Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary on August 4, 2026, with campaigning help from Hasan Piker. El-Sayed has since dismissed a question about Piker by saying Twitch streamers in California did not come up, while Piker says he did two campaign stops at two universities early on. Piker was mentioned nearly 2,000 times on broadcast TV news between August and September, about half on Fox News. The discussion is about whether the association, and El-Sayed's DSA politics, will cost Democrats a Senate seat.