ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — By the time Hasan Piker took the microphone at two campaign events with a Senate candidate in Michigan on Tuesday, the popular but controversial online streamer had already generated plenty of noise inside the Democratic Party.
Some have pitched him as a gateway to young people — particularly young men — who have drifted to the right in recent years. Others fear he is a sign of the party beholden to its extremes, pointing to inflammatory rhetoric like “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, describing some Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and that “America deserved 9/11.”
Piker’s appearances with Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, have catalyzed questions of how big a tent the party wants to build as it works to regain power in the midterm elections and win back the White House.
The packed, raucous events on state university campuses offered a clear signal from at least one faction of Democrats that there’s a growing appetite for figures like Piker and the candidates who stand with them.
“Belief itself is an act of hope,” El-Sayed told the crowd.
“Because we may not win, but for damn sure if we don’t try, we will lose,” he added. “And look, winning is right there. We live at the golden edge of a horizon of our own making.”
Piker said he is a ‘megaphone’ for an angry electorate
In an interview with The Associated Press prior to the events, Piker cast the reaction to his role as part of a broader fight for Democrats’ future.
“There is definitely, I think, a battle right now for who gets to be more representative of the national Democratic Party,” he said.
Piker remains largely unapologetic for his past remarks, although he’s said some were poorly worded. He called the renewed focus on them “totally ridiculous, especially considering that there are far more consequential things happening in the world right now.”
“The super wealthy are picking apart the scraps of the American carcass like a bunch of vultures, and some of the Democrats are talking about their affiliations with a Twitch streamer,” Piker said. “I think Americans understand that this is totally ridiculous.”
The 34-year-old Turkish American streamer has 3.1 million followers on Twitch and 1.8 million on YouTube, making him an influential voice in a shifting media landscape where mainstream outlets are losing clout. Unlike traditional podcasts, his livestreams are often unscripted and interactive. He has hosted prominent Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Piker said he is a “megaphone” for an angry electorate, and he believes the criticism that he faces is less about him personally and more about what he represents — a younger, more populist wing of the party.
“I think they find me to be a more appropriate target than to just actively disparage the voters,” he said.
El-Sayed said the Democratic Party ‘has given up on the idea of persuasion’
El-Sayed, who has been backed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, attempted to channel that appeal in appearances at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan on Tuesday. A physician and former county health official, he is locked in a competitive Senate primary with U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. It’s a critical race for a seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters and the winner of the primary will likely face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.
El-Sayed has cast himself as an outsider in the race and said he’s finding ways to reach voters across the political spectrum, such as starting the day on Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” and ending it at the University of Michigan with Piker.
“I think the Democratic Party, frankly, has given up on the idea of persuasion,” El-Sayed said in an interview. “If you’re serious about persuading, what you do is you engage with that audience and you engage through that creator to have a conversation about what you actually want to build.”
He added that he doesn’t agree with everything Piker has said, but that he believes the Democratic Party hasn’t learned its lesson when it comes to “cancel culture.”
“Everybody’s sick and tired of trying to toss people out because they said something that we disagree with rather than actually having an adult conversation about what we believe in,” said El-Sayed.
The war in Gaza remains a flashpoint in Michigan
In Michigan, home to large Muslim and Jewish communities, the war in Gaza has become a flashpoint in the Senate primary. Both El-Sayed and McMorrow have described the war as a genocide, but El-Sayed has called for ending U.S. military aid while McMorrow has emphasized a two-state solution. Stevens, meanwhile, calls herself a “proud pro-Israel Democrat.”
McMorrow told Jewish Insider that Piker was someone who “says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers,” and she compared him to white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Trump’s decision to dine with Fuentes between his presidencies ignited a firestorm of controversy over his association with extreme voices on the right. Stevens said El-Sayed is “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric.”
El-Sayed responded to the backlash over Piker by saying, “If we want to have a conversation where we’re actually bringing people together about the things that we need and deserve, we’re gonna have to go to unlikely and uncommon places.”
Not everyone in the party wants to go to those places. Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, who chairs the moderate New Democratic Coalition and co-chairs the Congressional Jewish Caucus, called Piker “an unapologetic antisemite.”
“We are deeply disappointed by the decision to host a speaker at the University of Michigan with a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric,” said Rabbi Davey Rosen, the CEO of Michigan Hillel. “Such invitations normalize hate and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
Piker said he is not antisemitic and describes himself as anti-Zionist. Hostility toward Israel has risen across the political spectrum and has become a fault line within the Democratic Party during the war in Gaza.
Criticism has centered on Piker’s past remarks. After the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Piker argued that whether reports of sexual violence are accurate “doesn’t change the dynamic” of the conflict. He has repeatedly said the core issue is Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
Piker has drawn backlash for a comment in which he said “America deserved 9/11,” made during a 2019 livestream while discussing U.S. foreign policy. Piker has said the remark was poorly worded and added in the AP interview that he “didn’t mean that Americans deserved to die.”