The Michigan Senate debate on Thursday was as heated and personal as the rest of the race has been.
Republican nominee Mike Rogers repeatedly called Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed a “glitchy AI chatbot” and suggested the Muslim American has ties to terrorists. El-Sayed called Rogers cowardly and accused him of going after the “Peeping Tom vote” by supporting local government control of Flock cameras.
The moderator, Rick Albin of WOOD TV8, said after an ad break that the intensity wasn’t limited to on-air time: “In the 30 years of doing debates, I’ve never seen it continue into commercial.”
The Michigan race is one of the most competitive in the country, with the open seat rated as a “toss up” by The Cook Political Report. Winning the seat could be the difference between controlling the U.S. Senate for both Democrats and Republicans.
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Each candidate was eager to talk about affordability, which has been a focus for most congressional races across the country. El-Sayed was quick to attach President Donald Trump’s economic track record to Rogers’ “direct line” to the White House, reminding the audience that Rogers has been in Congress before.
“He’s going to make this about him and me,” El-Sayed said, predicting the rest of the debate’s tone. “But really, it’s about you and whether you can afford your gas and your groceries.”
Rogers began to address the affordability-concerns question with an answer about a diesel rebate but got off track when he prodded at the legitimacy of El-Sayed’s medical license. El-Sayed received his medical degree from Columbia University and has a doctorate in public health from Oxford University, but Republicans have seized on him having little history of treating patients. El-Sayed is not licensed to practice medicine in Michigan.
“If somebody came into his office and he tried to treat that patient, he’d go to jail,” Rogers said.
El-Sayed threw his fair share of punches, asking Rogers to “just be serious, my guy,” in response to his opponent’s economic policy. Later on, El-Sayed called Rogers “my guy” again; Rogers shot back by calling El-Sayed “brother.”
Artificial intelligence and data centers have been hot topics throughout the Michigan race, with both candidates calling for some level of regulation on the technology. El-Sayed is running on public ownership of AI companies and regulation of Flock surveillance technology by the federal government. Rogers has advocated for a temporary moratorium on data centers and supports letting local governments control Flock cameras, but he said he doesn’t approve of them being misused.
El-Sayed launched an anti-Flock ad blitz earlier this week, which included a website with blown-up photos of Rogers’ face with “Mike Rogers is watching you” underneath.
The quips grew more personal when Rogers said Flock cameras could be used to catch terrorists.
“Why would that bother you?” Rogers said. “Well, if you have somebody in your family that might be on the watch list …”
El-Sayed jumped in and dared his opponent to finish his sentence.
“Go ahead and say it,” El-Sayed said. “You’ve been tiptoeing around it.”
Rogers then brought up El-Sayed’s birth mother, who’s been accused of working for a group designated as a terrorist organization. At another point in the debate, Rogers suggested El-Sayed has relationships to groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. These allegations have been reported to be misleading by the Detroit Free Press, and El-Sayed’s campaign has not yet commented on the allegation about his biological mother.
In Rogers’ closing pitch, he warned that El-Sayed was not the right choice to represent Michigan, only mentioning himself in his final seconds.
“We cannot afford Abdul, and we cannot risk his ideology,” Rogers said.
El-Sayed similarly focused on Rogers in his final 30 seconds, although he tried to circle back to his starting message about focusing on Michiganders.
“I told you what this debate was going to be: him pointing at me and saying all kinds of foreign names, or him talking about himself,” El-Sayed said.
A post-debate camera angle showed Rogers leaning over to El-Sayed for a quick handshake before disappearing offstage. The candidates are expected to be back on the debate stage Oct. 21 in Detroit.
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