How big of a tent do Democrats want? Hasan Piker is testing the limits in Michigan’s Senate primary

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 H...