By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Republican congressional candidate Cheryl Riley spent part of this week pressing Rep. Jamie Raskin over his backing of Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, arguing the Montgomery County Democrat’s national travel schedule and his choice of allies both deserve scrutiny from MD-8 voters.
The dispute broke into local news coverage Tuesday after FOX45 (WBFF) reported on a string of social media posts in which Riley criticized Raskin for appearing alongside El-Sayed in Michigan while, in her view, spending too little time focused on his own district. Riley is one of the Republicans running against Raskin in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, a seat anchored in Montgomery County that Raskin has held since 2017.
What Riley is arguing
Riley’s core complaint is straightforward: Raskin has praised El-Sayed publicly and is scheduled to campaign with him, and she thinks El-Sayed’s record on Israel should worry Jewish voters in a district she describes as one of the most heavily Jewish in Maryland.
- El-Sayed has called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and, when asked directly whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, did not give a direct answer.
- After an antisemitic attack on a Michigan synagogue earlier this year, El-Sayed condemned the violence but also said “hurt people hurt people,” a comment that drew criticism from some Jewish leaders.
- Raskin has called El-Sayed “an excellent candidate,” according to FOX45’s reporting.
- El-Sayed is a close associate of Hasan Piker, who believes the United States deserved 9/11.
“When I saw that, just my first thought was, well, what about your district?” Riley told FOX45. Her broader point, as she laid it out in a series of posts on X, is that a congressman who is Jewish and has spoken against antisemitism should not be lending his name to a candidate whose comments on the subject have drawn backlash.
Raskin’s office did not respond to FOX45’s request for comment on the El-Sayed relationship or Riley’s criticism. MDBayNews found no public response from Raskin addressing Riley’s specific claims about El-Sayed as of publication.
“When I saw that, just my first thought was, well, what about your district?”
The rhetoric has gotten sharp
Riley has not stuck to policy criticism alone. In the same round of posts, she called Raskin a “Marxist” and a “communist,” and described El-Sayed as a “radical Islamist.” When FOX45 asked whether that language might itself come across as inflammatory, Riley acknowledged it sounded harsh but stood by her characterization of Raskin’s politics as radical.
That kind of language cuts both ways in this race. Raskin’s own social media presence, largely run through his campaign account, leans just as hard in the other direction, routinely branding Republicans and the Trump administration as “authoritarians” and accusing individual officials of running corrupt schemes. Nearly every post reads like he wants to overthrow the Trump administration. He has never accepted that his party lost the election to elect Trump as president.
Voters weighing the tone of this contest will find plenty of it coming from both sides, but one person is in office and spews more negative rhetoric than he does speaking about the ways he actually helps his constituents.
Is the “spending too little time here” argument fair?
Riley’s argument rests partly on the idea that Raskin is more interested in national Democratic politics than in Maryland’s 8th District. That is a harder claim to verify cleanly. Though you can only judge what you see. Raskin’s public posting over the past several weeks shows a mix of both: campaign travel to Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida to support Democratic candidates in other states, alongside posts specifically addressing Maryland issues, including a recent statement criticizing federal immigration enforcement activity in the state and comments on a local dispute involving the Reflecting Pool in Washington that touches his D.C.-area constituents.
“Whether that amounts to neglecting the district … or is simply what comes with a senior committee post, is a matter of political judgment rather than a fact MDBayNews can settle either way.”
Raskin also serves as the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, a national role that regularly puts him in front of cameras on subjects well beyond Maryland. Whether that amounts to neglecting the district, as Riley contends, or is simply what comes with a senior committee post, is a matter of political judgment rather than a fact MDBayNews can settle either way.
You be your own judge. But no one is coming here to campaign for Raskin.
Riley’s own campaign moves
Riley, a past Republican nominee in the district, has been building out her case against Raskin on multiple fronts this cycle. On August 24, U.S. Term Limits, a nonpartisan advocacy group, announced that Riley had signed its pledge to support a constitutional amendment capping House members at three terms and senators at two. In her own posts, Riley has argued Raskin’s “10 years” in office is too many and that he is now seeking an eleventh. Raskin was elected in November 2016 and took office in January 2017, putting him at just under a decade in Congress as of this writing. USTL’s release did not list any Maryland Democrat among the pledge’s signers as of publication.
Riley also raised El-Sayed’s fundraising and his campaign’s use of ActBlue, the Democratic donor-processing platform. Those two claims check out differently once verified against primary sources.
On the money, it’s much worse than Riley claimed: FEC.gov’s own candidate summary page puts El-Sayed’s total receipts at $14,514,335.93 through July 15, 2026, roughly double the “$7 million” Riley cited. Of that, $14,408,058.06 came from individuals, split between $10,265,431.61 in itemized contributions (donations large enough that the donor’s name is on public record) and $4,142,626.45 in small-dollar giving under the $200 reporting threshold that does not require itemization.
