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Abdul El-Sayed Wins Democratic Senate Primary in Michigan in a Victory for the Left
Dr. El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, narrowly defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate, in a bitter primary dominated by the politics of Israel.
Listen · 5:40 minutes
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed pushed Israel to the center of the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, criticizing the country’s actions in Gaza and promising to pull back American military support. Credit: Nick Hagen for The New York Times
by Reid J. Epstein
August 5, 2026,
New York Times
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic primary race for Senate in Michigan on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, giving progressives a victory that signaled liberal voters’ anti-establishment mood and shifting sentiment against Israel.
Dr. El-Sayed, 41, a former public health official, narrowly defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a four-term moderate, in a hostile race that was dominated by the politics of Israel and the role of big money in American elections.
He fiercely criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and promised to pull back American military support, while she vowed to continue sending U.S. military aid to Israel without conditions.
While most Michigan political observers expected in the campaign’s final days that Dr. El-Sayed would prevail, and polls showed him leading by a significant amount, the close margin between him and Ms. Stevens pointed to the tough general-election battle to come for Democrats.
Dr. El-Sayed overcame more than $60 million in super PAC spending on behalf of Ms. Stevens, including at least $30 million tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s most influential pro-Israel group. Another $30 million came from so-called dark-money groups whose donors remain hidden.
But even as he was vastly outspent on advertising, Dr. El-Sayed turned Ms. Stevens’s financial advantage into a liability, casting his bid as a grass-roots campaign up against the well-funded establishment. “The money against the many,” as he put it in stump speeches.
His primary victory delivers another shock to a Democratic Party in which left-wing challengers across the country have ousted longtime incumbents or beaten rivals supported by party leaders in Washington.
Dr. El-Sayed was backed by leading progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who went to Michigan to campaign for him. Ms. Stevens was supported by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and other prominent state Democrats.
In the general election, Dr. El-Sayed will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a race widely seen as crucial for control of the Senate. Mr. Rogers was a moderate Republican during his seven House terms, but like many others in his party, he has become an acolyte of President Trump. Mr. Rogers narrowly lost a 2024 Senate bid to Elissa Slotkin, even as Mr. Trump carried the state on his way back to the White House.
Democratic leaders worried — and Ms. Stevens argued — that Dr. El-Sayed could be the weaker candidate in the general election. He is a notably left-wing candidate in a battleground state, with his calls for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ushering in universal health care.
“We’ve got to do one thing, and that’s go beat Mike Rogers,” Ms. Stevens said in an interview last month. “We’ve got to be eyes on the prize, and that’s winning in November.”
The Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, Dr. El-Sayed made no secret of his ambitions of progressive leadership within the Democratic Party. He said that he hoped to recalibrate the party’s politics on Israel and wanted to make opposition to funding its military a litmus test for Democrats running for president in 2028.
Defanging AIPAC, he argued, was crucial: “I want AIPAC to cease to be a force in Democratic primaries,” he said in an interview last month. “The best way to do that is to defeat them in a state like Michigan.”
He made much of his campaign pitch a rebuke of both the group and corporate politics. At his events, attendees chanted his slogan along with him: “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”
It was no accident that Israel emerged as a fault line in a major Democratic primary in Michigan. The state, which has large numbers of Muslim and Jewish voters, delivered a rebuke to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2024, when 13 percent of Democratic primary voters voted for “uncommitted” in protest of his policy on Israel amid its war with Gaza.
Dr. El-Sayed’s base was seen as the state’s Arab and Muslim voters, as well as younger and more liberal Democrats. Ms. Stevens had pushed to win over the state’s Black voters, whom AIPAC had targeted with a flood of advertisements featuring a clip of former President Barack Obama praising Ms. Stevens during her first run for Congress in 2018.
The contest, which until early July also included Mallory McMorrow, a state senator who sought a middle ground between Ms. Stevens and Dr. El-Sayed, became quite nasty in its final weeks.
So many of Dr. El-Sayed’s supporters mocked Ms. Stevens’s mannerisms and Michigan accent that he urged them to stop making fun of her “for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics.” In the final days before the primary, Ms. Stevens lashed out at Dr. El-Sayed, posting on social media, “Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.”
Now, Dr. El-Sayed will face the task of uniting Michigan Democrats for the general election.
