Things have not been going according to plan for Rep. Haley Stevens in the final days of the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan.
This past Tuesday, Stevens, the favorite of party leaders and donors, was due to appear at an event called the “Senior Summer Sizzler,” where a couple thousand retirees gathered at Detroit’s Eastern Market for lunch, music and speeches by local pols.
But buses began arriving early to take the seniors home, and Stevens was late. “We’ve lost over half of this crowd by now,” the MC lamented before she arrived.
The band packed up. In its place, a Michael Jackson impersonator took the stage and kept grabbing his crotch while dancing to “Get on the Floor.”
Could it get any more awkward?
Why, yes it could. The Jackson impersonator brought a young boy on stage to dance with him.
Finally, the candidate arrived. “Any concern about following Michael Jackson onto the stage?” a reporter asked.
“I’m ready!” Stevens replied.
But upon reflection, Stevens decided to Beat It. She didn’t take the stage, instead greeting some of the stragglers as they waited for their buses — and posing for a selfie with the Michael Jackson look-alike.
Stevens may yet prevail on Tuesday — polls mostly show her trailing but are scattered — and go on to beat Republican Mike Rogers in November. She has deep support, especially among Black voters and older voters, who are a majority of the primary electorate. But the intensity and enthusiasm seem to be all on the side of her opponent.
Ninety minutes after the Jackson debacle and 90 miles away in Lansing, that opponent, progressive firebrand Abdul El-Sayed, was speaking to a packed community center, leading the crowd in his trademark chant.
“Money out of?” he asked.
“Politics!” the crowd shouted.
“Money in your?”
“Pocket!” roared the crowd.
“Medicare for?”
“All!”
He gave a tight, 13-minute speech that never strayed from that core, populist message, then closed with another chant.
“So when they tell us that we cannot have health care?”
“We don’t back down!” the crowd shouted.
“When they tell us that their money is unbeatable?”
“We don’t back down!”
“When they tell us we can’t have a union in our workplace?”
“We don’t back down!”
The audience stood when he left the stage, many of them screaming or chanting “Ab-dul! Ab-dul!” Several lingered for more than half an hour in hopes of getting a photo or handshake with him.
If El-Sayed wins on Tuesday, it will be seen as a triumph of insurgents over the establishment, of the Democratic Socialists of America-inspired far left over the moderates — and there would be a kernel of truth to that.
But it is more complicated. El-Sayed — a Rhodes scholar, medical doctor, former public-health official and runner-up to Gretchen Whitmer eight years ago in the Democratic gubernatorial primary — is hardly an outsider. He has plenty of mainstream support, and his ideological differences with Stevens are mostly matters of degree. He has made the race competitive because he’s unusually charismatic and because his message has been laser-focused on economic populism.
No matter how the Michigan primary turns out, he has identified an approach that Democrats should be using up and down the ballot in November. He leaves aside the “woke” talk about cultural issues and gives the voters the two things they want: a candidate who’s a fighter, and a candidate who offers a message beyond being anti-Trump.
“They’re tired of a sense that the best we can do is just not be Donald Trump,” El-Sayed told me in an interview. “I think that’s what you’re seeing on the ground and the sort of electric feeling that you get at any of our events. … Rather than being so angry at the past, we’re trying to be hopeful about the future.”
The message is almost entirely economic, and he spends virtually no time talking about gender or race. “I don’t care who you love, how you pray, if you pray, how you identify,” El-Sayed said. “I want you to have a good home. I want you to have health care. I want you to be able to send your kids to good schools. … There’s a way for us to bring everybody together to the center of the tent about the things that all of us need and deserve.”
I came to Michigan expecting to dislike El-Sayed’s candidacy, and he has provided many reasons to do so. He campaigned with the streamer Hasan Piker, whose anti-Israel screeds have veered into the antisemitic. He tainted his condemnation of a Hezbollah-inspired attack on a Michigan synagogue by using it as an occasion to blame Israel, saying that “hurt people hurt people.” At an appearance this week, I saw El-Sayed’s remark that “antisemitism is a scourge” produce just a few nods of agreement — while his denunciation of Israel for “genocide and apartheid” drew a big cheer.
