Event for Michigan Republican draws Jewish Democratic megadonor who rejects El-Sayed

BIRMINGHAM, Michigan (JTA) – The Republican Jewish Coalition typically isn’t known for drawing committed Democrats to its events.

But that’s what happened Wednesday night at the Townsend Hotel in suburban Detroit, when a campaign event for GOP Michigan US Senate nominee Mike Rogers attracted several Jews from the other side of the aisle.

Those included Jason Turkish, a Democratic lawyer and megadonor best known as the fiancé of pro-Israel Democratic US Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost the race for the party’s Senate nomination to Rogers’s opponent, Abdul El-Sayed.

Turkish did not speak at the event. But just before it started, he had gone public with his declaration that he was voting for Rogers, and called El-Sayed antisemitic.

“This choice for me, in the end, was very simple,” Turkish told reporters from the sidelines. He cited recent instances of El-Sayed not answering whether Iran or Israel poses a bigger threat to the United States, and of the candidate distancing himself from a PAC ad that blamed Israel for the price of groceries, without addressing its content.

“History will remember who stands where in this moment, and it will not remember Abdul El-Sayed kindly,” Turkish said.

Turkish’s public stance against his party’s nominee, whom his fiancée has endorsed while not directly campaigning for him, was yet another indication of the deep distrust and anger many of Michigan’s pro-Israel Jewish voters have voiced toward El-Sayed throughout this campaign. Republicans are hoping that will translate into more Jewish lifelong Democrats, like Turkish and former Stevens campaign chair David Kramer, pulling the lever for Rogers instead.

“I love it,” Rogers, a former congressman, told reporters about Turkish’s endorsement. From the stage, the candidate was clear about what he thinks of El-Sayed: “He’s beyond antisemitic. He hates Jews.”

Turkish insisted that despite his Rogers vote, he was not a Republican.

“I will vote for Democrats up and down the ballot,” he said. “This isn’t some major departure. You can support Democrats up and down the ballot and make a choice to choose country over party in one race.”

When asked by reporters at a different campaign event about Turkish, El-Sayed responded, “I’m building a movement to take on the challenges that Donald Trump is facing. If folks have issues that are more important to them than that, that’s fine.”

Most of the Jews in the RJC room were committed Republicans, who booed at the mention of progressive Jewish megadonor George Soros and cheered the name of far-right Jewish US Rep. Randy Fine, who has made anti-Muslim comments.

The discomfort some Jews feel with El-Sayed and the desire to send a message to the party were a key part of the pitch that Rogers and Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas made to the estimated 500 attendees at the RJC event.

“People who are lifelong Democrats who want to vote for Democrats for every other office, I’m not advocating that,” Cruz joked to the room. “But even if that’s where you are,” he urged, “say there is a line that is too far, and this is that line.”

RJC spokesperson Sam Markstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had to fetch more chairs for overflow seating. Markstein said turnout for Wednesday’s event was double what the RJC had drawn for a similar gathering in 2024 in support of Rogers’ first, unsuccessful Senate run — when the GOP was stronger nationally than it is now.

Hundreds of Jews in the state have signed a pledge to vote for Rogers, though a rival Jewish pledge to vote for El-Sayed has nearly twice as many signatures.

El-Sayed’s comments following the March terror attack on the preschool of the Detroit-area Temple Israel, in which he stated, in part, “Hurt people hurt people,” still haunt the way Jews perceive him, months after he apologized for the remark. An Israeli strike in Lebanon had killed members of the attacker’s family. The FBI later linked the attack to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

At the RJC event, signs read “No, Abdul: Hurt People Help People” and “Mike Will Keep Us Safe.” Some attendees carried a parody picture book called “Hurt People Hurt People,” featuring an El-Sayed-like “Dr. Context” caricature who consoles the Big Bad Wolf instead of the Three Little Pigs.

The RJC has made a $2 million ad buy with pro-Rogers commercials featuring members of Temple Israel, some of whom spoke to the crowd. A separate Jewish organization, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, has made its own ad buy for Rogers via a new political advocacy arm, featuring one of the same Temple Israel moms.

The GOP sales pitch to Jews has also veered into darker territory, which was evident Wednesday night. Onstage, both Cruz and Rogers claimed that El-Sayed receiving Senate-level security clearance for intelligence briefings would pose a risk to national security.

“The risks are too high that he would share sensitive information with the Muslim Brotherhood,” Cruz said, echoing a growing conservative attack line against the Democrat. He also called El-Sayed a “jihadist leprechaun.”

In addition, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to El-Sayed as “Muhammad” or otherwise mocked his name.

Rogers said that Hasan Piker, the anti-Israel streamer who campaigned with El-Sayed, “should go back to Turkey, where he belongs.”

Asked later by JTA about his comment, Rogers said he was referring to Piker’s dual Turkish citizenship, and said, “I just thought if he wanted to go back there because he hates America so much, I’d pay for the ticket.”

Rogers appeared to distance himself from comments that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made at a Grand Rapids campaign event earlier this week with the candidate present. Kennedy had claimed that Arabs “don’t produce science” and “don’t win the Nobel Prize.”

“Sometimes the campaign takes lefts and rights,” Rogers told reporters when asked about Kennedy. “What I’m concerned about is what’s happening here. Our Arab community is showing lots of support.”

The substantial Arab American community in this swing state makes it a key player in elections, and Republicans have been walking a tightrope between disparaging El-Sayed and keeping on board Arab Americans who voted two years ago for Trump.

Rogers sought to make clear to the Jews in the room that he was aligned with Cruz, a pro-Israel stalwart who has picked public fights with far-right anti-Israel commentator Tucker Carlson. Cruz, though, has been a vocal proponent of war in Iran, while Rogers recently told JTA in an interview that “we met our objectives” in Iran and should wind down the war there.

On Wednesday, Rogers took a more hawkish tone on Iran. “I’d love to see this wrapped up, but I don’t think we can leave it where they have any ability to hurt our friends and neighbors,” he said. “So their army, navy, air force have to be as diminished as they can.”

Both men also took time from the stage to denounce antisemitism from the right.

At their donor events, Rogers said, “Without fail. I would get three or four or five young, white men who would come up and say, ‘You’re not going to take Jewish money, are you?’”

Rogers chalked up the problem to college campuses, calling for efforts to “get Qatari money out of our colleges.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.