Reid J. Epstein is a Times reporter covering campaigns and elections from Washington.
See more on: Democratic Party, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), U.S. Politics
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08/05/us/michigan-election-results-primary#eadaaf73-6ba6-55f0-87d2-6523d3a67d52
LiveUpdated
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:42 a.m. ET1 minute ago
Primary Elections Live Updates: El-Sayed Wins Michigan Senate Primary
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate, in a Senate primary that had divided the Democrats, according to The Associated Press.
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Live
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed defeated Representative Haley Stevens in the Democratic Michigan Senate primary.
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Pinned
Updated
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:18 a.m. ET25 minutes ago
Kellen Browning and Shane Goldmacher
Here’s the latest.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive and vocal critic of Israel, edged Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate, early on Wednesday to win the Michigan Senate Democratic primary, according to The Associated Press, securing a high-profile victory for the ascendant political left.
In a contentious race that divided the party, Dr. El-Sayed overcame $60 million in outside money supporting Ms. Stevens, including about $32 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a hard-line pro-Israel group whose involvement became a source of frequent conflict in the contest.
Dr. El-Sayed will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a general election clash for an open battleground seat that could determine control of the Senate.
Dr. El-Sayed and his allies argued that his populist rhetoric would energize voters across the political spectrum who are unhappy with the status quo. But Democratic leaders had rallied around Ms. Stevens, a centrist and fierce ally of Israel, fearful that the left-wing views espoused by Dr. El-Sayed, a former public health official and proponent of universal health care, could imperil the party’s chances of defending an crucial open seat.
Speaking to supporters in the hours before the race was called, Dr. El-Sayed said that if he won the primary, “we’ll have taken $70 million on the chin and kept fighting back.” In a nod to the divisive nature of the primary, he added: “Tomorrow, we begin to mend fences.”
Elsewhere, results were mixed in closely watched Democratic primaries. In Missouri, the establishment struck back at the progressive left, with Representative Wesley Bell fending off a primary challenge from former Representative Cori Bush, a democratic socialist.
Ms. Bush, a critic of Israel and member of the so-called Squad — a group of progressive women of color in Congress — was ousted from her St. Louis seat by Mr. Bell two years ago and had been attempting a comeback.
But progressives scored a victory in a Michigan Democratic primary that included Lansing, where William Lawrence, an organizer, beat two centrist Democrats in a House race. He will face Representative Tom Barrett, a Republican, in the fall — a competitive contest that will test whether left-wing populism is viable in swing districts.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Michigan defeat: Representative Shri Thanedar, a second-term Democrat, lost to the democratic socialist challenging him, State Representative Donavan McKinney, joining a wave of Democratic incumbents in Congress whom primary voters have sent packing in a surge of anti-incumbent fervor this cycle.
A Pacific primary fight: Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, an outspoken and vulnerable centrist Democrat who faced challenges from her left and right in the state’s top-two primary system, advanced to a general election against a Republican in her district in southwestern Washington state.
Control in Kansas: Cindy Holscher, a populist Democratic state senator, and State Senator Ty Masterson, a Trump-endorsed candidate, will battle for the Kansas governorship after winning their respective parties’ nominations. The winner will replace Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, a Democrat, who is leaving office because of term limits.
Key House matchup set in Virginia: Democratic primary voters chose former Representative Elaine Luria to face Representative Jen Kiggans, a Republican, in a House race expected to be one of the most competitive in the country this fall. The district is home to several military bases, and both women are Navy veterans.
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:42 a.m. ET4 minutes ago
Tim Balk
Reporting from Michigan
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is holding a small rally in downtown Detroit. Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic state lawmaker who ran for Senate but suspended her campaign last month, has joined him at the event. She endorsed El-Sayed early this morning.
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:23 a.m. ET22 minutes ago
Bayliss Wagner
Politics reporter
Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat who had been neutral in the primary, congratulated Abdul El-Sayed on Wednesday morning.
“It’s been a long primary, but now it’s time to gear up to beat Mike Rogers (again) and win up and down the ticket,” Slotkin wrote on social media. “There is nothing more important than the mission of the next 90 days: uniting, keeping this seat blue, flipping the House and Senate, and providing a real check on President Trump.”
