He made this an issue. Abdul El-Sayed looked directly into NBC’s Kristen Welker’s eyes and said that he and his family don’t have any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. His sister seems to have an affinity for the movement that’s banned in five Muslim countries, even tweeting about it. NBC News’ Tom Illamas even cooked him on it, surprisingly. He got very testy about it.

And now, we’ve learned that El-Sayed’s mother worked for a charity with al-Qaeda ties. His uncle was its bookkeeper.

El-Sayed faces a host of issues as the primary exit-polling concerns rear their ugly head again, and this time — there’s little he can do to stem the tide. Black and Jewish voters are two of the largest voter blocs in the state — they both hate El-Sayed. We reportedly have an unprecedented number of Jewish Democrats voting for Republicans for the first time this year. Mark Penn, a former Clinton pollster, warned after this summer's primary that if 5 percent of Haley Stevens, El-Sayed’s primary opponent, defected to former Rep. Mike Rogers, he would win. 

And El-Sayed has tried black voter outreach by ordering fried chicken and getting spicy chips and Gatorade at gas stations.