Abdul El-Sayed Clings to Narrow Lead in Michigan Senate Primary
Detroit, Mich. — Abdul El-Sayed is clinging to a lead over four-term Congresswoman Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.
While polls predicted an easy win for El-Sayed, the race remains too close to call more than twelve hours after polls closed, though El-Sayed declared victory after NBC News became the first and only network to officially call the race.
As of Wednesday morning, El-Sayed led Stevens by less than 15,000 votes with 96 percent of votes counted.
Despite the lack of an official race call, El-Sayed delivered a victory speech to supporters in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The crowd — comprised of young people in kafia scarves, social media influencers, and prominent national and state Democrats — had not diminished in size or enthusiasm, even after standing inside the Majestic Theater in downtown Detroit for hours.
“I want you to remind them that if we come through this, when we come through this, inshallah, that we’ll have taken $70 million on the chin and kept fighting back,” El-Sayed told his supporters, drawing enthusiastic cheers.
While he claims to speak for working people, El-Sayed, a public health official with a medical degree, over-performed in the more highly educated parts of the state. Stevens, meanwhile, has performed better in more rural and less educated counties.
Should he prevail, El-Sayed will take on Republican Mike Rogers in the November general election. Rogers, who ran unopposed for the Republican nomination, also earned the GOP nomination in 2024, but lost to sitting Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) by 19,000 votes.
El-Sayed has long rejected the “socialist” label but his apparent popularity among Michigan Democrats represents a victory for the newly ascendant far-left wing of the party. El-Sayed regularly campaigned alongside socialist movement leaders like Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and popular podcaster Hassan Piker. He received endorsements from radical progressives such as Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Stevens, who has represented Michigan’s 19th district since 2019, received support from establishment Democratic leaders in the state, including Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic Senator Gary Peters.
El-Sayed joins a spate of upstart candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America who recently prevailed in Democratic primaries in New York and Colorado. Melat Kiros, the DSA-backed candidate who recently defeated longtime incumbent Democrat Diana DeGette in Colorado, was in attendance at El-Sayed’s watch party.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who endorsed Stevens in the Michigan primary, has projected a welcoming attitude toward the newcomers, despite their threats to oust him from leadership.
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“Being a big tent party is a strength not a weakness,” Schumer said at a press conference on Tuesday when asked about the rise of the DSA.
Speaking with National Review at El-Sayed’s campaign watch party Tuesday night, Piker offered a message to the Democratic establishment.
“I think they need to start paying attention to the needs of the masses, whether it be on their demands to recalculate our allegiance to Israel, or whether it be our demands for Medicare for all, our demands for a more equitable future, where we spend money on our children rather than spend money blowing up children overseas,” Piker said.
Though he ran on a far-left policy platform, El Sayed has been careful not to affiliate himself too closely with the DSA and has repeatedly insisted that he’s not a socialist. One of his campaign volunteers showed up to an event over the weekend in a DSA shirt, but covered it with another shirt before going out to knock on doors.
The volunteer told National Review he doesn’t want his association with the DSA to be a “turn off instantly” when courting potential voters.
“I think it’s fine to attach [Democrats] to Democratic Socialism, but for a one-off interaction with people I’ve never met before [while canvassing], it might be better if I’m not showing that truth immediately,” he said.
On the campaign trail, National Review asked El-Sayed to clarify what parts of capitalism he likes, given his comments saying he believes in the economic system. While he made a brief effort to defend an aspect of capitalism, the bulk of his answer was a broader criticism of the prevailing economic system in the U.S.
“We live in corporatism, where we allow big corporations to move capital based on the interests of shareholders and a quarterly bottom line,” El-Sayed told National Review. “That seems to be less about efficiently allocating capital based on supply and demand — and more about maneuvering or manipulating financial markets in ways that are more about the best interests of the richest people rather than the enablement of the efficient allocation of capital.”
After a long and contentious campaign that pitted Michigan’s establishment against an insurgent left, it remains unclear whether the party will be able to unite around El-Sayed, should he hold onto his lead. In the days leading up the election, El-Sayed supporters and Stevens supporters told NR they were hesitant to vote for the opposing candidate should their preferred candidate lose the primary.
El-Sayed has polled poorly against Rogers compared Stevens. He wasted no time Wednesday morning in redirecting the energy of his supporters toward their new challenge, saying “Mike, by the time we are done with you, all of Michigan is going to know who you are.”
Read more Rogers Doesn’t Care Who Wins Michigan’s Dem Primary: ‘Not Much Difference’ Between Stevens, El-Sayed
