As Democratic candidates like Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed ramp up anti-Semitic messaging and rhetoric with the midterm election just days away, polls show that Jewish Americans appear to be moving away from the Democratic Party in favor of the GOP.

Over the weekend, an online campaign ad for El-Sayed funded by Rebellion PAC was released that blamed U.S. aid to Israel for high grocery prices, which amounts to roughly half a percentage point of the total U.S. federal budget. Observers like The Free Press’s Eli Lake point out that “Claiming that aid to Israel is responsible for high grocery prices is a grotesque lie that resurrects an ancient and sinister trope that blames international Jewry for economic misery.”

For its part, El-Sayed’s campaign stated that the ad was “not affiliated in any way” with the campaign, with no explicit condemnation of the ad’s anti-Semitic messaging.

However, as noted by Lake, the Senate candidate has previously made similar arguments to the Rebellion PAC ad. “Israel is an affordability issue,” El-Sayed remarked during an interview with The Ink. “Every time you want to put glasses on kids’ faces or give people healthcare or fix a school, somebody pops up and is like, ‘Well, how are you going to pay for that?’ I don’t know. Maybe we should keep our money here instead of sending it there to drop bombs on people’s schools or their hospitals. That’s our money.”

A recurring pattern of implicit anti-Semitism has become a notable and defining feature of El-Sayed’s campaign. Earlier this month, he once again doubled down on previous statements claiming that the state of Israel posed an equal threat to the security of the U.S. as Iran.

El-Sayed has further claimed that Israel’s military response in Gaza to the October 7, 2023 atrocity carried out by Hamas terrorists, in which 1,200 Israeli civilians were killed, is equivalent to “genocide.” He has also called Israel “bloodthirsty,” an “illegal apartheid regime,” and a “rogue nation.” El-Sayed, an avowed Muslim, has also stated that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state. “I don’t believe in ethno-states, and I certainly don’t believe that our country is responsible to sustain ethno-states,” he told The New York Times in July.

The Michigan Senate candidate has also demonized pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), attacking his primary opponent Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) for being a pawn of the group and accusing it of being a foreign lobby. But as noted by Lake, AIPAC is “composed primarily of American Jews.”

Additionally, El-Sayed has publicly campaigned with the anti-Semitic commentator and streamer Hasan Piker, who even appeared alongside El-Sayed during his election night event. Piker has called Zionism a “mental illness,” used terms like “inbred” and “psychopath” in reference to Israeli and Orthodox Jews, once stated, “I’m a lesser evil voter and therefore I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” and has also stated that anyone who has “positive feelings about the state of Israel” should be “treated in the same way as being a f****** rabid neo-Nazi. ... You shouldn’t even let someone be the f****** local dog catcher,” among other inflammatory statements.

The rhetoric of candidates like El-Sayed as well as a series of other anti-Semitic incidents that have characterized the midterm election cycle appear to be having an effect on how Jewish voters may cast their ballots next week. According to a new poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, Jewish voters favor Republicans over Democrats by a 31-point margin, with 64% saying they will vote for the GOP and 33% saying they will vote for Democrats.

The poll follows other data showing that even the Jewish vote in blue states like New York may not be as dependable as in previous eras, with the Democrat advantage among Jewish voters on the state’s House ballot dropping from 49 points in 2022 to 13 points this year.

Observers like The Free Press’s Eli Lake say that it’s clear why El-Sayed has not explicitly condemned the Rebellion PAC ad blaming Jews for financial difficulties. “[M]aybe the reason El-Sayed is not denouncing [Rebellion PAC]’s antisemitic ad is because he pretty much agrees with its content. At the very least, he doesn’t want to offend the antisemites in Michigan who he hopes will make him the state’s next U.S. senator.”