Michigan is on the frontlines of the American Democratic Party’s internal battles over Israel, canceling streamers, a competitive U.S. Senate primary and lingering fallout from the suppression of Pro-Palestine campus protests.
Centrists Impose and Fail the Hasan Piker ‘Litmus Test’
Things got spicy, and stupid, a few weeks ago when the infamous Third Way group tried to cancel left-leaning influencer Hasan Piker.
Piker is an enormously popular Twitch and YouTube streamer with almost 5 million followers on the two platforms.
For those unfamiliar with Third Way, let two pictures serve for two thousand words.
pic.twitter.com/VCCosj8ppE
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 22, 2026
Centrist/Never Trumper rag The Bulwark was an enthusiastic vehicle for the Third Way campaign, which they chronicled:
The group’s president and press adviser, Jonathan Cowan and Lily Cohen, coauthored a Wall Street Journal opinion piece arguing that Piker’s “misogyny is indistinguishable from that of far-right influencers” and accusing him of antisemitism, saying that there was “no excuse for putting political tribalism before Jewish safety.” Things escalated last week when Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, announced that Piker would campaign with him on college campuses. Then, this morning, Cowan sent a letter to El-Sayed warning that it would be a “stain” on his character if he followed through with the planned rallies, especially after a Michigan synagogue was attacked last month. The letter lists six questions in bullet points, asking El-Sayed to respond:
Do you agree with Piker that “America deserved 9/11”?
Do you think “there’s a lot that we can learn” from the Chinese Communist Party?
Do you share his belief that ultra-Orthodox Jews are “inbred”?
Do you also dismiss the mass rape of Jewish and Israeli women by Hamas?
Do you believe as he does that “Hamas is a thousand times better” than the Israeli state?
If you do not endorse all of Piker’s views, which, specifically, do you reject?
Talk about a fair, free, and open spirit of enquiry, amirite, Joe McCarthy?
Third Way’s call was enthusiastically taken up by sitting Michigan Senator Elise Slotkin (D-CIA):
Elissa Slotkin hit back after Hasan Piker criticized her for going on Bill Maher’s show but not his livestream.
“He calls me stupid like every other week,” she told our @adamwren. “What normal human being would choose to go on a show when someone calls you stupid every 10 days.” pic.twitter.com/18XZ3U9Ir4
— POLITICO (@politico) April 10, 2026
The urgency of the centrist attacks on Piker came from his support for insurgent U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed — and the massive, young, and enthusiastic crowds that turned out to see Piker and El-Sayed together.
The New York Times covered it and everything:
Tensions over Israel burst into the open in the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan this week after a candidate scheduled rallies with a provocative left-wing streamer who has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and its war in Gaza.
The candidate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is in a competitive three-way Democratic primary, faced forceful criticism from his opponents and others within his party after announcing that the streamer, Hasan Piker, would join him at rallies at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University on April 7.
Mr. Piker’s huge, young following has made him an appealing ally for progressive Democrats. He taped an interview with Zohran Mamdani last year during the New York mayoral race and later attended Mr. Mamdani’s election night party. In 2024, he filmed a stream from the Democratic National Convention. Some have called Mr. Piker the Joe Rogan of the left.
But his statements about Israel have alarmed some Democrats.…In an interview with Jewish Insider on Thursday, State Senator Mallory McMorrow, another candidate, described Mr. Piker as “somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks.”
“That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state,” Ms. McMorrow told the news outlet, adding, “You don’t fan the flames and stoke division just to get attention.”
Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate fourth-term congresswoman and another candidate in the primary, said in a statement Friday that it was “unacceptable” for Dr. El-Sayed to campaign with Mr. Piker. She accused Mr. Piker of building a career on “hurtful and antisemitic comments.”
One thing to note about Stevens, she won her U.S. House seat by knocking out Rep. Andy Levin, a Jewish critic of Isreal, in a 2022 primary race that saw AIPAC and its allies spend over $8 million to take out Levin.
But let’s get back to this year’s Senate primary.
