Horace Sheffield III endorsed Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on his radio show last week and urged listeners to make “5 and 10 phone calls” to help him in the Aug. 4 primary against Rep. Haley Stevens. Sheffield is the pastor of New Destiny Christian Fellowship and host of “The Wake-Up Call” on FaithTalk 101.5 FM.
Campaign finance records show El-Sayed’s campaign made 10 payments of $7,500 each to Ecumenical Ministers Alliance, totaling $75,000, between Oct. 21 and June 1. The payments were listed as “political consulting.” Sheffield incorporated the nonprofit in 2010. It is registered to his home address.
Sheffield has publicly supported El-Sayed several times without publicly disclosing the payments. During a Dec. 6 appearance on his show, he endorsed the candidate and pledged to put his “full force of soldiers” behind him.
In a June 20 video filmed at El-Sayed’s campaign headquarters, Sheffield said he expected El-Sayed to beat Stevens. The nonprofit itself endorsed El-Sayed last month. El-Sayed said he was “deeply honored” by the endorsement and features it on his campaign website.
In 2018, Sheffield faced a similar situation. He was suspended from WFDF after endorsing Shri Thanedar for governor while Thanedar’s campaign was paying his nonprofit tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work.
WFDF owner John Adell pointed to FCC equal-time rules. Sheffield later said, “I won’t be involved in any more campaigns.” Records from that year show three other Michigan candidates — Kevin Robbins, Tracy Green, and Terra Defoe — each paid the nonprofit $750 listed as “endorsement fees.”
Sheffield is the father of Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield and serves as president of the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network.
He has referred to Al Sharpton as a longtime friend. In 2024, the Free Beacon reported that Kamala Harris’s campaign paid $500,000 to Sharpton’s National Action Network shortly before she appeared on his MSNBC program.
A spokeswoman for Salem Media, which owns FaithTalk 101.5 FM, said: “We completely reject the endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed made during this paid programming. Pastor Horace Sheffield is not a Salem Media employee and has no affiliation with Salem Media other than purchasing airtime for his independently produced program. Salem Media is supporting Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate, and the views expressed during this paid program do not reflect the views of our company.”
In last week’s interview, Sheffield echoed El-Sayed’s arguments against corporate PAC money and in favor of Medicare for All. He described Stevens as “the person who is running” and claimed she “has never been seen” in Detroit. Polling shows Stevens ahead by 46 points among black voters in Michigan. Sheffield closed one segment by saying, “Lord, help this man win.” El-Sayed responded, “You can’t buy authenticity.”
