Abdul El-Sayed’s sister said the Michigan Democrat Senate candidate is “not a capitalist” in a video published Thursday, contradicting how he has described himself to voters.
In the video recorded during the Socialism 2026 conference, held September 4-7 in Chicago, an attendee told El-Sayed’s sister, Eman Abdelhadi, that their nephew had started knocking on doors for his campaign but was uneasy about the way El-Sayed describes his politics.
“Hey, I just want to say thank you for everything you said,” the attendee told Abdelhadi. “Also, my nephew just started going to U of M, and I got him actually door-knocking for Abdul.”
“Yeah, ohh!” Abdelhadi said. “Ohhh amazing!”
“He got super sketch about it with the whole ‘I’m a capitalist,’” the attendee said. “I was like, ‘Dude, don’t worry about that. Abdul is not a f**king capitalist.’”
“Yeah,” Abdelhadi replies.
“All we care about is the policies at this point,” she adds.
“Exactly. Getting him in,” the other person says. Abdelhadi responds, “Exactly.”
El-Sayed has rejected the socialist label during his Senate campaign. Asked in an interview whether he was a socialist, he answered, “I’m not. I’m a capitalist.”
“I’m not a socialist, I’m just a capitalist who understands how capitalism works,” El-Sayed told WJBK in July. “The biggest threat to capitalism was never the idea of government regulation, it was always monopoly.”
He argued that the government should regulate monopolies so people have more choices and are not forced to pay more for goods or earn less for their work.
El-Sayed supports Medicare for All and has called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib have backed his campaign. El-Sayed has also said he is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
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