Abdul El-Sayed Maintains Strong Lead in Michigan Senate Primary

Michigan Democrats will choose their Senate nominee on Tuesday, with Abdul El-Sayed entering the final stretch as the clear front-runner. El-Sayed leads Haley Stevens by 8 points in the latest RealClearPolitics Polling Average, and the winner will face Republican Mike Rogers in November. Their final debate Monday highlighted the sharp differences between the two candidates and the competing visions they are offering Democratic voters.

For starters, El-Sayed wants to abolish ICE; Stevens doesn’t. “The idea that somehow we can’t say ‘abolish ICE’ because we’re so afraid of what they’re going to say, when we’ve seen ICE terrorize people in our streets, to me, it is exactly the kind of cowardice that we don’t need from Democrats,” El-Sayed argued.

Last year, Stevens voted for a resolution that “expresses gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland.”

El-Sayed also portrayed himself as the anti-Israel candidate and made sure to bring up Stevens’ recent vote against ending the country’s aid for Israel. “Just last week, our friend here voted to send 3.3 billion of your tax dollars to a foreign government,” El-Sayed said of Stevens.

However, El-Sayed also spent some of the debate fighting off accusations that he is a socialist. “I’m not a socialist. I’m just a capitalist who understands how capitalism works,” he remarked.

Stevens was quick to paint herself as the practical option, opposed to El-Sayed, whom she called a “celebrity candidate.” During her Detroit campaign, Stevens emphasized her moderateness: “Michiganders want peace of mind, right? And when you start to see extremes on both the right or the left of the political spectrum, it just gets to be too much. We’re bread and butter here.”

Stevens is also far more popular among black voters, holding a 31-point lead according to a recent Glengariff Group poll. She’s still using a 2018 compliment from former President Barack Obama, which has been featured in many of her campaign ads, though the former president hasn’t actually endorsed her for the primary. In the debate, Stevens made sure to highlight her appreciation for minority-owned businesses.

That support is central to Stevens’ argument that she is the stronger candidate for the general election. “Abdul is running for celebrity. Republicans are propping up his campaign, and Mike Rogers just the other day said in a secret phone call that he made it easier for him to win, that he’s the one he wants to run against,” she stated.

Polling on the question is conflicted. In the RCP Averages for the general election, both El-Sayed and Stevens lead Rogers by .5 points. In the latest poll from Glengariff, however, Rogers leads El-Sayed by 10 points, and Stevens leads Rogers by 1 point.

Both candidates have made a point of speaking against the current administration. On her website, Stevens says she is “running for Senate to continue to fight for Michiganders and our economy while standing up to the Trump-Musk chaos agenda.” Similarly, El-Sayed posted a video on TikTok with the caption, “Whenever Trump comes to Michigan, we’re going to fight back. When I’m in the U.S. Senate, I promise you this, we are gonna get to the bottom of every single crime of the Trump and MAGA coalition.”

Michigan voted for Trump in 2024, though the swing-state race was close. That same year, Democrat Elissa Slotkin won the state’s Senate race. Wisconsin was the only other state in 2024 to split its presidential and Senate votes, backing Trump while reelecting Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin over Republican Eric Hovde.

The candidates also addressed rumors during the debate that El-Sayed had called Stevens an ogre. “I was referring to a guy named John Fetterman, who’s a senator from Pennsylvania, who has done terrible things, got elected on a set of values, and is now completely throwing those values in the mud,” El-Sayed said.

Stevens’ response was to laugh it off, saying “Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t call me an ogre.”

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