El-Sayed Hits Back After Clip of Him Saying ‘I Hate Mackinac’ Michigan Goes Viral

(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Progressive Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed hit back after a clip of him saying “I hate Mackinac” went viral.

“Not sure about ‘End Wokeness,’ but I don’t think the most ‘American place in MI’ can be a place that…bans cars,” El-Sayed said on X, in reply to the pro-MAGA account “End Wokeness.”

Mackinac is a car-free island and resort town in Lake Huron.

El-Sayed expressed his dislike of the island in a 2020 documentary released after he lost a bid for governor of Michigan. “I hate Mackinac so much,” he said in the doc. “Every time I’ve ever come here I’ve hated it. Why am I here?”

The island is also home to the state’s governor’s summer home.

Democrats are working to unite behind El-Sayed and the party’s progressive arm as he prepares to face Republican Senate nominee Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) in the general election this November. “I think there’s no doubt that, you know, the Republican Party is the Trump Cult and the Democratic Party is a bigger tent. We do have a broad cross-section of people, what they believe, what their experiences are. I think that’s an advantage, but we also have to win general elections,” Hillary Clinton said in an interview with Kara Swisher Friday.

She later added, “And the real fight will be how do we make sure that people who voted for Haley feel comfortable voting for Abdul El-Sayed, and how do we get Independents to feel comfortable? And you can see that it’s not just about Michigan, but the Republican messaging is communist, socialist. It’s going to be a very effective attack.”

To that end, El-Sayed promised the state’s Jewish voters this week that he will “fight the fight against anti-semitism.” When asked by MS NOW co-host Willie Geist about his opposition to unconditional military aid to Israel, El-Sayed explained, “Yeah, look, I just don’t believe in unconditional foreign military aid. That includes Egypt; that also includes Israel.”

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