Why El-sayed’s Final Campaign Swing Includes A Black Church In Detroit

Black faith leaders and elected officials in Michigan who support Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said they're working to overcome a sense of distrust that has hindered the progressive candidate's appeal among Black voters in the closing days of the state's hotly contested Senate race.

The push comes amid lingering tensions between Michigan’s Black and Arab American communities, fueled in part by hostilities over business ownership in predominantly Black neighborhoods, local elected officials and church leaders say.

“Many Black folks feel that someone can come from outside of the neighborhood and own an establishment, a business in the community, then take the money from that neighborhood — our neighborhood — into theirs and continue to thrive,” James Tate, the Detroit City Council president who has endorsed El-Sayed, said in an interview. “Now, if you talk to some of those business owners, they'll tell you that they've also had some pretty poor treatment by some of the customers and clients, so there's a need for a conversation.”

El-Sayed has struggled to win over Black voters, who make up roughly 14% of Michigan’s population. Despite his tight primary victory over Rep. Haley Stevens, she well outran him in majority-Black Detroit. And recent surveys have shown his supportamong Black voters lagging Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson’s.

Now, El-Sayed, who could be the country’s first Muslim senator, is returning to the Black church to try to solidify voters’ support in the closing days of the race. He is set to appear at a “Souls to the Polls” event with Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday, one of the more than 45 visits to Black churches his campaign said he has made.

The visit comes under extra scrutiny after a proposed joint appearance at a church with El-Sayed and Stevens self-destructed after the two exchanged public sniping.

The push comes alongside escalating GOP-led attacks on El-Sayed’s Egyptian heritage and Islamic faith. When reached for comment, El-Sayed’s campaign pointed to his church visits and attacked Rogers.

But Republicans have also set their sights on winning over Black voters. The GOP-backed group Democrats for Mike Rogers recently released a series of ads featuring Black voters. In one, the voters say El-Sayed “cares about Palestine more than Michigan.”

Earlier this month, Rogers also opened a new office in Detroit, establishing a presence in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

Rogers’ campaign said the Republican has visited dozens of churches across Detroit since August, including Christian Fellowship Baptist Church with Rev. Allen Overton last month. He also met with Charles E. Williams II, pastor of the Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, on Saturday.

“Over the past several months, churches and businesses across Detroit, Pontiac, and Flint have opened their doors to meaningful conversations about affordability, housing, education, food deserts, and clean water,” Rogers said in a statement. “The relationships we’ve built have been historic, and our commitment to working with community leaders to deliver real solutions is unwavering. We have a state to save, and it’s going to take all of us.”

With El-Sayed’s Islamic faith also in the spotlight, Black faith leaders who have met with the candidate and back his campaign said they’ve worked to assuage Black Christians’ concerns ahead of Tuesday.

“There's an assumption that because he follows the Islamic faith that he will automatically be opposed to the Christian faith,” said Parris McMurray, the senior pastor of Grand Rapids’ Renaissance Church of God in Christ. McMurray is one of more than two dozen Black faith leaders who have endorsed El-Sayed.

The pastor added that he finds the concerns “oxymoronic” given voters’ desire to have their own religious freedom protected. Still, he said, he tries not to invalidate voters who come to him.

“I do think it's important to understand the context of why some of those fears exist,” he said, citing terrorist attacks committed by those who claimed to have acted on behalf of the Islamic faith. “But also, we see in our greatest sin in America that our slave owners were using the name of Jesus to continue to enforce slavery on us as Black people.”

Horace Sheffield III, the senior pastor at Detroit’s New Destiny Christian Fellowship who also endorsed El-Sayed, said while he understands there may be tensions between the two communities, the economic and social struggles they face are very similar.

“The people who have money and have privilege have been favored in an overwhelming way in this current administration, but people that I deal with who have to make real-life choices between prescriptions and gas and food didn't have anybody that would voice those concerns,” said Sheffield, the father of Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield, who endorsed El-Sayed.

Tate, from the Detroit City Council, said he told El-Sayed that he will need to address the strained relations after the election, should El-Sayed win. But Tate said he’s confident that rather than El-Sayed’s ethnicity or faith, worries about the economy will be the deciding force for Black Michiganders in the election.

“I've heard far more people complain about the president and his supporters — whether we talk about on the ground or in legislative positions — about their behavior, and that is what's motivating most of the folks that I've seen,” said Tate. “We'll have conversations afterwards about some of that other stuff. But right now, we need to deal with the biggest threat that is before us, and the biggest threat is the way that the president has operated this country.”