How Michigan Became the Most Expensive Democratic Primary Ever
Mother Jones · L · trust 61/100
Next Tuesday’s contest in Michigan between Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens holds a dubious distinction: No Democratic congressional primary in history has ever attracted so much super PAC cash. The overwhelming majority of the outside money has gone toward ensuring that Stevens, a moderate, pro-Israel Democrat, defeats El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed champion of Medicare for All and Israel critic.
More than $60 million of outside spending has poured into the Senate contest, according to records from the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. The vast majority has come from super PACs that—unlike El-Sayed’s and Stevens’ own campaigns—can accept unlimited donations.
Brendan Glavin, the director of insights at OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics, said the level of outside spending in Michigan far exceeds the top Senate races from 2024. “We’re taking this huge leap up,” he explained. “It’s really exploded.” Only this year’s Republican Senate primary in Texas , where John Cornyn lost to Ken Paxton despite a large funding advantage, appears to have attracted more outside money.
The biggest spender by far in Michigan is the United Democracy Project, a super PAC backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that works to elect pro-Israel candidates. UDP has spent more $30 million backing Stevens, according to FEC records—twice as much as it has ever spent on a single race. (The super PAC hit its previous high in 2024, when it spent more than $14 million to defeat former Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a Democratic House primary in New York.) Additional records show that Stevens has also benefitted from a super PAC that in the past has received donations from companies including Chevron and a subsidiary of the tobacco giant Philip Morris.
The race in Michigan—an open seat that Democrats need to hold to take back the Senate—started out as a competitive three-person contest that initially included Mallory McMorrow, a state senator backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) who tried to occupy the ideological lane between El-Sayed and Stevens. But despite strong fundraising and early polling, McMorrow struggled to remain competitive and dropped out in early July.
It means that Michigan primary voters now have an unusually clear choice to make. El-Sayed has the endorsement of key players on the left like Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and the United Auto Workers. Stevens is understood to be the favorite of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and was recently endorsed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
At a national level, the results on Tuesday will be closely watched to see if populist outsiders like El-Sayed can continue to topple favorites of the Democratic establishment from coast to coast . It will also be a measure of whether AIPAC can still upend Democratic primaries in which voters increasingly oppose its agenda. If El-Sayed wins, the general election will then test how left-wing candidates perform in swing states.
El-Sayed, a 41-year-old Rhodes scholar and doctor, worked as the head of Wayne County’s department of health before running for Senate. In 2018, he unsuccessfully ran for governor in Michigan. After the race, he hosted a podcast for Crooked Media and further established his left-wing credentials by writing a book on Medicare for All that included a foreword by Sanders.
In this year’s Senate race, El-Sayed is not being outspent due to poor fundraising. His campaign raised more than $14.5 million through July 15, according to FEC records. Stevens’ campaign raised less than $12 million by the same date, despite her being a sitting member of Congress. Stevens’ advantage comes entirely from super PACs and other outside groups that can spend independently to support her.
The outside spending has become a major issue in the race. At a May debate, Stevens made national news for dodging a question from a moderator about what AIPAC does or doesn’t get from backing her campaign. El-Sayed returned to the theme at a July debate when he asked Stevens what she had “given away” for AIPAC’s support. Stevens replied that no one owns her vote and then claimed that anyone spending on her behalf was doing so because of her record of “fighting for Michigan.”
El-Sayed talked more about AIPAC’s role in the race in an interview earlier this month with my colleague Najib Aminy. “AIPAC is the biggest spender in this race by far, and that’s pretty insane,” he said. “And they’re not spending to keep our money here, they’re spending to send our money there … it’s just another example of why we have to get money out of politics.”
The Senate race is not the first time that UDP has backed Stevens. In 2022, the group spent more than $4 million to help her defeat Rep. Andy Levin in a Michigan House primary. Although Levin is Jewish and Stevens is not, he was deemed too critical of Israel by AIPAC despite having served as the president of his synagogue. Since her 2022 victory, Stevens has remained an ardent supporter of Israel, a nation that she has said “comes to me in my dreams.”
El-Sayed, on the other hand, has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide and campaigned with the left-wing streamer Hasan Piker. UDP’s unprecedented spending is a recognition of the threat that El-Sayed poses to its agenda. But the super PAC is also aware that focusing on Israel is not the best way to win. Like in other races, its ads in support of Stevens appear to make no mention of Israel.
The full extent of pro-Israel funding being deployed against El-Sayed may significantly exceed the more than $30 million spent by UDP so far. In October 2025, Delaware corporate records show a new entity called the Center for Democratic Priorities was incorporated in the state.
The Center for Democratic Priorities quickly spent $6.5 million backing Stevens, the New York Times has reported. But the ads did not explicitly tell Michiganders to vote for…
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