A conservative columnist is taking aim at Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over a new campaign ad titled “Prayer,” arguing the spot deliberately conflates scrutiny of his past with religious discrimination. Writing for The Daily Wire, columnist Stephen Kent called the ad “a pretty craven deception” and quipped that it deserved the award for “most misleading ad of the 2026 midterm cycle.”
The ad, per Kent’s description, opens with El-Sayed in a living-room setting, coffee in hand and a plaid shirt swapped in for his usual muscle tee, reflecting on his faith. “My name is Abdul; it means servant,” El-Sayed says in the spot. “I pray every day.” The candidate goes on to describe his purpose as leaving “this earth better than we found it,” and the ad cuts to images of Black congregants in what appears to be a Baptist or AME church, followed by a Jewish menorah.
The columnist’s central complaint
Kent’s objection is less about the biography than about the framing. He writes that El-Sayed’s closing line—”I’m Abdul El-Sayed, man of faith, and that’s a good thing”—implies his religion is under attack, when, in Kent’s view, the actual issue is “his unwillingness to rebuke a terrorist organization with an ounce of sincerity.”
That organization is the Muslim Brotherhood, and Kent spends much of the column relitigating the candidate’s reported family ties to it. According to Kent, El-Sayed’s half-sister has publicly said their mother was active in the group during her college years in 1970s Egypt and that the family “has long been” associated with it, with relatives jailed for membership. Kent also notes that El-Sayed’s father-in-law has held leadership roles with the Islamic Society of North America, which federal prosecutors have identified as linked to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
The column further recounts that El-Sayed served as vice president of the Muslim Students Association during his time at the University of Michigan—a group Kent describes as having historical origins as a Brotherhood campus vehicle—and that he once cited Tariq Ramadan, the Brotherhood founder’s grandson, as an intellectual influence, and signed a 2012 letter supporting Brotherhood-backed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.
El-Sayed has denied any meaningful ties to the organization, dismissing the accounts as hearsay.
A charged charge of ‘taqiyya’
Kent goes further than the factual record, arguing that El-Sayed’s ad is “a simple exercise in ‘taqiyya'”—a term he defines as an Islamic framework permitting lying and concealment of religious motivation when dealing with non-Muslims. That characterization is the columnist’s own interpretation, not a claim El-Sayed has responded to.
Kent also argues that for religious voters, particularly in the Abrahamic traditions, “to whom you pray is an important matter,” contending that Allah as understood through the prophet Muhammad and the God of the Old and New Testaments “ask very different things of you.” He frames El-Sayed’s church visits—including Sunday services in Flint alongside Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)—as evidence of a candidate out of his element, writing that if El-Sayed looked uncomfortable during praise and worship, “that’s because he would be—he’s Muslim, not Christian.”
Polling and coalition trouble
The column leans on a Washington Post-Schar School poll released last month, which Kent says found that among likely Black voters, 83% preferred Democratic control of the Senate but only 67% backed El-Sayed—a gap the columnist treats as a warning sign for the campaign.
Kent attributes part of that slippage to El-Sayed’s socialist politics, noting that while the candidate has not embraced the “socialist” label himself, he has campaigned alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, Hasan Piker, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also points to former President Barack Obama’s involvement in Michigan to shore up Black support, and says focus groups of Black voters frequently raise the concern that El-Sayed is more focused on Palestine and the Middle East than on Michigan.
The broader argument Kent makes is that the Democratic coalition’s assumption that disparate racial minorities will vote as a bloc has been “disproven by each Donald Trump campaign and the demographic breakouts for socialist candidates around the country.”
The column also takes a swipe at the president’s habit of referring to El-Sayed as “Muhammad,” a detail Kent treats with a mix of amusement and dismissal, noting the name’s popularity in England. He describes El-Sayed as “dogged by daily questions” about the Brotherhood ties, including a recent prolonged standoff with a young Michigan man identified only as Tommy.
What the piece is, and isn’t
It is worth being clear about the genre: this is an opinion column, not a news report, and its central accusations—the “taqiyya” framing and the claim that the ad is a “deception”—are the author’s characterizations. The underlying facts Kent cites, including the poll numbers and the family members’ public statements, are presented as reported material; El-Sayed has said the Brotherhood accounts are hearsay. The candidate’s campaign has not responded to the column in the material reviewed here.
Kent closes on a philosophical note, writing that El-Sayed serves as a reminder that religious pluralism, “while a good operating system for a free country, inevitably must face the question of whose faith is correct—and who are kuffar…infidels.”
Stephen Kent is a conservative columnist and co-creator of GeekyStoics on YouTube.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-might-be-abdul-el-sayeds-most-dishonest-ad-yet