Democratic candidate for Michigan Senate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed held a campaign rally in MSU’s Anthony Hall on April 7. The event featured prominent leftist and online personality Hasan Piker, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and MSU student Josh Reformado as guest speakers.
El-Sayed’s choice to feature Piker in his campaign has been met with media controversy due to Piker’s status as an adamant anti-Zionist and contentious leftist streamer on Twitch.
This division has been widespread on both sides of the political aisle, with outlets like CNN, as well as El-Sayed’s opponents in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary Rep. Haley Stevens and Sen. Mallory McMorrow, criticizing Piker’s inclusion in the campaign.
El-Sayed addressed this conflict at a press conference before the event, refusing to distance himself from Piker or his audience, which consists primarily of young progressive people who El-Sayed sees as vital to progressive politics.
“I’m not here to disavow people’s views,” El-Sayed said. “I think Hasan has built, painstakingly, a platform for folks who feel like they’ve been locked out of our politics. It’s critical that we share conversations with them.”
While media outlets have pushed back against Piker’s presence, some students regarded him as a major pull factor.
Peyton Squires is a freshman studying astrophysics and a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine organization.
“I’ve known Hasan for a while,” Squires said. “I think he’s great. I know he’s getting a lot of stick right now, but I think he’s been pretty consistent with his messaging and I don’t think it’s as problematic as people think.”
Piker spoke about the controversy during his speech, stating that he believes anti-Zionist progressive youth have grown in numbers despite the power of “establishment Democrats” on the other side of the party schism.
“For the last two and a half years, they’ve smeared people like myself, and people like yourselves, and said that we were radical, said that we were wrong,” Piker said. “And yet, we persevered. … I’m no longer alone. Neither are you.”
Despite coverage of the event focusing mainly on Piker, El-Sayed’s speech centered on the values mentioned in his campaign motto: “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”
El-Sayed, a former physician and public health leader, spoke about the reasons behind his decision to move into politics.
“I found myself in the clinic, finally doing the work that doctors do, only to realize that the healthcare system that I was trained to be a part of was, itself, part of the problem,” El-Sayed said. “I had to ask myself then and there: where is the fight for the public’s health? And I believe that that fight needs to go to the U.S. Senate.”
El-Sayed went on to address several current political hot topics, including the recent actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I watch ICE, I watch what it looks like when government employees weaponize themselves against the constitution,” El-Sayed said. “There is no re-forming. There is no retraining. There is only abolishing ICE.”
El-Sayed also discussed the war in Iran, rebuking President Trump’s rhetoric and military actions.
“There is no justification,” El-Sayed said. “There is no legal authority for a war that Donald Trump is using to torch our tax dollars to destroy other people’s lives rather than using them to make our lives better.”
El-Sayed addressed the Israeli government’s genocide of the Palestinian people, condemning the violence and explaining his refusal to seek out funding from AIPAC, an organization that supported 361 pro-Israel candidates with over $53 million in 2024, according to its website.
“I am proud that AIPAC has called me the single most dangerous candidate,” El-Sayed said. “I’m the only candidate in this race that has never asked for an AIPAC endorsement, only candidate in this race that is not supported by the Israel lobby.”
Along with his statements about Israel, El-Sayed voiced his disagreement with the conflation of pro-Palestine sentiments with antisemitism.
“All of us love and revere our Jewish neighbors and the faith of Judaism … because we love and revere people,” El-Sayed said. “Which is exactly why we will not sit idly by while our tax dollars go to fund a genocide on behalf of a foreign government … It doesn’t matter who is being destroyed and it doesn’t matter who is doing the destroying. If you believe in people then you stand up for the values of people.”
On a more local level, El-Sayed spoke in a press conference after the event about his plans to address the East Lansing housing crisis by abolishing corporate ownership of housing, issuing surtaxes on short-term rental companies like Airbnb and Vrbo, addressing opaque licensing policies and assisting Michiganders in home ownership.
“I believe that we need a major housing bill, and I believe that housing bill needs to address all of these issues,” El-Sayed said. “It needs to incentivize local, state and municipal governments to make one-stop shops for housing projects, and we just need massive investment in new housing. … We need to give people the home ownership capacity through down payment support.”
In the rally’s most energetic speech that yielded much audience response, Lee focused on her belief in the necessity for a party-wide attitude change. She addressed audience members directly and urged them to take action.
“I understand how nerve-wracking, how annoying, how discouraging it is to feel like nothing that we do will possibly make a change,” Lee said. “But I need you to understand that we cannot stay there. Right now, we need to get skin in the game. Right now, we have to find incredible candidates … to build our future with us, like Abdul.”
Ezequiel Gonzalez, a Grand Rapids resident who attended the rally, agreed with this sentiment.
“We need to get more progressive people in the Democratic Party and in politics,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t think electoralism should be the end-all-be-all, but it’s definitely a useful means to help people’s lives improve … and I think it’s a necessity if we want to have any form of pushback against the far-right rise.”
Lee told the audience that she believes in their collective power, and that they should do the same.
“This is the most powerful room in America, but only if you believe that,” Lee said. “The only thing that’s standing between us having a fighter in the Senate or another status-quo Dem or another do-nothing Republican is whether or not you all get up and you fight for what you deserve.”
Gonzalez said he believes that the rally will resonate far beyond the bounds of MSU’s campus.
“I think it’ll have impact not only in the East Lansing community and the Michigan community,” Gonzalez said. “But I think it’ll have nation-wide impacts, showing that progressive candidates can win; that progressive policies are not something to be scared of, to shy away from.”
