Rutgers finds recurring anti-Muslim playbook against Muslim candidates

Center reports almost 1,900% rise in posts naming El-Sayed after primary win

A Rutgers report released Tuesday, covering more than 30 cases since 2001, found that the same anti-Muslim playbook had been used against Muslim candidates again and again. Separately, the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that Islamophobic posts naming El-Sayed rose almost 1,900% in the week after his Michigan Democratic primary win. The Guardian described this as a hostile backdrop: Tuberville called El-Sayed a terrorist within hours of the victory, while Donald Trump has called him a “jihadist.”

The Guardian described the media response to the viral town-hall exchange as another example of the divide. CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford praised the questioner and described El-Sayed’s response as a “self-own,” then deleted the post and apologized. The Guardian said the episode raised questions about how a Muslim candidate’s refusal to accept an insinuation can itself be portrayed as evidence against him. Separately, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss reportedly encouraged network journalists to pursue story angles related to El-Sayed’s supposed sympathy toward the Muslim Brotherhood. A CBS News spokesperson told Semafor: “We’ll let our journalism – not baseless accusations – speak for itself.”

Guardian reporter Joseph Gedeon, reporting from Washington, positioned El-Sayed at the center of what researchers described as the worst Islamophobic attacks seen since the aftermath of 9/11 and said many would expect him simply to defend himself and move on. Instead, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan has repeatedly required people questioning his positions on Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood and his faith to explain the premise of their inquiry. The Guardian characterized his method as putting their assumptions on trial rather than allowing others to put his loyalties on trial.

The clearest example, The Guardian said, was a town-hall exchange from the weekend that had been viewed more than 50m times. The man in the crowd, Thomas Teepell, demanded that El-Sayed disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed replied, “Sure, yeah, absolutely,” then asked, “What are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?”

For five minutes, El-Sayed stayed with the exchange, comparing it to doubts people once had about JFK’s Catholicism. He asked Teepell whether he would disavow reading religious doctrine into American law; Teepell said he would not. El-Sayed told him he was the one who needed to understand the constitution, and the room cheered.

Abdul El-Sayed at an event in Cadillac, Michigan, earlier this month. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Teepell was a former aide to Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. An FEC filing cited by The Guardian showed that Teepell’s father’s firm was paid $250,000 by a non-profit for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed, though nothing showed the son was paid. The Guardian said the connection did not establish that the question was coordinated, but added another dimension to an exchange demonstrating El-Sayed’s preferred method in action.

The same method appeared in El-Sayed’s encounters with other interviewers. During the primary, CNN’s Kasie Hunt asked three times whether Israel has a right to exist. El-Sayed said, “I’m not going to play this gotcha game,” adding, “Nobody’s ever asked me whether or not I believe Palestine has a right to exist.” He challenged why his position on Israel’s existence was being treated as a test of political legitimacy while the equivalent question about Palestine went unasked. The real question, he suggested, was whether Israel had a right to “our tax dollars”.

After winning the primary, Fox’s Jesse Watters spent 25 minutes with El-Sayed on ICE, Sharia and transgender issues. El-Sayed said, “You want to bring up all this culture war,” and repeatedly steered the exchange back to prices. The Guardian said the strategy was to stop opponents from defining the election around El-Sayed’s identity and keep it focused on the economy and healthcare.

The Guardian said the tactic did not always land. On Meet the Press, when asked whether he or his family had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed said no twice. The Washington Free Beacon then dug up his half-sister’s 2012 posts about their mother’s activism in the group in the 1970s. There was no evidence El-Sayed took part, and he told NBC, “I wasn’t raised by my mother.” He also called the questions “not serious” and asked the host if he was “insinuating that somehow I was lying”.

The Guardian said El-Sayed’s direct approach has yielded the nicknames “Mean Mamdani” and “Meandami.” The paper contrasted him with New York City Mayor and fellow Muslim Zohran Mamdani, who wins people over with warmth, while El-Sayed goes at his critics head-on. Both candidates have made establishment resistance part of their political identity, The Guardian said, but El-Sayed treats confrontation itself as a way to expose what he sees as a rigged political debate. The paper added that it was an approach the Democratic establishment did not quite know what to do with. Mamdani-backed challengers had beaten establishment favorites in New York primaries, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries played down the wins.

In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Sen. Gary Peters backed El-Sayed’s Democratic-nomination rival Haley Stevens; more than $60m in outside money, mostly from pro-Israel groups, went her way. El-Sayed won by about a point and a half after daring the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “come for me”.

The Guardian said El-Sayed’s primary victory challenged the assumption that a Democrat who confronts powerful donors over Israel must pay a prohibitive price. It also said the victory suggested Democratic voters wanted more than a candidate who shared their policy preferences: they wanted one willing to confront donors and party leaders they believed had ignored their values.

The paper framed the larger distinction as one between legitimate scrutiny of a candidate’s record and suspicion based on Muslim identity. For Muslim and Middle Eastern candidates, it said, the burden can extend beyond proving they can do the job to proving their religion, family and foreign policy views do not make them a threat. The Guardian characterized El-Sayed’s confrontational style as an attempt to force that distinction into the open, even if his instinct to counter-attack can sometimes work against him.

MSI previously reported that El-Sayed used a post-primary Fox News interview with Jesse Watters to redirect questions about Sharia, ICE and transgender issues toward prices. The town-hall confrontation extended that method into a direct challenge to the premise of the Muslim Brotherhood question.