If elected, Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed would become the first Muslim U.S. senator in American history.
Page F130From§Eachthe morning edition — 29 October 2026
America Next paid an adviser's firm $250,000 for canvassing and influencer marketing; his son heckled El-Sayed
As it ran on the front
America Next paid Timmy Teepell's firm $250,000 for canvassing and influencer marketing. On October 20 the Guardian reported that the man who had tried to ambush Abdul El-Sayed with a question about his supposed allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood — an exchange El-Sayed parlayed into a viral clip for his own campaign — is Teepell's son. I am not going to tell you the contract bought the question; the filings do not say that. I will tell you that the contract has two lines, canvassing and influencer marketing, that America Next has been working, the Guardian reports, to gin up organic opposition to El-Sayed, and that influencer marketing is the industry term for a message built to read as though it arrived by itself.
Run the question itself against the record. On October 15 the President called El-Sayed "100% Muslim Brotherhood." The Guardian reported Thursday that the line goes back eight years, to Laura Loomer, who has said since El-Sayed entered politics in 2018 that his signature on a 2012 open letter supporting democracy in Egypt was a pledge to the Egyptian Islamist group. The Guardian read the letter. It does not mention the Muslim Brotherhood once. Mike Rogers has carried the claim through the fall, and on October 26 said he had not called El-Sayed a terrorist, which answers one word and leaves the sentence around it standing.…
…(cont) Thursday the New York Post advanced the file to the candidate's father, who sits on the board of an Islamic charity the FBI once raided over cash sent to Saddam Hussein. Reconciled: a board seat, held by a man who is not on the ballot, at an organization whose troubles predate the campaign by decades.
Wednesday, Representative Haley Stevens said her fiancé would be voting for Rogers; Fox reported he used the word antisemite about El-Sayed and said he endangers Jews. Stevens is still supporting El-Sayed. She called it a household divided, which is a generous reading of a Democratic household supplying the closing argument for the Republican.
Thursday also brought Truthout's accounting of who is paying for the season: billionaires, corporations and AIPAC spending millions against progressive candidates in these midterms. Mehdi Hasan laid out AIPAC's part in this particular race on October 22. The attack lines and the money sit on the same tables.
El-Sayed, meantime, published a plan to put artificial intelligence companies under public ownership — the Guardian's Thursday read calls it an antidote to ideological gridlock. It has gone largely undiscussed, hon. There are five days left, and the only line item anybody has itemized in public is the $250,000.
“They spent a quarter million on canvassing and influencer marketing to make the opposition look like it grew in somebody's backyard, and the actual question came from the operator's kid. Then the same donor rolls that fund that outfit turn up funding the whole campaign against every progressive on the ballot this year. Five days out, a guy who wants to put the AI companies under public ownership is answering for a letter from 2012 that doesn't say what they say it says.”
“Look, nobody paid anybody to ask a question, and I never said the contract was for questions — did I say that? That doesn't sound like me. The man signed a letter, people have concerns about the letter, and if the Guardian wants to read the letter out loud, well, fine, that's their business; the concerns are still out there, which is the point, and I'd say the same thing about anybody.”
Earlier in this story
- Jewish Democrat defects to the campaign calling El-Sayed a jihadist, says it protects Jewish Michiganders. By Ruth · the evening edition, 29 October 2026
- 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 receipts
One of the most closely watched races in the midterm elections is in Michigan between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed is a former public health official who is campaigning on a platform of Medicare for All, ending military aid to Israel, and getting corporate money out of politics. Rogers is a former…
The Michigan Senate candidate is calling for public ownership and other reforms, offering a potential antidote to ideological gridlock The Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, occupies a strange but increasingly common place in modern American politics. He’s praised by progressives, begrudgingly tolerated by moderate…
Billionaires, AIPAC, and corporations have spent millions trying to crush progressive candidates in the midterms.
Rep. Haley Stevens' Jewish fiance says he cannot vote for Abdul El-Sayed, calling the Michigan Senate nominee an antisemite who endangers Jews.
Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed's father sits on the board of an Islamic charity that was once raided by the FBI for sending cash to notorious late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) said Wednesday she is still supporting Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed after her fiance announced he would back the GOP candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich.), in the contest.
Michigan US Senate candidate signaled support for Egypt’s pro-democracy movement in 2012, not Islamist group The Republican campaign to defeat Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race by casting him as an Islamic extremist is based on a false claim first made by the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer eight years ago, a Guardian…
· Trump links Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to Muslim Brotherhood: 'He's a con man' from the morgue, 15 Oct 2026
· Man who heckled El-Sayed is son of Republican adviser who was paid for ‘influencer marketing’ from the morgue, 20 Oct 2026
· 'My Name Is Abdul': El-Sayed Confronts Trump's Racist, Anti-Muslim Attacks Head-On in New Ad from the morgue, 20 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.