“PAC and committee money adds up to about half of one percent of the total.”
PAC and committee money, which Riley’s post implied was propping up the fundraising total, comes to $71,845.23, FEC.gov’s own figure for “other committee contributions.” MDBayNews cross-checked that figure against the campaign’s itemized Schedule A filings, and it reconciles exactly: $68,745.23 from 19 traditional PACs, plus $3,100 from four other candidates’ committees that transferred money to El-Sayed’s campaign. Either way, PAC and committee money adds up to about half of one percent of the total. The itemized PAC contributions each topped out at $5,000, the maximum allowed per election, and came almost entirely from labor unions and progressive advocacy groups:
- National Nurses United, the UAW’s political action arm, the Communications Workers of America, and the Office and Professional Employees International Union, all at or near the $5,000 cap
- Progressive PACs including MoveOn.org, Medicare for All, No Dem Left Behind (which gave twice), Rising Dems, Progressive Voters of America, and March On
- Two PACs tied to Muslim American and Middle East advocacy, MCARE (Muslim Community Advocates for Rights & Empowerment) and the American Committee for Middle East Rights’ MERIT PAC, gave a combined $6,500
That last item is worth flagging given Riley’s specific argument about El-Sayed’s Israel positions. It is a real, verifiable data point directly on point with her criticism, though it is a small fraction of the campaign’s overall haul and MDBayNews found no evidence tying those contributions to the “hurt people hurt people” comment or any other specific statement Riley cited.
Geographically, Michigan donors accounted for about 32 percent of itemized individual contributions, with the rest coming from a mix of states led by California, New York and Texas. On the spending side, the campaign’s biggest vendors were Middle Seat (digital fundraising and organizing, $2.87 million), LC Media (television advertising, $2.57 million) and Gusto (the campaign’s payroll processor, $2.51 million).
“ActBlue is under active congressional and federal investigation, as Riley said.”
On ActBlue: Riley’s claim holds up better here. Three House committees, Judiciary, Administration, and Oversight, are actively investigating the platform over allegations it failed to adequately screen for fraudulent and foreign donations, and the Justice Department has confirmed a separate investigation. ActBlue co-founder Matt DeBergalis invoked his Fifth Amendment right rather than answer questions in a closed-door deposition on August 20. Separately, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued ActBlue in April over the same donation-vetting issues, though a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked that lawsuit in June, ruling it was retaliatory, and Paxton has since appealed the ruling to the First Circuit. So ActBlue is under active congressional and federal investigation, as Riley said, but the specific state lawsuit she referenced is currently on hold pending appeal rather than moving forward.
The bigger picture
“Riley’s campaign is betting that a Jewish-heavy district with real anxiety about antisemitism will punish Raskin for standing next to a candidate who has faced criticism on that exact issue.”
MD-8 is not considered a competitive seat, but it should be. Marylanders should give Cheryl Riley serious consideration. Democrats hold a 7-1 edge in Maryland’s congressional delegation, and Raskin has won his past elections comfortably. MDBayNews is not projecting an outcome here. But the exchange is a useful window into how this race is actually being fought this cycle: less on Raskin’s Maryland record specifically, and more on who he associates with nationally and how he spends his political capital outside the state.
Riley’s campaign is betting that a Jewish-heavy district with real anxiety about antisemitism will punish Raskin for standing next to a candidate who has faced criticism on that exact issue. Raskin’s team, so far, has chosen not to engage with that argument publicly.
Sources: This article is based on reporting by Rebecca Pryor of FOX45 News (WBFF), published August 25, 2026, which included direct, on-record quotes from Cheryl Riley and confirmation that Raskin’s office did not respond to FOX45’s request for comment. Additional confirmation of Riley’s Term Limits pledge comes from U.S. Term Limits’ press release dated August 24, 2026. Top-line El-Sayed campaign fundraising figures come directly from the FEC’s official candidate summary page for Abdul for U.S. Senate (Committee ID C00902668), covering January 1, 2025 through July 15, 2026. PAC-level donor detail was independently reconciled by MDBayNews against the campaign’s itemized Schedule A and Schedule B filings, pulled from the FEC’s bulk data system with memo-coded conduit entries excluded to avoid double-counting ActBlue pass-through contributions. Reporting on the ActBlue investigations and litigation draws on the Texas Attorney General’s office, the House Judiciary Committee, The Hill, Courthouse News Service, and JURIST. Background on the MD-8 race, including candidate biographical details, comes from Maryland Matters’ 2024 voter guide. Raskin’s public statements referenced regarding Maryland immigration enforcement and other topics were drawn from his verified social media accounts. MDBayNews found no independent public statement from Raskin’s office addressing Riley’s criticism as of publication.
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