BIRMINGHAM, Michigan — Jason Turkish, the Jewish Democratic fiance of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), said Wednesday he plans to vote for Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race, accusing Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed of making the community less safe for Jews and saying his association with controversial…
Page F129From§Eachthe evening edition — 29 October 2026
Jewish Democrat defects to the campaign calling El-Sayed a jihadist, says it protects Jewish Michiganders.
As it ran on the front
Two weeks out, the Michigan Senate stage has produced four beats, and only the last is new today. At a Rogers rally in Grand Rapids, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the crowd Arabs have not won a Nobel, a Fields, or a Wolf; The Hill and the Guardian corrected the record days later — Arabs have won all three, repeatedly. Rogers followed Kennedy at the same podium with the Muslim Brotherhood claims against Abdul El-Sayed. On October 26, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Rogers said he did not call El-Sayed a "terrorist" — a denial that answers one word, not the claim beside it.
By Wednesday the race had moved past the podium. Politico reported that President Trump's attacks on El-Sayed as a "jihadist" now dominate the race's final week; El-Sayed called them "desperate, bad faith" and kept campaigning. The same day, the Washington Examiner reported that Jason Turkish — the Jewish fiancé of Rep. Haley Stevens, the Democrat El-Sayed beat in the primary — will vote for Rogers, citing El-Sayed's ties to streamer Hasan Piker as a danger to Michigan's Jewish community. El-Sayed's answer, to The Hill the same day: a movement to take on Trump, and "if folks have issues that are more important to them than that, that's fine."…
…(cont) Turkish is not the first Democrat the Rogers campaign has put on the record. On September 14, Joe Manchin told CNBC, "I do support Mike Rogers... Two days later El-Sayed called Rogers a "coward" for skipping a Fox 2 Detroit town hall, and on October 7 his campaign opened an ad accusing the former House Intelligence chairman of building the surveillance state he was then declining to debate.
National reporting already counts Arab-American voters leaving the Republican Party that produced all four: the Nobel claim in Grand Rapids, the Brotherhood claim on the same stage, Trump's "jihadist" label this week, and a sitting congresswoman's own fiancé campaigning against her former rival over it. The ballot, not the podium, answers which of those four facts mattered most.
“This is one campaign working four mouths: the health secretary erases Arab scientists from the record, the candidate revives a loyalty-test smear, the President calls a doctor running for Senate a jihadist, and a fiancé on cable turns Jewish safety into the alibi. All four land on the same ballot, in the same final week.”
“Look, Mike Rogers specifically never used the word "terrorist" — that's a fact, Kristen Welker herself — I mean, that's on tape. The health secretary's numbers were off, sure, but nobody's disputing Arabs are great mathematicians, historically, is that — did I just say historically? Strike that. And Jason Turkish is a Democrat, so this isn't even a Republican talking point, it's bipartisan concern, which is the strongest kind.”
Earlier in this story
- Health Secretary RFK Jr.'s false Arab-prize claim and Rogers' Muslim Brotherhood smear hit the same Michigan stage. By Sal · the afternoon edition, 28 October 2026
- Trump calls fraud rampant on a dragnet judges halted twice that flagged 400 names, six days out By Chip · the morning edition, 28 October 2026
- Netanyahu presses for action against Iran his own military chief already resisted, days before election. By Lou · the evening edition, 27 October 2026
- Israel bars European lawmakers who came to watch the olive harvest its settlers are burning; it votes Tuesday By Lou · the afternoon edition, 26 October 2026
- Israel's army sealed the West Bank and ran its largest drill in years; neither was on Tuesday's ballot By Sterling · the evening edition, 26 October 2026
- The Supreme Court found ninety days enough room to run a voter-purge database and twelve days too few to read a student ID. By Ruth · the evening edition, 25 October 2026
The receipts
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed responded to his former primary opponent Rep. Haley Stevens’s (D-Mich.) fiancée endorsing his GOP opponent former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.).
After Trump called him a “jihadist,” Abdul El-Sayed brushed off the “desperate, bad faith attacks”
· Rogers: I never called El-Sayed a 'terrorist' from the morgue, 26 Oct 2026
· ‘The Elephant Was Not in the Room’: El-Sayed Blasts 'Coward' Mike Rogers For Ditching Debate from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
· Joe Manchin says he’s not OK with Abdul el Sayed becoming senator, says Mike Rogers will ‘do a great job’ from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· 'Mike Rogers Is Watching You': Abdul El-Sayed Hits GOP Opponent Over Support for Mass Surveillance from the morgue, 7 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.