Barry Moore

This is an opinion column

Alabama voters probably aren’t spending much time thinking about the U.S. Senate race in Michigan.

Maybe they should.

Not because Michiganders need Alabama telling them whom to elect. They don’t.

But because whoever Michigan sends to Washington could soon be sitting across the aisle from the man Alabama sends there.

And there may be no clearer illustration of the ideological fights awaiting Congressman Barry Moore in the United States Senate than Abdul El-Sayed.

El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, currently holds a narrow lead over Republican Mike Rogers. The RealClearPolitics polling average has El-Sayed at 47.5% and Rogers at 44.8%, while a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll had El-Sayed ahead 48% to 45%, within that poll’s margin of error. (RealClearPolling)

So, nobody knows who will win Michigan.

But the possibility that El-Sayed could arrive in Washington alongside Alabama’s next senator makes his political record relevant here.

Start with breast cancer research.

In a 2012 essay written while he was an epidemiologist, El-Sayed criticized what he called the “pink ribbon lobby” and questioned how federal research dollars were being distributed toward breast cancer.

He described the funding trend as “disturbing” and argued that research dollars could flow disproportionately toward diseases affecting people with greater “social power and privilege.”

That wasn’t an offhand remark at a campaign rally.

It was a written argument about how government should think about medical research funding.

For someone seeking one of 100 seats in the United States Senate, where decisions involving federal health policy and research spending are made, that record is relevant.

Then there is Kamala Harris.

Harris came to Michigan this week to appear with El-Sayed at a roundtable focused on Black maternal health.

There is some political irony in that alliance.

El-Sayed was sharply critical of the tone surrounding the Democratic presidential campaign in 2024 as the war in Gaza continued. After the election, he contrasted images from Gaza with what he described as Democrats’ “manufactured campaign of joy” and called that contrast “nauseating.”

Two years later, Harris is campaigning for him.

Then we get to September 11.

El-Sayed chose to campaign alongside progressive streamer Hasan Piker, a political personality who infamously said in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11.”

Piker didn’t accidentally wander onto the campaign trail. El-Sayed appeared with him during the Democratic primary when Piker’s enormous progressive audience was politically valuable.

Call that guilt by association if you want.

Christian conservatives might call it accountability for the company a candidate chooses to keep.

Scripture repeatedly warns about the company we keep, the counsel we seek and the people with whom we choose to stand.

That does not mean someone adopts every belief held by every person who appears beside him.

But choices tell us something about judgment.

And in politics, judgment matters.

El-Sayed’s own comments surrounding September 11 deserve consideration as well. On his podcast in 2021, he argued that while the attacks scarred America, America’s actions afterward scarred millions of other people.

Americans can debate the wars that followed 9/11. They should.

But El-Sayed’s broader worldview is what makes this race interesting beyond Michigan.

And that brings us back to Alabama.

Barry Moore comes from almost the opposite political tradition.

His political identity is rooted in evangelical Christianity, social conservatism, limited government, and a muscular view of American national interests.

That philosophical difference matters because the Senate is not simply a place where 100 people cast votes.

It is where ideas collide.

Alabamians know Barry Moore. He didn’t run for the Senate promising to become another go-along-to-get-along Republican. His political brand has been built around fighting for conservative values.

And perhaps more importantly, he is willing to confront political ideologies he believes threaten the principles he was elected to defend.

There is an important distinction here.

Muslims who practice their faith peacefully and accept the Constitution, religious liberty and equal citizenship are Americans entitled to exactly the same freedom of worship as Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Jews, or anyone else.

Islamist political ideology is a different question. Where an ideology seeks to subordinate religious freedom, replace constitutional government with religious rule, or coerce those who refuse to submit to it, Christian conservatives see something fundamentally incompatible with the Western constitutional tradition.

Many Christians would argue that you cannot compromise with an ideology that ultimately demands submission.

There is a difference between tolerance and surrender.

And Moore’s supporters believe he understands that difference.

That same instinct carries into domestic policy.

If El-Sayed reaches Washington with an aggressive socialist agenda, Moore would represent one of the senators expected by conservative voters to resist it.

Not merely disagree with it.

Resist it.

Slow legislation down.

Use committee assignments.

Use Senate procedure.

Vote no.

Build coalitions capable of preventing policies conservatives believe would push the country in the wrong direction.

Sometimes Washington measures effectiveness by the number of bills a politician passes.

Conservatives often measure it differently.

Sometimes the most important thing a senator does is stop something from becoming law.

The senators chosen by other states do not make decisions that remain inside their borders. Their votes affect Alabama too.

And whoever Alabama sends to Washington will have the same national reach.

If El-Sayed reaches the Senate, he will represent a distinctly socialist vision of America’s future.

Moore would bring a distinctly Christian-conservative vision from Alabama.

Those two worldviews would collide on healthcare, foreign policy, government spending, religious liberty, Israel, the role of government and America’s place in the world.

Michigan will decide who represents Michigan.

Alabama will decide who represents Alabama.

But once they arrive in Washington, the arguments no longer stop at the state line.

That may be the larger significance of Alabama’s next senator.

Sometimes the job is advancing an idea.

Sometimes it is stopping one.

And Abdul El-Sayed offers Alabama conservatives a pretty good preview of the ideological battles they expect Barry Moore to encounter when he gets there.