. If elected, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim member of the US Senate.
The two candidates spent much of their hour onstage together speaking over one another, as they exchanged pointed barbs. He can’t bring himself to condemn –,” Rogers began, referencing a March attack on a synagogue. You make stuff up.” The Senate race in Michigan is considered key to the battle for control of the US Senate.
Democrats are seeking to flip both chambers of Congress, but shifting control of the Senate will be a tougher prospect, given that only a third of its 100 seats are on the November 3 ballot. Host Rick Albin at times struggled to keep the debate on track, as tensions rose. You can’t litigate all of these with 14 different rebuttals, so please work with me,” Albin told the two candidates at one point.
Here are the key takeaways from the evening’s debate. The ferocity of the debate was underscored by the high volume of ad hominem attacks the candidates deployed against each other. But Rogers repeatedly pushed a series of attacks that seemed to centre on El-Sayed’s identity as a Muslim.
In response to a question about healthcare, Rogers said that El-Sayed has “taken money from individuals on his campaign who openly support Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda”. Later, when asked about his position on surveillance by Flock cameras, Rogers argued that such technology has helped catch people suspected of terrorism. He then implied that El-Sayed’s concerns about the cameras were suggestive.
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