His supporters have launched vile online attacks on Stevens’s appearance and her voice, while El-Sayed himself called her “a suit with a large AIPAC bank account” who doesn’t know “how to string together two coherent sentences.” Without evidence, he constantly accuses her of corruption and even bribery, saying she’s “bought off” by contributors and has a “quid pro quo” with AIPAC. Other Democrats come in for similar treatment, including Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, whom he recently called an “ogre.” And El-Sayed was part of the “uncommitted” movement in 2024 that weakened the Biden and Harris candidacies.
Democrats have good reason to fear that El-Sayed could jeopardize their chances in a seat they must hold if they are to break Trump’s grip on the Senate. Polling suggests Stevens is the stronger candidate against Rogers. There’s little doubt Republicans will demonize El-Sayed, son of Egyptian immigrants, for being Muslim and describe him as a “communist” (Trump used the word several times in a visit to Michigan this week). His past calls to defund the police won’t help.
And yet, for better or worse, El-Sayed unquestionably gives voters the fighting spirit they want. He previewed for me the message he would use in the fall campaign. He would call Rogers “one of the most corrupt politicians to ever serve in Michigan,” a “Trump bootlicker, but then also the worst of the neocon era, all at the same time.” He would blame Rogers for the opioid epidemic, the prescription drug crisis and more.
Confident to the point of cockiness, El-Sayed also is convinced he can win over disaffected Trump voters. He likes tariffs (just not Trump’s “stupid” ones) and embraces the “America First” label. “That man lied to everyone,” he said of Trump. “We’re in this war that we can’t get out of, to do the bidding of a foreign government that we keep sending our money to. So ask yourself, which one of us is really ‘America First.’”
Stevens’s campaign declined to make her available for an interview. At one of her informal gaggles with reporters, I asked what she thought of being branded as the establishment.
“I’m the gal from Michigan,” she responded. “I’m going to be Michigan’s voice in the halls of the United States Senate. … I don’t care who’s in leadership or whatnot. I’m going to run up to them and I’m going to make sure that we’re heard, and I’m going to run through them if I have to.”
It was a solid, all-politics-is-local response. That may be what Michiganders want on Tuesday. But exciting it is not.
***
For all the talk about a Democratic civil war, the Democratic electorate is perhaps more unified on the issues than it has ever been. Fully 90% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independents want universal health care, for example, and they are agnostic on whether that should happen through “Medicare for All” or a government-run “public option.”
A New York Times poll in May found that 62% of Democratic voters thought the party was in the right place ideologically, with much smaller numbers saying it was too far to the right (16%) or to the left (17%). There is a strong consensus around economic populism, opposing aid to Israel and moderating on cultural issues.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have moved markedly to the left during the Trump years. True, DSA-backed candidates have been ousting Democratic incumbents, but in some cases the people they are knocking out are themselves on the left of the party. Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Adriano Espaillat of New York were both endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, run by left-wingers Pramila Jayapal, Maxwell Frost and Greg Casar.
In the Michigan primary, too, much of the establishment-vs.-insurgent and centrist-vs.-leftist framing is overstated. Yes, outside groups have spent $60 million for Stevens (half of that from AIPAC), and she’s backed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and the party apparatus. But Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) has pointedly declined to endorse Stevens.
El-Sayed has the endorsement of mainstream unions such as the United Auto Workers, the American Federation of Teachers and National Nurses United. Among senators, he’s backed not just by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but by Chris Van Hollen and Tina Smith. The DSA didn’t endorse him, and he disavowed socialism in this week’s debate. Asked at an earlier debate where the government is failing Americans the most, El-Sayed called for legislation regulating artificial intelligence — not exactly a cry for revolution.
