Progressive El-Sayed Defeats Establishment Spending to Win Michigan Senate Primary
Abdul El-Sayed overcomes $50 million in outside spending to defeat Rep. Haley Stevens, setting up a high-stakes November showdown against Republican Mike Rogers.
Progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, defeating four-term U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in a high-stakes race that defied tens of millions of dollars in establishment support and outside spending.
El-Sayed’s victory was secured after Wednesday updates to vote tallies in Wayne and Oakland counties pushed his margin to 14,893 votes—less than one percentage point—out of more than 1.5 million ballots counted. The outcome marks a dramatic electoral pivot for El-Sayed, who lost the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2018 to Governor Gretchen Whitmer by 21 percentage points.
“In the words of Muhammad Ali, we shook up the world,” El-Sayed said after the race was called, characterizing the outcome as a direct defeat of establishment political power. “We took on a machine.”
Outside groups supporting Stevens spent more than $50 million on the primary campaign. That included more than $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), marking the largest expenditure in the organization’s history. In a statement released Wednesday, AIPAC confirmed it would oppose El-Sayed and “his radical anti-Israel agenda” in the general election.
El-Sayed ran on a platform prioritizing “Medicare for All,” campaign finance reform, and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. His campaign drew explicit backing from prominent party progressives, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Following the result, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen called the victory an outcome that “should be a wake-up call to the Washington Democratic establishment.”
The victory sets up a pivotal November matchup against Republican nominee Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative. The contest for the seat, vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, is expected to be instrumental in determining party control of the U.S. Senate during the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
Stevens, who had secured endorsements from the Democratic establishment including Peters, conceded the nomination and pledged support to El-Sayed. Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel called for swift party consolidation, noting, “We have got to work together to take this country back.”
Voter reactions reflected the ideological divide that characterized the race. 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.” Birmingham resident Nessa Fuller, 51, supported Stevens, citing her pragmatic approach: “fight to get the right things done, and she’ll work with other people, which is really important to me.”
In a separate key primary in Detroit, state Rep. Donavan McKinney defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. McKinney’s victory paves the way to restore Black congressional representation to Detroit, which had been left without a Black representative for the first time since the early 1950s following Thanedar’s victory in 2022.
