Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed recently escalated his feud with Republican nominee Mike Rogers, who is more than twenty years his senior, challenging the former FBI agent to a bout of tackle football after accusing Rogers of being "too afraid" to debate him."Since you’re too afraid to debate me, how about you ‘hold me accountable’ on a football field instead," El-Sayed posted to X on Wednesday."Tackle, no pads like we used to play when we were kids.
I’d be happy to show you [how] much I love football."Rogers is 63 while El-Sayed is 41.The unusual challenge comes as Rogers seeks to turn El-Sayed’s past criticism of football culture into a campaign liability, while El-Sayed has increasingly leaned into sports, fitness and a defense of masculinity as he courts male voters.The exchange quickly became personal, with Rogers’ campaign mocking El-Sayed’s height rather than accepting the challenge.MICHIGAN DEM SENATE NOMINEE COMES UNDER FIRE OVER RESURFACED BLOG POST LINKING FOOTBALL TO 'TOXIC MASCULINITY'Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers is making a direct pitch to Michigan Democrats following Abdul El-Sayed’s primary victory.
(Sarah Rice/Getty Images ; JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images))El-Sayed’s X post was in response to a clip of Rogers criticizing him for past comments he made on topics such as football and the 4th of July."This guy spent hours hating on what most Michiganders would enjoy in their pastimes, and he should be held to account for that," Rogers said on Fox News."These are views that he held, that he was pretty strong about, but he knew that he had to delete them all … if people really knew who he was, they wouldn’t vote for him."In an October 2021 essay, El-Sayed wrote that "the toxic masculinity at the heart of America’s most popular sport — and men’s sports culture more generally — is way deeper than a few emails or a Jay-Z turnaround."EL-SAYED'S THREAT AGAINST GOP RIVAL BACKFIRES AS CONSERVATI...