There have been several developments in recent weeks in the race for the Michigan Democratic Senate nomination, with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropping out over the July 4th holiday weekend.
Though McMorrow’s campaign briefly gained traction in the early spring, she couldn’t sustain it amid the surge in support for Abdul El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health department director whose anti-Israel and pro-Hamas rhetoric has become a flashpoint in what’s been called a “proxy war” between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian contenders, and for the future of the Democratic Party.
El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens (MI-11) are the two Democratic contenders left in this race. Their attacks on each other have become increasingly acrimonious the closer it gets to primary day, as evidenced by a debate held on Tuesday where the two went toe to toe:
In one particularly sharp exchange, Dr. El-Sayed repeated his assertion that corporations that give money to super PACs to back Ms. Stevens are buying future support from her if she is elected. Ms. Stevens responded by citing Republican ads aiming to help Dr. El-Sayed in the primary.
“He won’t denounce the G.O.P. when they are funding his operation,” she said.
Dr. El-Sayed retorted sarcastically: “I’m sure everybody out there thinks that Republicans really want me to win this race. Sure.”
The clash between the two candidates has become increasingly hostile in recent days.
Each has announced websites purporting to show politically unhelpful facts about the other, and they have engaged in a war or words online after Dr. El-Sayed, in an interview with Semafor, accused Ms. Stevens of being “a suit with a large AIPAC bank account.” He added that “I hope maybe they find some way to teach her how to string together two coherent sentences.”
Ms. Stevens’s supporters accused Dr. El-Sayed of sexism for suggesting that she was not a competent orator. And Ms. Stevens, whose campaign is backed by more than $30 million in super PAC spending, a portion of which is coming from groups tied to AIPAC, has clearly been stung by his attacks.
Surprisingly, El-Sayed is getting pushback on some of his claims by typically Democrat-friendly media outlets like CNN, which fact-checked his false statement that he had never been a proponent of defunding the police:
Michigan Democratic Senate front-runner Abdul El-Sayed has faced criticism for previous comments he made about defunding the police. In recent interviews, El-Sayed has insisted he “never, never called for defunding” the police. Last week in an interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt, he said he deleted old tweets supporting the movement because they were taken “out of context,” calling them “clickbait in DC.”But interviews from 2020 show El-Sayed repeatedly endorsed defunding the police, according to a CNN KFile review of his media appearances. “We do need to defund the police,” El-Sayed said in a 2020 radio interview while specifically discussing how the slogan could undermine criminal justice reform efforts.El-Sayed’s interviews from 2020 and 2021 show him embracing the “defund the police” movement — not just uttering the phrase but supporting the key principle of reinvesting funds from the police into other public-sector spaces such as mental health and anti-poverty efforts.
Even more surprising was former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, who shares El-Sayed’s views on the Israel-Hamas war and has generally been supportive of his Senate candidacy. He pressed the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons graduate on why he has repeatedly called himself a physician when he’s not one:
Hasan: You got attacked by your rivals for calling yourself a physician, not just a doctor, even though you don’t have a valid state medical license in New York or Michigan, which apparently is what you need legally to call yourself a physician. Do you wish you’d just stuck to calling yourself a doctor, which you are, to avoid all of this controversy and attacks on your physician status?El-Sayed: You know, at the end of the day, it’s not about whether or not I’m a physician or a doctor. The question is, can you see a doctor? It’s not about my education; it’s about whether or not your kid gets to get an education. So, I’m just not spending time…Hasan: Well, that’s a good line, but people would say it’s also about – did you tell the truth?El-Sayed: Well, I would say that I was the health director for the city of Detroit, and I’ve done more to provide more people health care or eliminate medical debt than most doctors have done in their practice career.
Watch:
Hasan also grilled El-Sayed on a lack of transparency regarding financial disclosures:
During another exchange, Hasan pressed El-Sayed on his net worth and why he filed to delay to release his financial disclosure form on August 13th – after the August [4th] Democratic Party primary.“Haley Stevens has also attacked you and Mike Rogers for being millionaires who, she says, conveniently did not file their 2026 personal financial disclosures. You’ve sought an extension through August 13th, I believe, which is after the primary. Was this to avoid transparency with your voters? Why not release them before the election?” Hasan asked.“No, just taxes get complicated. My wife and her family own property abroad, and so getting all those tax forms is a thing,” El-Sayed replied…
Watch:
Though El-Sayed still has the momentum, the latest polling shows the race tightening since McMorrow’s exit. Stevens now has a slight edge, though it is within the margin of error:
Tavern Research asked likely voters to pick between the two as if the Aug. 4 primary were held today. Stevens led with 42% saying they would vote for the congresswoman, but another 41% said they would cast a ballot for El-Sayed. Notably, 18% of those surveyed said they weren’t sure, comprising a sizable chunk of undecided voters.
Absentee ballots have been mailed, and early in-person voting for the primary starts on Saturday, July 25th. Primary day is August 4th. The winner will face Trump-backed former Rep. Mike Rogers (MI-08) in the general election.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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