A Michigan Democratic state representative, Karen Whitsett, has publicly criticised her party's socialist wing and urged voters to reject US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, arguing that left-wing leaders take Black voters for granted. She went as far as describing far-left socialist politicians as "more racist than the KKK," comparing their treatment of Black communities to historical oppression, and accused prominent Black Democratic figures of enabling this dynamic rather than challenging it.

Whitsett, who is not seeking re-election and will retire at year's end, named civil rights figure Al Sharpton and Detroit pastor Horace Sheffield III, an El-Sayed campaign surrogate, accusing them of helping "keep the knee" on Black voters' necks. She also criticised El-Sayed's Medicare-for-all proposal for lacking implementation detail and pointed to his refusal to distance himself from Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has made controversial remarks including that "America deserved 9/11" and praised Mao Zedong. El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.