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DETROIT (AP) — Abdul El-Sayed, an insurgent former public health official who harnessed Democratic frustration with the party establishment, narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s U.S. Senate primary, setting up a crucial test for progressives in a key battleground state.
El-Sayed will face Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, in November in a race that will help determine control of the Senate. His first challenge will be unifying Democratic factions after a bitter primary that offered divergent visions for a party desperate for a path back to power.
Stevens, who pledged her support for El-Sayed after conceding defeat, was backed by the Democratic establishment, including outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, whose retirement spurred a scramble to fill his seat. El-Sayed promised a more aggressive approach for confronting entrenched corporate interests and President Donald Trump, and declared his victory was nothing short of a political earthquake despite only scraping by Stevens.
“In the words of Muhammad Ali, we shook up the world,” he said.
Progressives have been gaining strength this year
The Associated Press declared El-Sayed the winner having confirmed that — after Wednesday morning updates in election returns in Wayne and Oakland counties, two of the state’s largest in the Detroit area — there were simply not enough votes left to count that would allow Stevens to catch up and overtake him as the leader.
El-Sayed’s victory was ultimately so narrow that it wasn’t assured until almost all ballots cast statewide were counted. At the time AP declared him the winner, El-Sayed led Stevens by 14,893 votes — a margin of just under 1 percentage point — out of more than 1.5 million ballots counted.
His win, however slim, represents a significant shift for the Democratic Party; in 2018 he lost the gubernatorial primary to now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by 21 percentage points.
The former health official campaigned on “Medicare for All,” halting military aid to Israel and campaign finance reform. He had support from progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who framed the race as a grassroots-focused movement and a broader fight against the establishment and big-money spending.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, another progressive leader, said El-Sayed’s victory “should be a wake-up call to the Washington Democratic establishment.”
Now comes the more difficult challenge for Democrats: uniting the party to defeat Rogers, for whom Republicans have already reserved large sums of money ahead of the general election.
“We have got to work together to take this country back,” Curtis Hertel, the chair of Michigan Democratic Party, said.
Michigan is a must-win Senate race for Democrats
The race will help decide which party controls the chamber in the last two years of Trump’s term. Those stakes added heat to the rivalry, with moderates arguing that El-Sayed would have a harder time than Stevens against a Republican in the general election.
Stevens, a four-term congresswoman, won election to Congress in 2018 after serving as chief of staff to President Barack Obama’s auto task force, which helped oversee the federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Her campaign focused on manufacturing and the economy, and she stressed her past victories in tough races as proof she would be best positioned to beat Rogers.
El-Sayed cast himself as the anti-establishment candidate and argued that Democrats need to reject corporate influence and embrace a more progressive agenda.
While the candidate has said he is not a democratic socialist, he found support from some of the group’s members. That included Melat Kiros, who recently beat a longtime incumbent in a Democratic primary for a Denver-based House seat and was at El-Sayed’s watch party. Also there was Hasan Piker, a progressive and controversial influencer online.
The candidates’ differences were clear to some voters.
Kenneth Woodside, 87, of West Bloomfield, said he voted for El-Sayed because “the nation is ready for someone who wants to take some more action rather than on the road we are now, which is on the road to an oligarchy and authoritarianism.”
Nessa Fuller, 51, of Birmingham, said she voted for Stevens because she will “fight to get the right things done, and she’ll work with other people, which is really important to me.”
Outside influences spent millions on the Senate race
National groups poured unprecedented sums into the race, making it one of the country’s biggest tests of outside spending.
Outside groups backing Stevens spent more than $50 million, including more than $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, amounting to the largest investment ever from the organization that supports pro-Israel candidates.
“We took on a machine,” El-Sayed said.
Support for Israel is contentious within the Democratic Party and the Michigan primary reflected that divide: El-Sayed called for ending military aid to Israel, while Stevens maintained strong support for the relationship.
AIPAC issued a statement Wednesday saying it would oppose El-Sayed and “his radical anti-Israel agenda” in November’s election.
McKinney wins Detroit US House primary
In a heavily Democratic district representing Detroit, the 13th, state Rep. Donavan McKinney defeated Rep. Shri Thanedar. McKinney argued that the city should once again have a Black representative in Congress.
After Thanedar won election in 2022, Detroit had no Black representation in Congress for the first time since the early 1950s.
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Associated Press reporters Nathan Ellgren in Washington and Jesse Bedayn in Detroit contributed.
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