The Intercept caught speeches by both McMorrow and El-Sayed and analyzed the race:
Speaking to a modest crowd of voters inside a Canton brewery on Tuesday evening, Mallory McMorrow, a leading candidate for Senate in the swing state of Michigan, made an anti-war appeal as President Donald Trump’s threats to kill “a whole civilization” hung over Iran and the world.
“This is a moment for people to stand up and to decide who they are actually for — are they for the Constitution, are they for Americans, are they for Michiganders, or are they for Donald Trump?” McMorrow said to applause. She encouraged Democrats to consider invoking the 25th Amendment as an option to counter the president.
Later that evening, 17 miles to the west before a packed auditorium at the University of Michigan, McMorrow’s opponent Abdul El-Sayed also criticized the war — and a key distraction from it.
“Our president is waging a genocidal, illegal, unjustifiable war with Iran that is torching our tax dollars to the tune of $1.5 billion a day,” El-Sayed said. And yet, “apparently the most important thing happening on Twitter was whether or not we were gonna campaign with Hasan.” He was referring to the popular political streamer Hasan Piker, who stood by his side at two 600-attendee university rallies that day, the largest of any campaign events in Michigan so far this year.
The El-Sayed – McMorrow – Stevens Horse Race
pic.twitter.com/LC5HnFxTFz
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 22, 2026
Note that El-Sayed is surging, McMorrow has some momentum, and Stevenson is fading.
And note this important caveat from Emerson:
“There are generational differences in the Michigan Democratic Senate Primary: voters under 40 support El-Sayed over McMorrow by a 17-point margin, 35% to 18%, while voters over 50 support McMorrow over El-Sayed by a 12-point margin, 29% to 17%, with 13% supporting Stevens,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.
For my entire political career, being the “youth candidate” has been the kiss of death (see Sanders, Bernie) but that changed last year with the “youthquake” election of Zohran Mamdani as New York Mayor.
But this is Michigan. Blue-collar Michigan. Trump-voting Michigan. We haven’t seen a Mamdani type victory in the heartland yet.
But there’s one more interesting poll from Zeteo and Drop Site News to share:
Michigan’s Democratic primary for US Senate is a three-way dead heat, according to a new poll conducted for Zeteo and Drop Site News.
The survey additionally found that likely Democratic primary voters are far more concerned about the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC’s influence on candidates than the influence of Hasan Piker, the leftist Twitch streamer who campaigned with candidate Abdul El-Sayed at two Michigan universities last week.
The poll from Data for Progress found that 22% of likely Democratic primary voters support El-Sayed, endorsed by Bernie Sanders and a vocal critic of Israel; 23% support Haley Stevens, a conservative, pro-Israel Democrat backed by party leaders in Washington, DC; and 22% support Mallory McMorrow, the J Street-endorsed candidate positioning herself in between Stevens and El-Sayed.
Notably, a third of voters were undecided.
What About the Money Race?
Michigan Chronicle has some deets, plus background on McMorrow:
McMorrow raised more than $3 million in the first three months of the year, compared to about $2.3 million from former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed and $2 million from US Rep. Haley Stevens.
“This is absolutely huge,” McMorrow said in a video.
Reports filed Wednesday, April 15, with the Federal Election Commission show McMorrow raised nearly all of her money from individual donors. 120,000 people have given to the campaign of the 39-year-old state senator from Royal Oak since she launched her campaign for U.S. Senate.
FEC records show McMorrow also finished the most recent reporting period with more in her war chest than Stevens for the first time since candidates began reporting their fundraising totals.
El-Sayed lead candidates in money raised form outside of the state, nearly $1.3 million. McMorrow’s campaign saw more than $830,000 from outside the state, with Stevens raising about $1.2 million from non-Michiganders.
After flipping a Republican-held Oakland County district in 2018, her viral speech on the Michigan Senate floor in April 2022, which caught the attention of Hillary Clinton, turned McMorrow into a high-profile state political figure and national fundraiser.
