- Abdul El-Sayed hopes to create a ‘big tent’ where people who disagree with some of his policies can back him
- Skepticism remains among Black and Jewish voters, including Attorney General Dana Nessel who wants El-Sayed to ‘tone down the rhetoric’
- Republican candidate Mike Rogers sees an opening
DETROIT — Democratic leaders who typically have resisted progressive policies are suddenly singing a different tune now that Abdul El-Sayed is their nominee for US Senate.
Two years after Democrat Elissa Slotkin was elected for Senate opposing Medicare for All, El-Sayed is making the issue a tentpole of his campaign — and winning some early converts among Democrats.
“There is nothing more American than Medicare for All,” Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel said Friday to raucous applause at a general election kickoff rally in Detroit.
Not everyone is ready to join the chorus — and El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in November, Mike Rogers, hopes Democratic disharmony with the party’s leftward lurch creates an opening.
El-Sayed underperformed in Black cities during last week’s primary, and his criticism of Israel has alienated some Jewish voters.
Both are key blocs: Michigan has about 1.4 million Black residents and 129,000 Jewish ones, according to 2024 estimates.
If the election were today, “I’m not sure a majority of (Jewish Democrats) would vote,” Decky Alexander, the chair of the Democratic party’s Jewish caucus, told Bridge Michigan.
Republicans are seizing on the opportunity. Rogers has made overtures to Democrats who feel disaffected by El-Sayed, telling them his campaign is a fight “for the very soul of our nation.”
“To the vast majority of people across Michigan who do not want to throw their support behind a campaign filled with anger, divisiveness, calls for violence and the views that are out of touch with your values, well you have a home with us,” Rogers said.
Dems coalesce
Despite the bitter primary between El-Sayed and moderate US Rep. Haley Stevens, major Democrats have embraced the victor.
Former President Barack Obama called him with congratulations and signaled his support, as did Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
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Stevens said she’d back El-Sayed, though the two have not appeared together, save for a private post-election unity breakfast that wasn’t open to press, where they exchanged a brief embrace.
“There’s no drama,” Stevens said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out of the race against El-Sayed but still got 4% of the vote, said any disagreement among Democrats is “night and day compared to where the Republican Party is right now.”
Indeed, Adrian Hemond, a Democratic strategist, said antipathy toward President Donald Trump can help “smooth over a lot of the ruffled feathers within the Democratic coalition.”
Others say El-Sayed has work to do to win over Black and working-class voters.
Stevens carried Detroit, Flint, Muskegon and Saginaw, while El-Sayed won none of the 15 counties with the lowest proportion of college graduates en route to a 1 percentage point win.
The chair of the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus, Keith D. Williams, was a Stevens supporter who questioned progressives’ commitment to urban areas.
Over the weekend, Williams announced the caucus endorsed El-Sayed, writing on Facebook that “we cannot spend months leading into November fighting yesterday’s primary while Republicans organize for tomorrow’s election.”
“Abdul has a number of relationships, Black relationships, and institutional Black relationships as well,” said Jonathan Kinloch, a Wayne County commissioner who appeared in ads for Stevens.
“He just has to broaden that.”
A tough sell?
El-Sayed may have a tougher sell with some Michigan Jews.
In a media event the day after the election, El-Sayed called out to them, saying “the opportunity to break bread with you at seder, to worship with you at shul, to be embraced by you” was an indelible moment of his campaign.
That’s not enough for some, who are threatening to sit out the election or vote for Rogers.
Alexander, the Jewish Caucus chair, said the conversations she’s had with members are “uncomfortable” and “maddening.” She declined to say whether she’d vote for El-Sayed at present.
The largest single spender in the Democratic primary was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent more than $32 million boosting Stevens and attacking El-Sayed, using a super PAC called the United Democracy Project whose ads did not emphasize its connection to AIPAC. They outspent the support El-Sayed received more than 10-to-1.
El-Sayed, a critic of US aid to Israel, repeatedly attacked AIPAC and Stevens during the campaign.
AIPAC is now mulling more spending to support Rogers in the general election.
El-Sayed’s relentless focus on AIPAC — which was not the only super PAC spending in the race — may have opened the door for antisemitism, Alexander said.
Speaking to MS Now this week, Attorney General Dana Nessel implored El-Sayed to “tone down the rhetoric.”
“Not everything is about AIPAC. Not everything is about Israel,” said Nessel, a Jewish Democrat who noted that many Jewish voters disagree about the actions of the Israel government.
“They cannot be the centeral villain in literally every story.”
El-Sayed has said it’s possible to criticize Israel and still “love and revere Judaism and the Jewish people,” though he has stepped around definitive answers on whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state.
For some Jews who are ardent Zionists, that’s a bright line. And for others, as criticism of Israel has grown more strident, they’ve feared bearing the brunt of that anger, regardless of any distinctions, Alexander noted.
“For a lot of us, even if we weren’t like rah rah, ardent supporters of a state of Israel, feel all of a sudden the need to defend something because it’s an extension of our own identities and being,” she added.
Alexander said she is “hopeful” for progress with El-Sayed’s campaign and that she’s “realistic” but “also not throwing in the towel,”
To reconcile their views in three months before the election “I don’t think that’ll happen,” Alexander said, but “to clarify and connect — I think that’s very doable.”
Still, Jewish voters are not a monolith — and El-Sayed may not need them to win.
Recent nationwide polling of American Jews found 70% don’t see criticizing Israel for any reason as antisemitic and only about half say they see supporting Israel as “extremely” or “very” important.
What’s more, Michigan’s Arab-American population is more than twice as large (about 283,000) and turnout in the primary was at historic levels in enclaves including Dearborn.
Republican opportunity
Wooing Democrats or persuading them to sit out in November could be crucial to Rogers.
Despite a competitive Republican gubernatorial primary, Democrats showed up in far bigger numbers in last week’s election — 1.5 million to 900,000 for Republicans.
Initial results also indicate young voters might’ve been particularly engaged. On Michigan State University’s sleepy summer campus, turnout increased more than sixfold — almost exclusively to support El-Sayed.
“What problems Republicans may have with turnout could be negated by the Democrats for Rogers voters, who are a real thing,” said Dennis Lennox, a Republican commentator and consultant.
Republicans have already begun capitalizing on the views espoused by some progressive candidates, arguing to voters that they are, in fact, socialist or communist ideas.
In a Las Vegas rally last week, Trump called El-Sayed a “communist” that “hates Jews” and is “full of shit.” On Saturday, Trump doubled down, posting a photo of Trump and his wife and El-Sayed in his wife, psychiatrist Sarah Jukaku who wears a hijab. The post was captioned, “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.” (sic)
Republican consultant Scott Greenlee argued in a previous interview with Bridge Democrats are “moving more and more to a full-out embrace of socialism and even communism.”
He said Republicans will cast their campaigns as a last stand against a totalitarian takeover.
That’s the strategy as well in the 7th Congressional District, where incumbent GOP Rep. Tom Barrett faces progressive William Lawrence, who recently allowed his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America to lapse.
And it could work against El-Sayed, Barrett campaign strategist Jason Roe told Bridge.
“I’ve been proselytizing everyone in the party, that that should be our message statewide,” Roe said.
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