Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is endorsing Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s contentious U.S. Senate race, while suggesting her choice wasn’t easy.

Nessel, Michigan’s top law enforcement officer and most prominent elected Jewish Democrat, said on a Michigan-based podcast that she “can’t be true to my values if I even consider voting for Mike Rogers,” the Republican nominee for Senate.

“Yes, I’ll be voting for Abdul. We have one candidate that I know is going to fight against the Trump administration, is going to fight to protect both our physical security, our safety, our health and our futures,” Nessel said on the podcast, “For the Sake of the Argument with Lori Goldman,” where she appeared sitting next to El-Sayed.

The podcast was published Tuesday, Sept. 22.

“And then we have another candidate, Mike Rogers, who’s not going to do any of that, and who only cares about self-enrichment and, you know, how many pats on the back he can get from Donald Trump,” Nessel added.

“So for me, I don’t want to say the choice is easy, but I am going to say there is no choice. And that’s why I’m supporting Abdul for the United States Senate.”

Nessel had previously endorsed the pro-Israel U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham, who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the Aug. 4 Democratic primary election. Michigan’s hotly contested Senate race between El-Sayed and Rogers could decide control of the U.S. Senate in November.

El-Sayed on Goodman’s podcast with Nessel told her he was particularly grateful for her support “because I know we haven’t agreed on everything.”

“I know we won’t always agree on everything, but I also know that you care about my kids and have fought for them, and I know you know that I care about your kids and have fought for them and will fight for them,” El-Sayed said. “And that’s the thing that we can do together.”

Nessel, in a private speech to Jewish Democrats in late August, spoke about the tension some Jewish Democrats in the battleground state feel ahead of the November election, as a number of Democratic nominees have spoken against Israel.

In her remarks last month, Nessel never mentioned El-Sayed by name, though he is a long-time critic of Israel’s government and of U.S. aid for the country, labeling Israel a rogue state that’s committing genocide against Palestinians. Rogers of White Lake Township has been actively courting the votes of Jewish Democrats, some of whom have publicly broken with El-Sayed over his positions and rhetoric on Israel.

“Come November, what do your Jewish values tell you to do?” Nessel said in her prior remarks. “It’s so easy to hate people right now, especially other Democrats who seem to have thrown us under the bus, despite our lifelong contributions to our party.”

In that speech, Nessel referenced the story of Queen Esther, who offered to sacrifice her own life to save the Jewish people, she said. Nessel said Jewish Democrats have a “moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest.”

“It is perhaps up to us now to follow in her path and sacrifice the comfort, safety and security and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity,” Nessel said.

“What good is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?” Nessel continued.

El-Sayed was in attendance at the late August event for the Jewish Caucus, where he apologized to Jewish Democrats for a statement he released in March after an attack on the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield. In that March statement, El-Sayed condemned the attack but also said “hurt people hurt people.”

“I am asking for forgiveness and a moment of grace,” El-Sayed said at the Jewish Caucus gathering in Birmingham. “I made a mistake.”

Some liberal Jewish rabbis and leaders in Michigan are continuing to withhold their votes for El-Sayed, asking him to change some of his positions and rhetoric about Israel in order to earn their support. They said their congregations collectively represent about 40,000 Michigan Jews.

That “nonnegotiables” campaign asks El-Sayed to commit to condemning threats to Jewish safety from antisemitism, support for “Jewish sovereignty in Israel,” a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, and welcoming “full participation in American political life” for Jewish Americans, including Zionists.

The rabbis leading the group said they are reacting in part to El-Sayed’s refusal to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his association with the controversial Piker and El-Sayed’s condemnation of spending by the pro-Israel lobby in the Democratic primary.

“We’ve seen the needle move, and I appreciate some of the apologies that he’s offered in the last couple weeks. I appreciate some of the comments he made in regard to the Middle East at the forum on the news the other night. But it’s just not enough,” Rabbi Aaron Starr of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield told The Detroit News last week.

“I’m concerned that he’s been talking out of both sides of his mouth. I’m concerned that he’s just not come far enough to address the issues that are core to many members of my community.”

The group wrote to former Vice President Kamala Harris this week, asking her to speak with El-Sayed about directly addressing the Jewish community’s concerns while the two campaign together in Detroit on Tuesday, Sept. 22.

mburke@detroitnews.com

Staff Writer Craig Mauger contributed.

This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Why Dana Nessel endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s US Senate race

Reporting by Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News / The Detroit News

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