Certainly, he and Stevens have different views on Israel (though the party is fast moving in his direction) and have different standards for campaign financing (though Stevens got an “A” from the progressive money-in-politics group End Citizens United this year). But much of their disagreement is about mechanics more than substance. He wants “Medicare for All” and she favors the public option, but both aim for universal health care. She wants to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement while he wants to abolish the agency and replace it with something like the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Their supporters look different. Hers are more likely to be old and Black. He attracts young, white men — the same demographic that once fueled Ralph Nader and constituted the “Bernie Bros.” They aren’t necessarily loyal Democrats. At El-Sayed headquarters, one volunteer, Stellan Muller, told me that if his candidate loses the primary, he’d prefer Rogers in November: “It feels more and more like the victory of the Democratic establishment represents a darker future than continued Republican victory.”
But the two camps want the same things. At El-Sayed’s office, a large banner asks “What Do You Dream Of?” and each volunteer attaches a sticker to the banner with an answer. Of the dozens of stickers, I saw only one that mentioned “free Palestine” and a few calling for an end to “endless wars.” The rest were mostly economic dreams: “Health care for all.” “Owning a home.” “Going to bed without fear of medical debt.” “Tuition-free college.” “Saving Social Security.” “Affordable housing.”
Their complaints about Stevens were mostly on style. “I’ve never liked her,” said Carrie, 69, who declined to give her last name. “She says she’s the fighter. I don’t think she is.”
Likewise, Icarus Hart, an Air Force reservist, said he thinks Stevens’ approach is too “incremental.”
I heard the same basket of issues from Stevens supporters: affordability, health care, housing, jobs. Their objections to El-Sayed were primarily personal and occasionally prejudicial. “He’s sheisty. I don’t like the look of him,” reported Anita Helton, a retiree.
But would they support El-Sayed if he’s the nominee? Almost all the Stevens supporters I spoke with said they would. “I would have to,” said Marion Watkins, another retiree. “I’m still a Democrat.”
***
After the Senior Summer Sizzler fizzled, Stevens gamely worked the remaining crowd, dispensing hugs and bromides to the retirees. “Our people will get their fair share,” she told them. And: “They’re coming for our benefits. Not on my watch!” Also: “Our retirees here in Michigan are the gold standard.”
The seniors, almost all of them Black, were universally Stevens supporters. Kevin Weathersby, wearing an “I voted early” sticker, told me: “Ask anybody here, they’ll tell you Haley Stevens.” (I did, and they did.)
But is that enough? In her gaggle with reporters, Stevens answered each question, no matter the topic, with a description of the work she does or would do for her Michigan constituents.
She has a “Day 1 plan to fight for Michigan.” She’s “Michigan’s most effective lawmaker.” Her “sleeves are rolled up for six years of hard, unglamorous work to deliver for Michigan.” She has “been really intentional in writing something I call the Michigan Hope Agenda.” She has “ideas, you know, to stand up for Michigan’s industrial base.”
In an ideal world, the Senate would be full of Haley Stevenses, rolling up their sleeves and drafting hope agendas. But it is all conventional — and quite the opposite of El-Sayed’s fighting words.
In Lansing, he called Trump “the worst symptom of the disease of our politics,” and he mocked Rogers for seeking “gender-affirming care” by making “AI videos of himself looking swole.” Of Trump, he said: “It’s embarrassing to watch him just systematically fumble while caring more about the drapes in the ballroom we didn’t ask for, taking us to a war we don’t need to fight, and then somehow telling us that this is all in our best interest as he made $2 billion for him and his family over all of it.”
As he was talking, a campaign banner behind him toppled over. “See that? See what Trump did?” he joked.
At the heart of his appeal is a question he posed to supporters in Lansing: “When are we going to get a U.S. senator who’s finally willing to take the fight to this administration?”
Of course, we already have plenty of senators who are taking the fight to Trump. But perhaps none of them is quite as loud and strident as El-Sayed.
It would only cause our politics to unwind even further to fill the Democratic side of the chamber with firebrands like El-Sayed rather than workhorses like Stevens. But after the asymmetric warfare between Trump and the Democrats over the last decade, and particularly over the last 19 months, there’s no denying the appeal of fighting fire with fire.
Dana Milbank is a NOTUS Perspectives columnist.