JD Vance attacks Abdul El-Sayed’s Sharia comments as evidence Democrats have lost working-class roots

At a rally held at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant in his Ohio hometown, Vice President JD Vance warned that the Democratic Party has drifted away from its union-focused origins. He recalled his grandfather’s four-decade career as a welder and his belief that Democrats were the “party of union men.” Vance then targeted Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, noting the candidate’s 2022 keynote at a Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet where El-Sayed argued that opposition to Sharia law was tied to white supremacy.

Vance claimed such statements illustrate the party’s shift toward academic elites rather than the labor force that runs facilities like the steel plant. The criticism arrives amid a tight Senate race between El-Sayed and former Republican Representative Mike Rogers, a contest that could influence which party controls the Senate. El-Sayed has also faced pushback for earlier comments labeling Israel a “genocide” and an “apartheid” state, though he later affirmed a commitment to Jewish safety. No comment was obtained from El-Sayed’s campaign for this event.