In Michigan, El-Sayed Canvassers Engaging Voters on Jewish Safety

The largest progressive domestic-focused Jewish organization in the country is mobilizing volunteers to canvas for Democratic Senate nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, not just to get out the vote, but to hold substantive conversations about Israel, Palestine, antisemitism, and safety.

Bend the Arc is working with Seed the Vote and training its volunteers in “deep canvassing,” the practice of holding nonjudgmental, open-ended conversations with the goal of forging a connection and sharing viewpoints. Rather than the brief exchange of a typical door-knock, the conversations volunteers are aiming for can take up to 15 minutes and don’t necessarily seek to change anyone’s mind.

The group trained Jewish volunteers to speak with Jewish voters, “grounded in Jewish concerns and concerns about antisemitism,” said Eli Williams-Szenes, who leads advocacy and political affairs for Bend the Arc, and who was in Michigan last weekend working with canvassers and talking with voters. But concerns about antisemitism were coming up in conversations at non-Jewish households, too, he said, so the group did the same training for the full volunteer corps.

“Something that is coming up repeatedly in canvassing conversations is that a lot of people will volunteer out of the gate, ‘I don’t know what to do. I can’t vote for Mike Rogers because he’s, pick your thing, anti-choice, a Christian nationalist,’” Williams-Szenes said. “Then also saying, ‘And I don’t know how to vote for someone who feels about Israel the way Dr. El-Sayed does.’”

El-Sayed’s topline issues in his campaign are Medicare for All and affordability. He opposes U.S. aid to Israel and its genocide in Palestine; while he does not make that a plank in his platform, he has said the issues are interconnected because spending on Israel means less money to spend at home.

Volunteers are trained to listen, affirm voters’ fears, then draw out their specific worries and perhaps share their own, along with how they see the issue. “That conversation is doing something to people,” Williams-Szenes said. “It’s starting to wobble people.”

That’s an inroad that can only be made when someone lets down their defenses.

“People are very emotional at the doors,” Williams-Szenes said, and they’re genuinely scared. So is he, and saying so brings down the temperature of what can otherwise become a heated conversation, and thus provide an opening for a discussion. After all, telling someone they’re wrong to feel the way they do is not a winning strategy.

The group is also teaching canvassers how to talk about concerns with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in ways that don’t inadvertently repeat antisemitic tropes. As Bend the Arc CEO Jamie Beran wrote in an essay earlier this month, it’s important to speak with precision. Her recommendation? “Do not talk about AIPAC like it is a Jewish organization because it is not. AIPAC does not represent the majority of American Jews, and in fact, most American Jews oppose its core priority: advocating for unconditional support, partnership and aid to Israel. AIPAC doesn’t even claim to be a Jewish organization—because they’re not. It is critical to never conflate AIPAC with Jews.”

In an interview, Beran said that sliding into generalities by referring to “the Israel lobby” or “the Jews” can work against forming a connection with another person whose viewpoints differ; she said that referring to criticism of a super PAC as antisemitic helps wealthy interests evade accountability.

Beran also noted that El-Sayed scored 100 percent alignment with Bend the Arc’s domestic priorities, which is uncommon, and that one thing that the group has found effective is to encourage people to listen to him directly. Much like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been similarly smeared by AIPAC and its allies, El-Sayed espouses universal human rights and has repeatedly emphasized the importance of Jewish safety and combating antisemitism.

“There’s just so much noise and so much interpretation, and then I think it’s really important for us to be facing as a Jewish community: What do we need to keep us safe here where we live, in this country?” She added that discussions lately have caused her to feel hopeful that “there is actually room for productive conversation and helping people connect to a vision for a possible future here that we can agree on.”

Michigan Jews for Democracy announced Tuesday that a growing number of people agree. The group said more than 1,000 Jewish voters across 94 municipalities have so far signed on to its public letter supporting El-Sayed. In a press release, the group stated that he is the best candidate “for a safe and flourishing Jewish community in Michigan and the United States.” Signatories include Jewish Michiganders who work in education and health care, as well as elected officials, students, and community leaders.

Former general counsel to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Samuel Bagenstos said he signed and is voting for El-Sayed because the most important issue in next week’s election is “the urgent need to impose a check against Donald Trump.”

“Trump’s attacks on democracy and his stirring up of hatred against minorities—whether defined by race, ethnicity, gender identity, or otherwise—are a direct threat to the safety of Jewish Americans, and they are also a threat to the universal values of freedom, equality, and full membership in the community that are at the core of my Jewish identity,” he said in an email statement.

Jessica “Decky” Alexander, chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, also linked her support of El-Sayed to Jewish safety: “I am voting for El-Sayed because, at the end of the day, I feel that I am much safer, as a human and a Jew, in a country with a candidate who is open and honest about their views.”

BEND THE ARC VOLUNTEERS ARE HEADING to the doors until Election Day, while AIPAC continues to spend heavily in Michigan, while simultaneously claiming it would no longer publicly endorse or support political candidates.

The organization is spending $9 million to defeat El-Sayed, after previously spending $30 million in the primary to support Democratic contender Haley Stevens. The race between El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers is close. For his part, Rogers’s official campaign is based on what he says is a history of fighting corruption, plus a heaping dose of unofficial Islamophobia.

Naturally, Rogers is himself corrupt. As the Prospect reported earlier this month, Rogers is a substantial creditor in controversial cybersecurity firm IronNet, which has ties to a Russian oligarch, and which paid him $725,000 shortly before it went bankrupt and wiped out the money of ordinary investors. He also surrounds himself with people linked to the Living Word Church scandal that sent three elders to prison for sexually abusing children. Rogers retained two of the church’s pastors on his Faith Leadership Coalition even after the three went to prison.

Greg Krieg, spokesperson for American Priorities, a PAC supporting El-Sayed, said that AIPAC’s decision to withdraw from public view illustrates that the organization’s officials know it is extremely unpopular.

“When you don’t put your name to it, I think that’s a pretty up-front acknowledgment that you don’t want people to know who is spending and why, and the only reason I can think of to do that is that you’ve become massively unpopular both on the merits of how you’ve conducted yourself and the kinds of candidates you’ve supported.”