A 19-second video clip of Rep. Haley Stevens — a stilted, clenched-fist pep talk with a gym-teacher affect — zinged across social media this week, triggering mockery from Democrats and Republicans of the Michigan congresswoman locked in a tight Senate primary.
And on Michigan voters’ TVs this week, a pro-Stevens outside group funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee dropped another ad slamming her opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, for his “sexist attacks” on Stevens. That spot adds to the 10-to-1 advertising advantage for Stevens, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
This split screen in the Michigan Senate primary — what’s going viral online versus what’s airing on voters’ televisions — encapsulates much of what’s defined Democratic Senate campaigns throughout 2026: debates over electability, virality, dark money spending and U.S.-Israel politics. That dynamic, now freshly injected with accusations of sexism, stands to define the closing weeks of Michigan’s Senate primary, a must-win battleground state for Democrats.
Stevens’ defenders accuse El-Sayed backers of attacking Stevens’ appearance, voice and on-camera presence — of taking the “low road,” as Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan), who endorsed the congresswoman this week, put it to NOTUS. El-Sayed supporters said the discourse over Stevens’ persona distracts from her actual policies and her support from AIPAC, one of the most divisive groups for Democratic primary voters.
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“I think that we should bring the conversation back to the more substantive issues,” said Emily Dievendorf, a Michigan state representative who endorsed El-Sayed. “[Including] how much funding is being thrown into the race in order to spread misinformation and frankly lead people on wild goose chases.”
Democratic operatives and strategists, in Washington and Michigan, argue two things can both be true — that there can be a sexist streak in the campaign chatter and that Stevens can be a flawed candidate. Amanda Litman, a co-founder of the progressive recruitment group Run for Something, said that while the criticism of Stevens is “absolutely sexist,” she’s also “a bad candidate, both on camera and for her position on Israel.”
“The need to be telegenic, while always important, is even more so now, and because the world is sexist, women pay a higher cost for that,” Litman said. “You have to meet the reality of what is the most effective communication, and that’s video. Is she the most effective communicator? The answer is no.”
Judging a candidate’s electability remains a Democratic Party obsession, one that’s inextricably woven with preexisting biases around sexism and racism. In 2020, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California called out sexism during the Democratic presidential primary, arguing it clouded how pundits viewed the electability of the women in the race. Those arguments have only gotten louder since Harris’ loss in 2024, ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign that could see fewer women run. And they’ve become a flashpoint this year after Graham Platner, who was accused of sexual assault, dropped his Senate bid in Maine.
In a statement, Stevens spokesman Arik Wolk said “Haley’s been clear from Day One that she will run through anyone or anything to fight for Michigan and stand up to Donald Trump. Haley is leading with actual Michigan voters because she is focused on their concerns, not chasing likes on the Internet.”
In Michigan, El-Sayed has come under fire for his comments about his female opponents. Earlier this month, he told Semafor that Stevens’ backers should “teach her how to string together two coherent sentences.” He said state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out of the primary earlier this month, “doesn’t quite understand” some basic health care policy. And the AIPAC-backed TV ads litigate El-Sayed’s comments about former first lady Michelle Obama and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“A campaign that said their woman opponent can’t string two sentences together may want to consider cooling charges of sexism by pushing back against those attacks, not sitting silently by,” said Neera Tanden, the president of Center for American Progress and a friend of Stevens’ who has worked with her in the past.
But El-Sayed’s team has pushed that he is the better option, sending a memo Thursday pointing to fundraising success and favorable polling.
“Between the massive amounts of outside spending by corporate billionaires, AIPAC, and Trump donors and a barren ground game, Haley seems to be content letting corporations buy the election for her — a clear sign that she’d struggle to engage voters in a general election matchup,” the memo said.
In a statement in response to questions about the dynamics of the race, El-Sayed spokesperson Sophie Pollock kept the focus on health care and the “fight to keep our tax dollars here in Michigan,” saying the campaign is building “a 10,000 volunteer strong movement on a vision for a future where working people come first.”
El-Sayed has leaned into cheeky, viral videos of his own. He’s biking, lip-syncing and weight-lifting. There’s a strategy to El-Sayed’s omnipresence online, which reflects aspects of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s digital-savvy campaign that’s inspired progressive candidates nationally. El-Sayed “really needs people under 40 to vote in much higher numbers, and they’re most likely to be online,” said Adrian Hemond, a Democratic strategist in Michigan who is not working on the Senate primary.
“To be extremely online has two targets: One is getting small-dollar donors outside of Michigan, and two, he needs extremely online elder millennials and Gen Z to vote for him, and that’s a tough nut to crack,” Hemond said. “Stevens can afford to be less online and be focused on the median Democratic primary voter, which is a Black woman in her 60s who is sitting in a church pew.”
Stevens hasn’t leaned heavily into in-person rallies and has largely left her communications to TV ads. One on heavy rotation includes a clip of former President Barack Obama, praising Stevens’ work inside his administration. El-Sayed, meanwhile, is hosting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) this weekend.
That may work for Stevens in the end. The Detroit News released a poll this week finding Stevens with a 7-point lead over El-Sayed. She’s polling particularly well among Black voters in the state. But other public polling has shown El-Sayed with a single-digit lead.
It’s also not clear whether the social media attacks on Stevens’ appearance are breaking through with actual voters on the ground.
Michigan, like Texas and Maine, may be suffering from the “online fog of war,” said Kyle Tharp, a Democratic researcher who writes about online politics for his newsletter, Chaotic Era.
“The online discourse about Abdul has been dominated by manufactured outrage around Hasan Piker, a streamer that has a relatively small audience nationally and even fewer viewers in Michigan,” Tharp said. “The online discourse about Stevens has been almost exclusively about her admittedly massive AIPAC funding and personal attacks on her accent and appearance. Both are things that have little to do with normie voters’ primary concerns.”
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