Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has been trying to sell himself to voters for the job of United States senator.
But this isn't the first time that the Senate nominee has run for office.
He ran for governor in 2018, and I think he learned some things from that experience.
He used to be heavier. He lost weight.
He used to wear suits - as one normally might when running for such an office.
But now he's constantly running around in tight T-shirts and jeans. I think the point of that is to appear to be relatable, and he thinks that will be more appealing to women. I also think because he is small, he thinks that this look makes him look better.
El-Sayed has also tried to paint himself as more moderate than he appeared to be in 2018, although he's still messing up and coming up with hot takes such as mocking Michigan football in a recent clip.
But X influencer Maze Moore has resurrected a video of one of the forums El-Sayed did in 2018 so you can see just how extreme he truly has been. Listen as he speaks - vehemently - against cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deportations. "And I'm not willing to be a part of that," he said, saying he would move for legislation to prevent localities from being able to help ICE.
Abdul El-Sayed is an open borders, no deportations radical.
— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 10, 2026
"We as a country, I believe, owe it to the world to open our doors."
To him, there is no difference between someone who is here illegally and the American citizen.
Please don't vote for this anti-American insanity. pic.twitter.com/HkNa432gDv
El-Sayed also stated, "Beyond that, we also have to make sure we are not discriminating based on documentation status." If you are "undocumented," he claimed, you don't get access to a lot of things everyone else has access to.
Um, yeah, and there's a reason for that. But he thinks you should have access, regardless of your "status."
"I think that's ridiculous, and we've got to stop discriminating that way," he asserted. He even suggested we have to get serious about putting "money behind" making people able to retrain in their profession of choice after they get here and invest in English language training. Just in this one comment, the money flying out the door sounds immense.
"We as a country, I believe, owe it to the world to open our doors," El-Sayed declared.
No, we don't. We already saw the mess that opening our doors led to under Joe Biden. It's just fundamentally wrong. We don't owe the world anything - we owe our citizens and our country enforcement of the laws and a proper defense.
How could anyone vote for someone who said things like that?
Oh, and by the way, when El-Sayed was straightforward like this in 2018 about what he really thought, he lost the primary to Gretchen Whitmer, who went on to become governor, by more than 21 percentage points. I guess there was some small consolation for El-Sayed that he did come in ahead of Shri Thanedar at the time in that race (which was before Thanedar became a member of Congress).
So El-Sayed has learned how to spin more since then. He's slimmed down and gotten slick. But he can't hide these extreme positions he has taken. We're already seeing that folks, including Democrats, are not sold on El-Sayed, and there's a reason they rejected him before. I don't think he can run away from that now.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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