Seeing McMorrow in action last weekend at the Michigan Democratic Primary will give readers a feel for what Hillary sees in her:
U.S. Senate candidate @MalloryMcMorrow is traversing the MDP Endorsement Convention caucus meetings with a band this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/fn4HMwgAS9
— Andrew Roth (@RothTheReporter) April 19, 2026
Primary colors? Check.
Cringe Kamala-style dance? Check.
This is a good place to let Dr. El-Sayed get some quotes in, via Michigan Advance:
At one point, her drumline arrived in front of a room where El-Sayed was about to host a media availability.
El-Sayed was quick to quip that “that’s what you get when you don’t have a message.”
Some social media users quickly resurfaced a video from El-Sayed’s 2018 campaign for governor, in which he sees now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer walking with a marching band and says he won’t move out of the way.
Whitmer went on to win all 83 counties in that primary.
El-Sayed told delegates Sunday that after President Donald Trump was elected to his first term, you either had to go big or go home.
“I went big and then I went home,” El-Sayed joked.
Michigan Democratic Party donors heard from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear the night before about how to win tough elections. Among his suggestions: “Talk like a normal human.”
El-Sayed agreed that you should use plain language, but said there is a deeper substance problem.
“I would add a proviso, which is to say that you got to be talking about things that people actually care about. You got to be answering the questions people are asking,” El-Sayed said.
So yea, about that AIPAC thing.
So If Stevens Is AIPAC and El-Sayed Is Anti-AIPAC, What’s McMorrow?
Drop Site News has some background and some original reporting:
The Michigan Senate race is a three-way contest between Rep. Haley Stevens, whose last campaign was boosted by millions of dollars from AIPAC; Abdul El-Sayed, a leading advocate of the “Uncommitted Movement” who’s known as Michigan’s Mamdani; and a third candidate, state legislator Mallory McMorrow, who sits between the two.
Mallory McMorrow, a leading Michigan Senate candidate, has privately produced an “AIPAC position paper” that is “outstanding,” but has not made it public, according to her supporter Rob Kalman, who spoke on a recent McMorrow donor call. The position paper he describes has not been made public.
Kalman is former mayor and council member in Keego Harbor, Michigan, and said on the call he has been in close touch with local and national AIPAC leadership. A recording of the August 20 call was obtained by Drop Site.
AIPAC, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, asks candidates to privately share position papers before winning an endorsement. According to candidates and campaign managers who’ve gone through the process, the group has a series of litmus tests that candidates must meet, including support for the Taylor Force Act, a willingness to say that “all options are on the table” when it comes to Iran (which is code for a nuclear strike), support for laws against boycotting Israel, and opposition to any conditions on aid to Israel, among others.
McMorrow is running against Rep. Haley Stevens, who was AIPAC’s vehicle in 2022 for one of their more controversial power plays, when they organized against incumbent Rep. Andy Levin, a former synagogue president and self-described Zionist. Levin’s sin, from AIPAC’s perspective, was his willingness to defend his Michigan colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib and to level criticism at the Israeli government.
The audio:
On a private donor call in August, a backer of Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow said that he had read her private AIPAC position paper and that it is “outstanding.”
Her campaign denies to @dropsitenews that she produced one. Listen: pic.twitter.com/oQrmAM22Tq
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 10, 2025
McMorrow’s alleged attempt to conceal AIPAC funding is drawing some online heat:
Israel lobby’s covert darling MALLORY MCMORROW said “I don’t take AIPAC $”
REALITY:– $100K from Israel Lobby, so far– AIPAC Position Paper– AIEF (AIPAC) Israel Trip– Endorsed MI Univ’s Zionist Board of Regents pervert who illegally targeted student protestors
DNC endorsed👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/KQ3mYNAcqS
— GenXGirl (@GenXGirl1994) April 21, 2026
But maybe she just loves to travel and learn about other cultures:
LISTEN: US Senate candidate @MalloryMcMorrow discusses her trip to Israel
She says Israel is “one of the most important countries to democracy and to the world” and “it’s really hard to understand the reality of the situation if you’ve never been there and you’ve never seen it… pic.twitter.com/dNzanE7vxi
— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) October 22, 2025
All of this is by way of setting the scene for this past weekend.
