What polls show for Abdul El-Sayed after apology to Jewish Democrats

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed apologized to Jewish Democrats on Saturday about comments he made following a March attack on a suburban Detroit synagogue.

The apology comes as new polling suggests the Senate race against Republican Mike Rogers remains highly competitive, with surveys showing anything from a narrow Democratic lead to a small Republican advantage. The Michigan Senate contest is expected to play a key role in determining control of the Senate after the 2026 midterm elections.

Democrats are defending an open seat following the retirement of Senator Gary Peters, and El-Sayed’s candidacy has drawn national attention because of his progressive platform and outspoken criticism of Israeli government policies.

The dispute over his comments following the synagogue attack has underscored concerns among some Jewish Democrats and moderates who will likely be crucial in a general election in a battleground state.

“My comments might have been misconstrued to be justifying something I did not intend to justify,” he told reporters in Lansing after addressing the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, CNN reported. “To anybody who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”

In order to win, political observers have noted El-Sayed must hold together Michigan’s progressive, Arab American, Muslim and Jewish Democratic constituencies while also appealing to independents in a state that President Donald Trump carried in 2024.

Newsweek reached out to El-Sayed by email Saturday for further comment.

What Did El-Sayed Apologize For?

According to CNN, El-Sayed apologized Saturday for the comments he made after a March attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan.

In March, Ayman Ghazali crashed his pickup truck into the synagogue after being inspired by Hezbollah, the Iran‑backed militant group, the FBI said Monday.

Ghazali recorded a video before the attack at Temple Israel in which he said he wanted to “kill as many of them as I possibly can,” according to Jennifer Runyan, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Detroit.

It was a “Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” she said.

Ghazali, 41, of Dearborn Heights, sat in the synagogue parking lot for several hours before driving his pickup through closed doors and into a hallway near an early childhood education area, striking a security guard. He then exchanged gunfire with another guard before fatally shooting himself, the FBI said.

El-Sayed faced criticism for saying “hurt people hurt people” in a video statement issued after the attack. Critics, including some Jewish Democratic leaders and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel argued the language appeared to contextualize or excuse the alleged attacker rather than unequivocally condemn the act.

“I think most concerning, of course, was the statement that our nominee for U.S. Senate made, which was that ‘hurt people hurt people,’” Nessel explained during a recent interview with The Atlantic’s David Frum. “And a lot of us perceived that as sort of making excuses for somebody who sought to murder over 100 pre-K schoolchildren. And that’s the kind of mentality that bothers me a lot.”

Newsweek also reached out to Nessel via email for comment on Saturday.

Speaking to Jewish Democrats, El-Sayed said he “made a mistake” and acknowledged that he should have stopped after condemning the attack. He said he had been trying to provide broader context but instead failed to adequately recognize the pain and fear experienced by the Jewish community. He added that if his statement caused pain, he was sorry.

“We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright. What I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened, but it wasn’t the time for context. And you don’t ever want to trample somebody’s pain,” El-Sayed said during his apology.

Jewish Democrats who were in the room told CNN that they considered the Senate hopeful’s apology sincere.

“That was the first time that I’ve heard him say it in that explicit way,” Daniel Rivkin, a University of Michigan communications staffer from Ann Arbor who is a delegate at the party’s convention, told the outlet.

Despite the controversy, polling suggests El-Sayed remains competitive in the general election and may even hold a slight edge depending on the survey.

The New York Times’ polling tracker shows a closely contested race between El-Sayed and Rogers, with no clear runaway favorite. Recent public polls have generally found the candidates separated by only a few percentage points, with El-Sayed only slightly higher.

A RealClearPolling average published this week shows El-Sayed leading Rogers by about 1.8 percentage points, 46.3 percent to 44.5 percent.

The underlying polls paint a mixed picture. An EPIC-MRA survey conducted August 22-28 among 600 likely voters found El-Sayed leading Rogers 47 percent to 43 percent. The poll’s margin of error was 4 percentage points. Meanwhile, a Fabrizio/Anzalone poll taken earlier in August showed El-Sayed ahead by just one point, 48 percent to 47 percent, when 877 likely voters were surveyed. That poll’s margin of error was 3.3 percentage points.

By contrast, a Fox News poll of 1,006 registered voters released in mid-August put Rogers ahead 51 percent to 47 percent and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

While El-Sayed has benefited from strong enthusiasm among progressives and younger voters, Republicans have argued that his positions on Israel and other progressive issues could make it harder for him to win over moderate and suburban voters needed to secure victory in November.

Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Jenni Fink and Anthony Murray.