JD Vance once said a Michigan Senate candidate was evil.
That candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, just won the seat and became Michigan's newest senator.
His victory speech proved exactly why Vance sounded that alarm.
Hasan Piker's 9/11 Comments Trailed El-Sayed to Election Night
Vance did not throw out the word evil for fun.
On August 31, he stood in front of Michigan voters and said "there's something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil."
Weeks later Vance sharpened the line even further, telling Michigan Republicans the race came down to a choice between "a good human being" in Mike Rogers and "a guy who defends literal terrorism" in El-Sayed.
Rogers hit him from a different angle, calling El-Sayed a "manufactured candidate" whose base was abandoning him.
Vance was talking about a candidate who refused to cut ties with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, a man who has said the United States is worse than al Qaeda.
When reporters pressed El-Sayed on Piker joking about the victims of 9/11, he brushed it off as a "dumb statement" and kept Piker on the campaign trail anyway.
El-Sayed also had to publicly apologize to Michigan's Jewish caucus after he tied an attack on a local synagogue back to Israel.
That is a comment so toxic even his own allies needed a formal apology to clean it up.
None of it mattered on Tuesday night.
Michigan handed El-Sayed the Senate seat anyway, part of a Democratic sweep that flipped governorships and the House back to the left in the same election.
El-Sayed Used His Victory Speech to Call Israel a Genocidal State
Instead of just thanking voters, El-Sayed used his first speech as senator-elect to settle scores.
He turned straight to Vance and sneered that the vice president is "constitutionally obligated" to swear him in come January.
"Wolverine one. Buckeye zero," he said, mocking Vance's home state of Ohio in front of a cheering Detroit crowd.
Then he pivoted to foreign policy and declared "we don't want our money spent on apartheid or genocidal war."
He was talking about Israel, America's closest ally in the Middle East.
It was not the first time he said it.
El-Sayed told CNN earlier this year that Israel's government is just as "evil" as Hamas, the terrorist group that massacred Israeli civilians on October 7.
He delivered that line the same night socialist-aligned Democrats were celebrating wins from New York City Hall to the United States Senate.
More than thirty self-identified socialists have won Democratic primaries this year, according to the Washington Examiner, and El-Sayed just proved the movement does not stop at primaries.
That is not a guilt-by-association story about one bad associate.
That is a candidate who looked at a man excusing 9/11 and his synagogue comments about Israel and decided neither one was disqualifying.
Michigan voters saw all of it and elected him regardless.
Democrats can dress that up as a mandate on affordability or healthcare all they want.
What they actually got was a senator who told Jewish Michiganders to calm down for months and then proved them right to worry on his very first night in office.
Michigan just handed the Senate to the man Vance warned them about, and the only question left is how many other races run the exact same playbook next.
Sources:
- Anders Hagstrom, "El-Sayed Mocks Trump, Vance and Rogers in Gloating Victory Speech Signaling Combative Tone in Senate," Fox News, November 4, 2026.
- Daily Signal, "JD Vance Says Abdul El-Sayed Represents an Evil Plaguing America," Daily Signal, August 31, 2026.
- Washington Examiner, "Vance Casts Michigan Senate Race as Choice Between Good Human Being and Guy Who Defends Literal Terrorism," Washington Examiner, 2026.
- Fox News, "Michigan Democratic Senate Candidate Claims Israel Just as Evil as Hamas," Fox News, 2026.
- WJLA, "Senate Hopeful El-Sayed Dismisses Hasan Piker's 9/11 Comments: Dumb Statement," WJLA, 2026.
- Fox11 Online, "Michigan Senate Nominee Abdul El-Sayed Apologizes to Jewish Caucus Over Remarks," Fox11 Online, August 2026.
- Washington Examiner, "Over 30 Socialists Have Won Primaries This Year," Washington Examiner, 2026.
- Fox News, "Manufactured Candidate El-Sayed Is Losing His Base: Mike Rogers," Fox News, 2026.
