Ted Cruz

Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, is vilifying Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed as the candidate clears the Democratic field for the state's U.S. Senate race.

El-Sayed, who was declared the party's primary winner Wednesday morning, has campaigned on a progressive platform that has worried his potential GOP colleagues. Cruz has amplified those concerns in public remarks, decrying El-Sayed's policy positions while disparaging his Islamic faith.

"You see the green-red convergence, where the communists and the Islamists, they want sharia law, they hate Jews, they hate Christians, they hate capitalism, they hate America," Cruz said in a Tuesday Fox News interview. "All of this is coming together in a way that is really a toxic, toxic stew."

Fewer than 12 hours later, the senator wrote in an X post that El-Sayed's success is part of a communist and Islamic "takeover" of the U.S. The National News Desk requested comment from El-Sayed, a capitalist, but hasn't received a response.

The Democrat has resisted criticism on his personal traits, responding only occasionally to promote his campaign themes.

"Now, people—you can imagine with a name like mine—people like to come out of the internet and say, 'Oh, he must hate America,'" El-Sayed remarked in a recent speech. "Don't get it twisted, I love America. I know exactly what America did for me. I saw it with a front row seat to what my life should have been but for America."

El-Sayed will face former Representative Mike Rogers in the November general election. The Democrat has a worse chance of beating his Republican opponent than Representative Haley Stevens, El-Sayed's defeated primary challenger, would have had.

"After eight years of 'play it safe' politics, many Democratic primary voters are no longer content to support candidates with the best chance to defeat MAGA-aligned candidates," Cook Political Report analysts said Wednesday. "Instead, they want to see their party fight against a political system that they feel has been woefully inept at making the kind of change needed to move the country forward.

"The question now, of course, is whether these candidates can prove the establishment wrong and win their races in November."

A poll conducted late last month by the reputable Michigan Information & Research Service placed the two general election candidates in a neck-and-neck race. Rogers led El-Sayed by three percentage points, within the survey's margin of error. Stevens held a two-point lead over the former congressman.