Fact-check: ‘Millionaire’ claims in Abdul El-Sayed, Haley Stevens Senate race

Democrat Haley Stevens has repeatedly claimed to be the only non-millionaire in Michigan’s US Senate race.
It’s clear Stevens isn’t a millionaire and Republican Mike Rogers is.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s financial status is far less clear. He got an extension to delay filing a required personal financial disclosure

In recent weeks, Haley Stevens and the outside groups supporting her have adopted a frequent refrain to court voters: She’s Michigan’s only non-millionaire running for US Senate.

Stevens said so during a recent debate with her primary opponent, Abdul El-Sayed.

“We do not need a celebrity senator, we need a workhorse,” she said in an apparent attempt to undercut El-Sayed’s message of working class solidarity and instead imply he is in the race for personal gain.

Her campaign has repeated the millionaire claim in paid advertisements circulating online.

And a recent ad from A Stronger Michigan, a dark money-funded super PAC that has spent $13.5 million boosting Stevens, features an unnamed woman urging viewers to “look it up.”

Related:

Bridge Michigan did look it up as part of our series fact-checking claims made by candidates in Michigan’s most competitive statewide races.

The senate primary, in which the centrist Stevens and progressive El-Sayed are vying for the Democratic nomination to face Republican Mike Rogers in the general election, is among the nation’s most closely-watched.

Here’s what we found:

The facts

It’s true that Stevens is not a millionaire: She filed a financial disclosure report in May showing she is worth no more than $376,998.

It’s also true that Rogers is a millionaire: His disclosure report, filed in July, shows he and his wife have a net worth of between $7 and $14 million.

The documents require candidates to classify their assets based on a range of values, making them good for only broad estimates of a candidate’s overall wealth.

El-Sayed has not yet filed the report this year, making his financial status murkier.

His June 2025 filing suggests he and his spouse were close to the million-dollar milestone at the time, with a combined worth of between $586,022 and $1.6 million.

While the Stevens camp has not proven El-Sayed is a millionaire, he has not denied it.

“Well, if you take my assets and her, my wife’s assets together, then I guess they add up to something like that,” El-Sayed told journalist Medhi Hassan in late June. “But my career has never been about trying to maximize on money, otherwise I would have just gone and been a surgeon.”

El-Sayed’s latest financial disclosure report was originally due in May, but he filed an extension pushing its due date to Aug. 13. He and his campaign have said he’ll file before the Aug. 4 primary, but he has not yet done so.

He and his wife’s 2025 federal tax return – publicly released last week – shows they made $686,069 last year, including $130,749 in wages, $262,299 in capital gains and $292,881 in other income. The El-Sayed campaign attributed the latter two pots of money to selling a house and earning income from El-Sayed’s podcast and his wife’s medical practice.

Stevens has criticized El-Sayed’s delay in filing an updated disclosure report and suggested his political ambitions are motivated by money rather than public service. Her campaign spokesperson, Joetta Appiah, called El-Sayed’s disclosures thus far “cherry-picked numbers that only raise more questions.”

“Michigan voters deserve to know what Abdul is hiding,” Appiah said.

El-Sayed has sought to downplay the significance of his personal finances, instead focusing on his refusal to take corporate donations and Stevens’ robust support from corporations and dark money groups.

Outside groups had spent more than $34 million to support Stevens as of Friday, and El-Sayed allies have argued the spending is closer to $50 million if you include ad reservations not yet reported in campaign finance filings.

“What Michiganders are much more concerned about is the over $50 million in dark money boosting Stevens’ campaign,” El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Sophie Pollack said. “Voters deserve answers on who is propping up her campaign.”

The bottom line

Stevens’ claim to be the only non-millionaire in the race is impossible to corroborate until El-Sayed releases an updated accounting of his personal finances – something he is not legally required to do until Aug. 13 because of an extension he requested.

While Stevens has not proven her claim, El-Sayed has not refuted it, and his 2025 disclosure indicated he might be.