Abdul El Sayed spent 2024 trashing Kamala Harris as part of the Uncommitted movement.
Tuesday he flew her into Detroit to save his sinking Senate campaign.
What Mike Rogers said about that flip flop should worry every Democrat in Michigan.
Harris Turns A Maternal Health Roundtable Into A DEI Campaign Speech
Kamala Harris landed in Detroit this week for her first public event with El Sayed since she endorsed him.
She didn't come to talk about jobs or the price of eggs.
She came to tell a room full of healthcare advocates that opposing DEI is, in her words, "an attack by definition on maternal care."
Harris leaned hard on the real and tragic statistic that Black women die from pregnancy related causes at three to four times the rate of white women.
Then she used that tragedy as a springboard to attack Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers, claiming Donald Trump "cut Medicaid funding by a trillion dollars."
It's a powerful line for a campaign ad.
It's also missing everything voters actually need to know.
What Harris Left Out About The Medicaid Numbers
Republican Senator Ted Budd countered that claim directly, saying "nobody is voting to take away Medicaid benefits" from the people the program exists to protect.
The savings Harris is citing come primarily from new work rules for able bodied, childless adults, not from stripping coverage from pregnant women, children or the disabled.
A big chunk of the number also reflects removing people in the country illegally from state funded programs, not touching a dollar of coverage for the Americans the program serves.
Budd frames it as slowing runaway growth, not cutting a program he says everyone wants to preserve.
Harris knows the difference between a growth rate and a benefit cut.
She said it anyway because a big number is scarier than the truth, and scared voters turn out on Election Day.
The Uncommitted Movement Harris And El Sayed Want You To Forget
Rewind to 2024 and Abdul El Sayed was one of the loudest voices telling Michigan Democrats not to vote for Kamala Harris at all.
He joined the Uncommitted movement that punished her over the Biden administration's handling of the war in Gaza, and by his own account, campaigning for her afterward was one of the hardest things he'd ever done in politics.
Two years later, with his Senate campaign trailing and Republican Mike Rogers gaining ground, El Sayed brought Harris to Detroit himself.
Rogers didn't let that irony slide.
He called it plain political desperation, saying Abdul is "parachuting Kamala Harris into Michigan to save his flailing campaign."
He also tied both campaigns to the inflation Michigan families felt under Biden and Harris, calling the pairing further proof of a shared agenda on costs, taxes and crime.
This Is Race Politics Wearing A Stethoscope
Democrats have run out of arguments on the economy, so they're reaching for the most emotionally loaded issue they have left.
Black maternal mortality is a real and serious problem, and it deserves real solutions, not a talking point Kamala Harris dusts off every time a Senate race gets close.
Notice she didn't propose a single new policy in Detroit.
She didn't announce funding, a program, or a plan.
She showed up, said the word DEI, tied it to dead mothers, and let the cameras do the rest.
That's not compassion, that's a script.
Watch what happens if Rogers wins in November: every Democrat running in a swing state in 2028 will remember that El Sayed's DEI gambit didn't save him, and they'll junk the playbook before it costs them too.
Michigan voters watched El Sayed call Harris politically toxic in 2024 and watched him beg for her help in 2026, and come November they'll decide which version of Abdul El Sayed they believe.
Sources:
- Bonny Chu, "Kamala Harris says 'attack on DEI is an attack on maternal care' in appearance with El-Sayed," Fox News, September 22, 2026.
- Washington Examiner, "Harris: 'Attack on DEI' is 'attack on maternal care' in el Sayed campaign stop," September 23, 2026.
- Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate, campaign statement, September 23, 2026.
- Washington Examiner, "Fact check: The truth behind claims One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut Medicaid," 2025.
- The White House, "Myth vs. Fact: The One Big Beautiful Bill," whitehouse.gov, June 2025.
