Abdul El-Sayed is Democrats’ Senate nominee in Michigan, a seismic victory for progressives that carries massive implications for both the Senate battlemap and the Democratic Party’s future.
The progressive former public health official on Wednesday narrowly defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens, who was boosted by a record-breaking $32 million in spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
His margin was far slimmer than progressives had anticipated based on polling that had shown him with a double-digit lead ahead of the election, blunting what they hoped would be an emphatic capstone to a series of high-profile wins that had tilted the party’s ideological civil war in their favor.
El-Sayed will have to work overtime to convince skeptical centrists that a progressive can win in purple territory against former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers in a critical battleground that will decide Senate control.
His victory comes after a contentious primary that was defined by clashes over everything from Israel to immigration to health care. Stevens and her allies lobbied accusations of sexism and antisemitism against El-Sayed, whose supporters in turn accused the moderate Democrat of Islamophobia.
Wednesday’s result is a setback for the pro-Israel lobby as well as for leaders within the Democratic establishment — most notably Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who had thrown their weight behind Stevens.
El-Sayed’s win has the potential to scramble Schumer’s gameplan for November; Democrats need to keep retiring Sen. Gary Peters’ seat if they have any hope of retaking the chamber.
And it’s emboldening Republicans who hold a cash advantage heading into November and are growing bullish about their chances for a flip against a progressive who was their preferred nominee. State Republican Party Chair Jim Runestad said the GOP plans to paint him as a “far-left democratic socialist.”
Jason Roe, a longtime Republican operative in Michigan, previously told POLITICO that “El-Sayed is not doing very well outstate and I think that’s what a lot of Republicans are banking on. It will be very difficult for him to beat Rogers with those rural counties.”
Still, El-Sayed’s emergence from the bruising primary that became ground zero for Democrats’ ideological war stands as progressives’ biggest win yet in a year when the left has harnessed a wave of anti-establishment angst to deliver a series of stunning upsets. And it carries significant implications for how Democrats will approach a state that will have an outsized role in picking the party’s next presidential nominee in 2028.
El-Sayed has sought to position his win as a springboard for growing progressives’ influence ahead of 2028.