Vance tells Michigan Senate candidate El-Sayed to keep his wife's name out of his mouth at rally

Topline

Vice President JD Vance told Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to "keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth" on Monday, after El-Sayed invoked Usha Vance while criticizing the vice president.

Key Facts

• Vance made the comments while campaigning for El-Sayed's opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, at a MAGA, Inc. rally in Michigan.
• El-Sayed recently mocked Vance by asking, "so do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no," presumably referring to the second lady's Indian ethnicity.
• El-Sayed's remarks followed Vance's statement: "I'd love to go back in time and tell my Papaw that there is a man who claims to stand for working people who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticize it, you're a white supremacist. That's not my grandpa's Democratic Party," in which Vance claimed the Democratic Party no longer represents the working class.
• Vance was seemingly referring to El-Sayed's previous criticism of a 2010 Oklahoma ballot measure that sought to prohibit judges from considering Islamic and international law in their rulings.
• El-Sayed told the Oklahoma Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2022 that "you can't understand a Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears" and recounted a history of white supremacy in Oklahoma.
• Right-wing figures have taken the remarks out of context to wrongly claim El-Sayed called for imposing Sharia law in the U.S.

Tangent

Vance characterized El-Sayed as "evil" during Monday's rally. "I realize that there's something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today," he said. Earlier in the day, El-Sayed invoked the years-old debunked claim that Vance wrote in his book that he had a sexual encounter with a couch, telling reporters, "we don't have more couches here than they have in Ohio."

Key Background

Michigan's is one of six Senate races considered toss-ups by election forecasters in this year's midterms. El-Sayed, a progressive, narrowly won his primary against establishment-backed candidate Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich. A poll released Monday shows him ahead of Rogers by four points, though 10% of respondents said they were undecided.

Further Reading

• El-Sayed Explains Why He Hasn't Condemned Hasan Piker: 'We Gotta Stop With The Cancel Culture' (Forbes)
• Latest 2026 Senate Polls: El-Sayed Leads Rogers By 4 Points In Michigan (Forbes)
• Here's What Hasan Piker Said And Why It's So Controversial (Forbes)