El-Sayed courts Jewish Democrats but won't dump Piker

Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed spent the weekend trying to make amends with the state's Jewish Democrats. But he showed there are limits to how far he's willing to go.

• The big one: Hasan Piker.

Why it matters: El-Sayed's appearance before the state party's Jewish caucus was an important early test of whether he can pivot from a primary candidate who electrified the party's progressive wing to a general-election nominee who can win over moderate voters uneasy with his politics.

Catch-up quick: El-Sayed apologized for his comments after a March attack on a suburban Detroit synagogue. It was attempted by a Lebanese-born man who lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon the week before.

• El-Sayed initially condemned the attack. Then, the next day, he released a four-minute video in which he called it "an evil act of displaced rage" but also said that "hurt people hurt people." Referring to the perpetrator, he asked people to "imagine if his family had never died" and said that "violence is a cycle."
• Later in March, El-Sayed told his campaign that the video was a "risk" but that it needed to be said: "All of our team was really worried about saying something, but leadership is being willing to say the thing if you believe it to be true that nobody else is going to say."

What he said: El-Sayed on Saturday said he regretted those March comments.

• "I made a mistake," he told the Jewish caucus. "I should have issued a statement, of course condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop."
• "We condemned that terrorist attack. … 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 told reporters afterward.

What he didn't say: El-Sayed keeps being asked to repudiate Piker, the incendiary left-wing streamer. He keeps refusing.

• Asked repeatedly by reporters Saturday about Piker, El-Sayed wouldn't engage. "If you want to make this race about a streamer in California, I just think you're missing the boat," he said. He later said he was "not interested in a conversation about a social media person in California."
• Piker has an enormous fanbase, but he also has a long history of inflammatory remarks, some widely condemned as antisemitic.
• El-Sayed stumped with and appeared alongside Piker during the primary.
• "Here's this one thing that Hasan said. Do you now condemn him and everything he stands for?" El-Sayed said in April, mimicking the routine with reporters. "And I'm like, in what fucking world does the world work this way?" He dismissed the questions as a game of "gotcha."

State of play: The pattern is continuing into the general election, despite El-Sayed's need to win support well beyond the left.

• Earlier this month, Piker sparked outrage when he said American Jews who closely align themselves with Israel risk becoming targets of violence themselves. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries called the remarks "dangerous, malicious and antisemitic."
• El-Sayed responded in a statement that "all Americans deserve the right to advocate for what they believe without fear of violence," called antisemitism "a scourge" and said he opposed "any rhetoric that puts the community at risk."
• But he did not call out Piker by name.

Between the lines: El-Sayed is betting that he can assuage skeptics by reducing Piker to a mere "streamer," without antagonizing Piker or the followers who helped him win the primary.

• He's trying to shift the conversation to bigger issues like affordability and health care.
• El-Sayed has earned plaudits for his talent as a retail campaigner, but it's an open question whether this strategy can withstand three more months of being hounded about Piker without it overtaking the things he wants to talk about.
• His Republican challenger, former Rep. Mike Rogers, has dubbed Piker El-Sayed's "running mate."
• Responding to the El-Sayed's Saturday apology, Rogers said on X that he had "six months to apologize for his incredibly horrific remarks regarding the Temple Israel attack" and is "trying to con Michiganders" into thinking his beliefs changed.