Democrats face most contentious – and crucial – test yet with Michigan primary
The Guardian · L · trust 64/100
Left: Abdul El-Sayed, right: Haley Stevens. Composite: Robin Buckson/The Detroit News via AP View image in fullscreen Left: Abdul El-Sayed, right: Haley Stevens. Composite: Robin Buckson/The Detroit News via AP US news Democrats face most contentious – and crucial – test yet with Michigan primary Voters are faced with the thorny question of electability: who can win this purple state in November and potentially push Democrats toward a US Senate majority?
Prefer the Guardian on Google A t Chad Green’s house in Davison, Michigan , a brood of baby chicks roamed around the idyllic green lawn as US senators pitched a couple dozen voters on why they should turn out for the hopeful one, Abdul El-Sayed.
Green, a retired federal firefighter, hosted a similar small gathering for Mallory McMorrow, who was running for the US Senate before she dropped out of the race in early July, narrowing the contest to El-Sayed, a progressive insurgent campaigning for universal healthcare, and US representative Haley Stevens, who has branded herself as a workhorse.
Green, 54, sees himself as a more moderate Democrat, and originally aligned with McMorrow. After she dropped out, he looked into El-Sayed and Stevens, and resonated more with El-Sayed’s policies.
“I’ve never seen people more excited about a candidate,” Green said. “I feel like there’s not going to be excitement for the Republicans to vote. And I feel like there is excitement for Democrats to vote for Abdul.”
Read more The Michigan primary is, perhaps, the most contentious Democratic primary this year – and a test for the party’s future. Voters are weighing the policies and personalities of the candidates as they once again consider the thorny question of electability: who can win this purple state in November, and potentially push the party towards a majority in the Senate?
Recent surveys have shown El-Sayed pulling ahead. A nonpartisan Emerson poll this week of likely Democratic voters found 54% intended to vote for El-Sayed compared to 39% for Stevens, with a stark age divide. Voters under 50 broke for El-Sayed by 42 percentage points, while voters over 60 preferred Stevens by a 14-point margin, it showed. Independents were siding with El-Sayed by a 27-point margin.
Stevens, 43, has represented Michigan’s 11th House district since 2019, after flipping the seat. She has been endorsed by Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and Gary Peters, the retiring senator who holds the seat she and El-Sayed, 41, are now running for.
View image in fullscreen Haley Stevens poses for a photo with attendees during an event with Detroit Seniors. Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters El-Sayed, an epidemiologist who served in health director roles in Detroit and its county, counts leading progressive officials among his supporters, including US senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen, who rallied with him in Michigan last weekend alongside a host of representatives and former elected officials.
The winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary will face Mike Rogers, a former congressman from the state who was also the Republican nominee for US Senate in 2024, when he lost to Elissa Slotkin.
El-Sayed, often mentioned alongside democratic socialists who have won a string of party primaries ahead of this year’s US midterm elections, is not himself a democratic socialist: he says he is a “capitalist who understands how capitalism works”, and wants to regulate monopolies and oligopolies.
But the race has become a key focal point in the rise of the left flank of the Democratic party, and its potential limits – especially after a wave of wins in solidly blue districts across the country.
More than $40m has poured into the race from outside groups supporting Stevens or attacking El-Sayed, including from groups associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a pro-Israel lobby. AdImpact shows more than $60m in ad reservations and spending to benefit Stevens.
Misleading ads have attacked El-Sayed for “disrespecting women” while tying Stevens to Barack Obama, who has not endorsed in the race, but previously praised Stevens’ work on the auto industry rescue plan. The Obama connection sits prominently in the minds of some Black voters in Michigan, who cite Stevens’ work with the former US president as key to their vote in the primary.
El-Sayed has seized on the major outside spending against him and turned it into a central line of attack against Stevens. Stevens points to an A-rating from End Citizens United, a group dedicated to getting money out of politics, and says she feels “very strongly” about campaign finance reform.
While talking to reporters outside Plymouth United Church of Christ in Detroit last Sunday, Stevens held up a note passed to her during the church service from a member of the congregation. “Had I known that you would be at church today, I would have brought my checkbook,” the letter said, according to Stevens, who added that most of her direct campaign contributions come from small donors.
View image in fullscreen Bernie Sanders, Abdul El-Sayed and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a rally in Grand Rapids in July. Photograph: Chris duMond/Shutterstock In the waning days of the primary, Stevens attacked El-Sayed for not releasing his full financial disclosures, which he subsequently did. She also often accuses El-Sayed of seeking fame, pointing to his previous podcast, which he co-hosted for Crooked Media, his book, and a website purchase for El-Sayed for president.
El-Sayed said he purchased URLs for various offices as a defensive maneuver so others couldn’t snap up the websites and use them against him, and said he doesn’t understand the line of attack on podcasts or books: “I would think that you’d want to send a nominee who’s comfortable doing podcasts.”
The campaign has grown increasingly tense in its final weeks. Earlier this month, El-Sayed faced backlash over remarks that he later…
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