Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary Tuesday, defeating Rep. Haley Stevens and handing the party’s progressive wing a major victory in one of the most important battleground states in the country.
The former public health official now advances to a high-stakes November matchup against former Rep. Mike Rogers, who coasted to the Republican nomination without opposition.
The race will help decide which party controls the Senate.
El-Sayed’s win came after Stevens and her allies tried to bury him under a massive outside-spending operation backed by the Democratic establishment.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Stevens late last month, a move widely viewed as an emergency attempt to stop El-Sayed’s rise.
It did not work.
El-Sayed overcame nearly $65 million in outside spending and a party establishment that lined up behind Stevens, who also had the backing of retiring Sen. Gary Peters.
Peters’ decision not to seek a third term opened the seat, creating a top Republican pickup opportunity in a state President Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024.
Trump endorsed Rogers early, helping clear the GOP field and allowing Republicans to avoid the kind of expensive primary fight Democrats just endured.
Trump weighed in on El-Sayed’s performance during a Tuesday night interview on Fox News, warning that candidates backed by democratic socialists or their allies would be disastrous for the country.
“You go to these cities that are taken over by the socialists and the communists, they’re always filthy, dirty. They’re disgusting,” Trump claimed in the interview. He added, “Aside from crime, aside from all of the other problems — no jobs, no anything, no money — they’re always filthy, disgusting, dirty, and that’s what you’ll get.”
El-Sayed has not been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and has told The Wall Street Journal that he is “not technically or practically DSA.”
But he was backed on the trail by two of the left’s biggest names: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Trump said Tuesday that Rogers would be in a stronger position against El-Sayed than against Stevens.
Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that he thinks Rogers will “do much better against Abdul than he’s going to do against the congresswoman.”
National Republicans had made little secret of their view that El-Sayed would be the easier Democrat to beat in November.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee even produced a digital ad emphasizing El-Sayed’s progressive credentials and Sanders endorsement, a move widely seen as an effort to elevate him in the primary.
El-Sayed campaigned on Medicare for All, fierce opposition to corporate money in politics and sharp criticism of Stevens over her support for aid to Israel.
He also accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a position that carried particular weight in Michigan, home to large Muslim and Arab American communities.
The Israel issue helped define the race.
AIPAC and affiliated groups spent close to $30 million backing Stevens, the group’s largest investment ever in a single race, according to AP.
Overall, Stevens and her allies spent nearly nine times as much on advertising as El-Sayed and his allied groups did, according to AdImpact.
El-Sayed turned that spending gap into a central part of his message.
“If you need a $60 million crutch, you probably can’t be elected on your own terms,” El-Sayed said at a debate last week in Detroit.
Stevens, a four-term congresswoman, ran as the establishment Democrat with endorsements from Whitmer, Peters and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
El-Sayed countered with Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and the United Auto Workers, a major prize in a state built around the auto industry.
The final stretch grew even uglier after state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race.
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McMorrow had tried to position herself as a middle lane between Stevens and El-Sayed, but her exit left the race as a direct clash between the party’s establishment and its insurgent left.
After the race was called, McMorrow quickly endorsed El-Sayed and urged Democrats to unite.
“I’m proud to give Abdul my full endorsement and support as we head to November together as a unified party,” McMorrow said in an emailed statement. “Take it from me — this was a brutal primary. But whatever differences there were between the candidates in this race, those differences are nothing compared to the contrast in November.”
Stevens had spent the final days arguing that El-Sayed was too focused on national progressive politics and not enough on Michigan.
Her campaign leaned into that message after audio leaked from a donor call in which El-Sayed said a win in Michigan could echo into 2028 and inspire primary challenges against Democrats such as Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has angered the left.
On that call, El-Sayed characterized such a move as putting “an ogre on a pike,” rhetoric some Democrats believed was aimed at Stevens, though El-Sayed had previously described Fetterman as an “ogre.”
Stevens used the episode at last week’s debate to cast herself as the candidate more connected to ordinary Michigan voters.
“These folks are making fun of the way I sound,” Stevens said at last week’s debate. “But yet, I sound like the people who need help, who are talking to me about what they need.”
El-Sayed stayed on his anti-establishment theme.
“This is about whether or not you deserve a politics of the people, by the people and for the people,” he said at the debate, “or of the corporations, by the billionaires and for the special interests.”
His victory gives the left its biggest Midwest win of the cycle and gives Republicans a general-election contrast they were already eager to draw.
Michigan Democrats had a choice between a four-term congresswoman backed by their governor and a Sanders-AOC-backed progressive who ran against corporate power, Israel aid and the party’s donor class.
They chose El-Sayed.
Now Rogers gets the matchup Donald Trump wanted.
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