Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate primary, setting up pivotal race

Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, putting a progressive former Detroit public-health official on a November ballot that could help decide Senate control. NBC projected El-Sayed the winner as the count neared completion, and Stevens conceded the race the same day. If elected, El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, would become the first Muslim U.S. senator.

The contest was one of the cycle’s costliest and most closely watched party fights. United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, spent nearly $15 million in the primary, with roughly two-thirds of that money backing Stevens. Other spending pushed the race above $60 million, turning the Michigan contest into a proxy battle over Israel, party fundraising and how much room Democrats have for a challenger running against establishment money.

El-Sayed, born in 1984 and raised in southeast Michigan and the Detroit area, built his campaign around Medicare for All and money out of politics. He studied at the University of Michigan, where he played lacrosse and graduated in 2007, then won a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a doctorate at Oxford University. He later received a medical degree from Columbia University, where he taught epidemiology, and his campaign leaned heavily on that public-health background. El-Sayed served as executive director of the Detroit Health Department and health officer for the City of Detroit from 2015 to 2017 before running for Michigan governor in 2018.

His coalition reached beyond traditional party lines. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib campaigned with him, giving his bid clear backing from the party’s left flank. His identity as the son of Egyptian immigrants, and as a possible first Muslim senator, also gave him unusual resonance in Arab American and Muslim communities around metro Detroit, where Democrats have been watching the party’s stance on Israel with growing intensity.

El-Sayed will now face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who ran unopposed in the GOP primary, in a state where the Senate seat is seen as pivotal to Democrats’ hopes of winning the chamber. The upset sent a clear message about the party’s direction in Michigan: voters chose a candidate with progressive branding and public-health credibility over a centrist backed by much of the establishment.