Boos and Cheers at the Convention
Michigan Public Radio summed up the meet:
Progressive Michigan Democrats made their voices heard during the state party’s endorsement convention in Detroit over the weekend.
Around 7,250 delegates packed Huntington Place Sunday in what Michigan Democratic Party members said marked record attendance. They were there to choose party endorsements for several statewide races, including Michigan secretary of state, attorney general, and university boards.
The top races were tight going into the convention, leading candidates to try to separate themselves with gimmicks like musicians, people in orange jumpsuits carrying around boards with candidates’ information, and basketball cards with campaign pitches.
Contenders in competitive primaries also turned to tactics like carrying large cardboard cutouts of a candidate’s face and decking out a Ford Mustang convertible in campaign posters.
Sunday marked a big day for progressives in the Michigan Democratic Party. Nearly every candidate backed by the party’s Progressive Caucus won their convention races.
Last weekend’s Michigan Democratic party convention brought all three leading US Senate candidates out to face the public.
It was brutal for Stevens:
Haley Stevens is booed as she takes the stage at the MDP Convention in Detroit. She spoke over people screaming “shame” and other comments, many about Palestine, through most of her remarks.
“Democrats, I love you, even when we disagree,” Stevens said. pic.twitter.com/dIHKC8EOW9
— Andrew Roth (@RothTheReporter) April 19, 2026
It wasn’t just Stevens either:
13th Congressional District Democratic Party Chair Jonathan Kinloch speaking on behalf of UofM regent Jordan Acker, who pushed for pro-Palestine campus protestors to be charged, is booed. Kinloch says Democrats must not have learned “the enemy is not in this room.” pic.twitter.com/hYEJYZo2bC
— Sam Robinson (@samueljrob) April 19, 2026
Which brings us to the actual voting that took place at the convention.
Student Protestors Get Some Revenge on Establishment Dems
Drop Site News has more:
For two years, establishment Democrats have led a wide-ranging legal attack on University of Michigan pro-Palestinian student activists, aiming to shut down their protest of Israel. On Sunday, Democratic Party delegates symbolically rebuked the establishment’s draconian campaign. Two pro-Palestinian candidates notched upset wins against pro-Israel-backed opponents in statewide primary races in this critical upper Midwest swing state.
The races, decided by the Michigan Democratic Party’s delegates during a nominating convention, mark material and symbolic victories for pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan (U-M)—some of whom continue to face investigations over their protests of the genocide. And, as more polling shows the extent to which support for Israel has collapsed across the political spectrum, the wins indicate that the pro-Israel playbook is failing even in lower, state-level races.
In the state Attorney General’s race, Ann Arbor’s progressive Jewish prosecutor, Eli Savit, beat Karen McDonald, who was backed by major corporations and pro-Israel donors. And in the race for a seat on the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, defense attorney Amir Makled defeated incumbent regent Jordan Acker, who helped lead the school’s legal attack on the pro-Palestinian students. Makled represented some of the students who beat the U-M prosecutions.
Makled, who is Lebanese-American, overcame an onslaught of allegations that he is antisemitic and supports Hezbollah. He told Drop Sitethe wins show “the electorate is done with AIPAC-aligned candidates and their smear campaigns.”
“People are done with it, and the establishment has to recognize that,” Makled added. “It is the only way this party moves forward because it’s the right way.” His win also came after The Guardian on Friday reported on lewd text messages Acker appeared to have made about a student and Democratic strategist.
I’ll close with a brief back and forth between Jonathan Chait and David Sirota:
The Democratic pundit who confidently insisted Trump couldn’t possibly win Michigan is now confidently insisting @AbdulElSayed can’t win Michigan.
This seems like an EXTREMELY good sign that Abdul has a real shot to win Michigan. pic.twitter.com/W6Lb2UdqnT
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) April 22, 2026
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