Abdul El-Sayed, the AOC-endorsed Democratic candidate for Michigan's U.S. Senate seat, spent years on the campaign trail shielded by a gun-carrying bodyguard, even as he publicly questioned whether police officers need firearms at all, his former security director now alleges.

Jordan Domingue, a former Marine combat veteran who served as El-Sayed's director of security, posted the accusation on X after a 2020 University of Michigan video resurfaced showing El-Sayed asking, "Do people really need to use guns? Do we need as much of a police force?"

The contradiction, if the allegation holds, is the kind that voters tend to remember. A candidate who wants fewer armed officers for everyone else kept an armed guard at his side six to seven days a week, often for 12- to 16-hour stretches, for roughly two years. The Michigan Democratic primary is set for August 4, and El-Sayed is competing in a three-way race. His campaign did not return a request for comment from the New York Post.

The bodyguard speaks

Domingue's post on X laid out the arrangement in blunt terms:

"I protected this man with a gun for two years, some average of 6-7 days a week, typically 12-16 hour days. Like so many things with Abdul, it's pure hypocrisy."

Domingue served as security director for El-Sayed's Senate campaign from April 2025 through January 2026, when he abruptly resigned. His LinkedIn profile also lists a security role during El-Sayed's 2017, 2018 gubernatorial campaign, which accounts for the roughly two-year total he cited.

In an interview with the Michigan Enjoyer published in April, Domingue said he left because his boss was "unfit for the post." Neither Domingue nor El-Sayed's campaign returned the Post's request for comment on the latest allegations.

El-Sayed has claimed he received death threats during his 2017, 2018 run for governor, a race he ultimately lost to Gretchen Whitmer in the Democratic primary. Whether those threats were formally reported or investigated remains unclear.

The resurfaced video

The clip that triggered Domingue's public broadside came from a 2020 University of Michigan event. In it, El-Sayed posed two questions that have since become a liability: "Do people really need to use guns? Do we need as much of a police force?"

The video resurfaced on X in recent days, drawing fresh scrutiny as the primary approaches. El-Sayed has since said during his Senate campaign that he does not support defunding the police, a position that sits awkwardly beside the 2020 footage.

That gap between past rhetoric and present positioning is a familiar pattern among progressive candidates who rode the "defund" wave of 2020 and then scrambled to distance themselves once the political winds shifted. The difference here is that El-Sayed's own former bodyguard is the one pointing it out, and he carried the gun that El-Sayed apparently preferred to keep close while suggesting others might not need one.

AOC's endorsement and the progressive lane

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed El-Sayed in the Democratic primary on July 2, a move that defied Democratic leadership and signaled that the party's progressive wing sees Michigan as a proving ground. The endorsement cemented El-Sayed's standing as the left-flank candidate in the race.

But Ocasio-Cortez's backing also ties her brand to El-Sayed's growing list of controversial statements. He has reportedly claimed Israel is "just as evil" as Hamas and said Michigan voters were "sad" over the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in February.

Those positions place El-Sayed well outside the mainstream of Michigan's electorate. Domingue seemed to acknowledge as much in his X post, writing that El-Sayed "might be the only candidate to lose to a Republican in a blue wave cycle."

The remark cuts at the core strategic question facing Michigan Democrats. In a state that both parties view as competitive, nominating a candidate whose public statements on policing, Israel, and Iran read like a progressive wish list carries obvious general-election risk. Deep divisions within the Democratic Party over Israel policy have already created fault lines that candidates like El-Sayed exploit, and that opponents can use against them.

The hypocrisy problem

The armed-bodyguard allegation fits a broader pattern that conservative voters have watched play out for years. Officials and candidates who advocate restricting firearms, reducing police presence, or questioning law enforcement's role often maintain private security arrangements that ordinary citizens cannot afford.

What makes El-Sayed's case particularly pointed is the directness of the contradiction. He did not merely support abstract gun-control legislation. He asked, on camera, whether people "really need to use guns", while, if Domingue's account is accurate, relying on a man with a gun to keep him safe nearly every day of the week.

El-Sayed's campaign has not addressed the armed security arrangement publicly. The candidate's current position, that he does not support defunding police, represents a shift from his 2020 remarks, but it does not answer the underlying question Domingue raised. If armed protection was necessary for a political candidate, why question whether armed officers are necessary for everyone else?

The broader progressive movement has struggled with this tension. Calls to reduce police funding surged in 2020, and far-left political figures across the country embraced the cause. But the consequences of those policies, rising crime, officer shortages, demoralized departments, fell on the communities that could least afford private security details.

What voters don't know

Several questions remain unanswered. The legal and contractual structure of El-Sayed's armed security arrangement is unclear. Whether Domingue carried a firearm under a formal contract or personal authority has not been disclosed. The full context of El-Sayed's statements about Israel and Khamenei, beyond the brief descriptions available, is also unaddressed.

El-Sayed's campaign silence is itself telling. A candidate facing a hypocrisy allegation from his own former security director, less than three weeks before a primary, would ordinarily move quickly to respond. The absence of any public comment suggests either that the campaign has no good answer or that it is hoping the story fades before August 4.

Domingue, for his part, has not been shy. His post on X and his earlier interview with the Michigan Enjoyer paint a picture of a security professional who grew disillusioned with the man he was hired to protect. Whether that disillusionment reflects personal grievance or genuine concern about El-Sayed's fitness for office, voters will have to judge for themselves.

The progressive lane in American politics has always had a credibility problem when it comes to law enforcement and public safety. Candidates who question the very premise of armed policing while surrounded by armed guards make that problem worse, not because security is unreasonable, but because the double standard is impossible to miss.

Michigan voters heading to the polls on August 4 will decide whether El-Sayed's brand of progressivism belongs in the U.S. Senate. His former bodyguard has already rendered his verdict.

When the people paid to stand closest to a candidate walk away and call him a hypocrite, voters ought to listen, especially when the hypocrisy involves the very gun the bodyguard was hired to carry.