Tight though that outcome of the Michigan primary was between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed, there was a winner, and that winner was Abdul El-Sayed. His candidacy reveals a fracture within the Democratic Party that can’t be easily ignored or smoothed over. Two things have been made overwhelmingly clear as a result of this. There is a unified Democratic Party against Trump and MAGA, and there is an insurmountable schism within the Democrats as to whether they are the party of liberals or the party of left-wing progressives.

There is supposed to be a unity rally in Michigan today, brokered by Representatives Debbie Dingell of Michigan and James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, where Stevens and El-Sayed would both appear and link arms against the MAGA menace. It’s fallen apart.

Ms. Stevens and Dr. El-Sayed, who have been publicly quarreling for days about Israel, were initially expected to attend the Sunday event together, part of an effort by Representatives Debbie Dingell of Michigan and James E. Clyburn of South Carolina to broker a peace between the two Democrats days before a critical election.

It was unclear if Ms. Stevens, who lost to Dr. El-Sayed by less than a percentage point in a bitter August primary, would abide by his request that she stay away from the event.

But by Saturday night, it appeared that the late-hour push by Democratic leaders to bridge the rift between Dr. El-Sayed, a progressive, and Ms. Stevens, a moderate, may have badly backfired.

A number of issues have arisen with El-Sayed, from his support years ago of the Muslim Brotherhood to his close ties to raging anti-Semite influencer Hasan Piker to the latest, his refusal to condemn an ad from Young Turk Cenk Uygur that blames high prices on Israel.

But the efforts to make peace crumbled Friday, after Ms. Stevens issued a statement calling on Dr. El-Sayed to apologize for comments he had made about Israel and to denounce an ad from an outside group that suggests U.S. aid to Israel was making life in America more expensive. (The ad shows a shopper telling a man not to buy eggs because “we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”)

New @RebellionPac ad dropping in Michigan. We have to suffer here at home, so Israel can get all its wars. That’s why they buy politicians like Mike Rogers. He promised to serve Israel “unconditionally,” but never made that promise to you. https://t.co/mtgVOyNczg

— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) October 24, 2026

El-Sayed isn’t so much promoting his hatred of Israel as refusing to deny that he hates Jews, while simultaneously trying to slough off the problem in furtherance of his campaign and add one more Democratic senator to the next Senate.

Dr. El-Sayed responded to Ms. Stevens’s statement with a statement of his own saying that she seemed “intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.” He called on her to “focus on the task at hand.”

On Saturday, Dr. El-Sayed told reporters that he did “not agree with the contents” of the ad from the outside group. But he also said she wanted to “talk about” issues that he did not want to focus on in the final days of the campaign.

The split here is obvious. The putative progressive left wing of the Democratic Party believes that Israel is committing genocide and war crimes, and must be cut off from American aid. I say “putative” because that’s not the position of the majority of the Democratic Party, which may be critical of Bibi Netanyahu’s handling of Gaza and the Palestinians, but still supports Israel and stands against anti-Semitism. The positions are irreconcilable, which is why El-Sayed doesn’t want to talk about it.

On twitter, I asserted that there is one, and only one, reason to vote for Abdul El-Sayed.

There is one, and only one, reason to vote for Abdul El-Sayed, and that’s to give the Democrats the majority in the Senate to prevent it from confirming Trump’s loyal but incompetent officers.

No matter what, the Dems won’t have a sufficient majority in the Senate to override a Trump veto, making any effort to affirmatively change law an act of futility. The only purpose to have a Senate majority is to stop a reconciliation bill, like the childishly-named Big Beautiful Bill, and stop the confirmation of dangerous and unqualified cabinet officers like Hegseth, RFK Jr. and Blanche, not to mention loyalist judges and, perhaps, another Supreme Court appointment whose fealty to Trump is unquestionable.

These are damn good reasons to vote for El-Sayed, to deny the Republicans a Senate majority. But are they good enough to overcome the fact that El-Sayed hates Jews? Can Michiganders bring themselves to vote for the anti-Semite for a reason having nothing to do with El-Sayed’s positions, but for the “greater good” of a Democratic majority? Is it really a Dem majority, or just a coalition against Trump of people who share little else? Is that enough?

And if it is enough this time, what about next time, when El-Sayed, or the next left-wing Jew hater, claims to be the future of the Democratic Party and the conflicted old guard of the party lacks the courage to refuse to bend to accommodate them?