EXCLUSIVE: Mike Rogers and NRSC launch coordinated seven-figure ad buy targeting Abdul El-Sayed’s ties to “radical Islam”

Michiganders are about to see a new ad on their airwaves, courtesy of a coordinated ad buy between the Mike Rogers for Senate campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The ad, obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, is part of a seven-figure ad buy, and it will run statewide across digital and streaming platforms.

Rogers’s new ad, titled “Threat,” homes in on his Democratic opponent’s ties to “the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda.”

The ad is narrated by Ann Arbor’s Iman Dashti. Dashti notes that, as a Persian-American, his “family escaped oppression in Iran to find freedom in America.” Dashti adds that “Abdul El-Sayed is a real threat to our national security and our values. Abdul raises money from dangerous people who finance terrorist networks…I know the threats of radical Islam, and I know Abdul El-Sayed can never, ever be a U.S. Senator.”

The Rogers campaign’s latest ad continues the GOP’s salvo against El-Sayed, which has focused heavily on El-Sayed’s ties to radical Islamic groups. El-Sayed has raised over $100,000 from donors with identified connections to Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an alleged Hamas-linked group and Designated Terrorist Organization in multiple states. 

Lawmakers like Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has previously requested that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigate CAIR over its alleged ties to terrorist groups like Hamas.

Dozens of CAIR staff members and board members have donated to El-Sayed, including its national board chair Manal Fakhoury, its national board treasurer Eyas Abdeen, its national board vice chair Emad Sabbah, and Michigan board member Muzammil Ahmed.

While the ad does not directly mention El-Sayed’s ties to anti-American streamer Hasan Piker, who claimed that America deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Rogers has made El-Sayed’s close ties to Piker a theme of his general election campaign; El-Sayed spent the night before the Democratic primary at a pool party with Piker.

While Michigan hasn’t elected a Republican senator in decades, Rogers is viewed by most as the Republican most likely to flip a Democratic seat in November. 

Watch the new ad here.