The left wins a nail-biter in Michigan: Here are eight takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s close primary victory signaled that he has work to do to unite Democrats and turn out swing voters in November. Credit: Nick Hagen for The New York Times
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, won a razor-thin victory in the Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan that serves as the most significant triumph for his party’s left wing this year.
Dr. El-Sayed prevailed in a highly contentious contest against Representative Haley Stevens, who argued to the end that he was unlikely to win a general election in a battleground state.
Now Dr. El-Sayed will test the longstanding progressive hope that left-wing candidates can energize enough voters to beat Republicans in swing terrain. He will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who narrowly lost the state’s 2024 Senate race and ran unopposed in this year’s primary. They are competing for the seat of Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat who is retiring.
The stakes for both Mr. Rogers and Dr. El-Sayed are perhaps higher than two years ago. Michigan is widely seen as a crucial state for Senate control. And how a progressive like Dr. El-Sayed performs in a must-win state in November is likely to have ramifications on how Democratic primary voters perceive their presidential candidates’ ideology and electability in 2028.
Here are eight takeaways from a big primary night in Michigan and four other states:
The left beat the establishment, but the results showed its limits.
Dr. El-Sayed campaigned hard against the Democratic political establishment. That was enough to win, but enough voters backed Ms. Stevens to suggest that the establishment still has plenty of influence.
Ms. Stevens showed strength among Black voters in Detroit and Flint and carried most of the state’s interior rural counties, aside from a few with college towns and resort communities.
Dr. El-Sayed was strongest in communities with young voters, college students and educated and wealthy white voters. That coalition carried him through the primary, but he will have work to do to beat Mr. Rogers in November.
In all, the Michigan map demonstrated the limitations — for now, at least — that face a dyed-in-the-wool progressive running on a foreign policy platform to the left of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Representative Haley Stevens, a supporter of Israel, was trailed by that position all campaign and dodged questions about her significant financial backing from pro-Israel groups.Credit...Paul Sancya/Associated Press
The ground has shifted under pro-Israel Democrats.
The Democratic Party’s rapid retreat from support for Israel has been well documented in polls, election results and votes in Congress.
But Dr. El-Sayed’s primary success in Michigan was arguably the most remarkable victory yet for the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States — and maybe the biggest setback for pro-Israel Democrats.
Dr. El-Sayed, the Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, won by putting Israel squarely at the center of the campaign. He labeled Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. He said he would cut U.S. military aid. And he said he did not believe Israel should exist as an explicitly Jewish state.
Throughout the race, Dr. El-Sayed hammered Ms. Stevens over her pro-Israel stance. Her defensiveness on the issue was clear to all: She consistently dodged questions about her support from AIPAC.
Dr. El-Sayed has said for months that if he becomes a senator, he would hope to influence U.S. policy on Israel — particularly among Democrats seeking his party’s 2028 presidential nomination. Last month, the Democratic National Committee announced that Michigan was likely to be one of the early nominating states in 2028.
AIPAC was dealt a narrow but costly defeat.
More than any other Democrat running this year, Ms. Stevens was the candidate of AIPAC.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee used its super PAC to invest more money, at least $30 million, to help her than any other outside group spent on any primary candidate in any race this year. It was almost, but not quite, enough for her to win.
The defeat, even by a narrow margin, serves as a rebuke to AIPAC, which has won far more Democratic primaries than it has lost in recent years.
Dr. El-Sayed, like other Democrats who have toppled AIPAC-backed candidates this year, leaned into the group’s antipathy for him and used it as a selling point.
Ms. Stevens ran a far quieter campaign than Dr. El-Sayed did. Credit...Nic Antaya for The New York Times; Nick Hagen for The New York Times
Stevens was unable to match El-Sayed’s gifts as a communicator.
One candidate danced to Taylor Swift videos on his social media pages. The other used her final campaign ad to complain about “cool kids on the internet.”
It was not hard to figure out which candidate was a more gifted political communicator.
Dr. El-Sayed is a skilled orator. His stump speeches are easily clipped for viral consumption online. And he also worked the state hard. Since beginning his campaign in April 2025, he crisscrossed Michigan, holding more than 500 in-person events.
Ms. Stevens, by contrast, held relatively few public events. She spoke often about her love for Michigan and its manufacturing industry — important issues in her home state but hardly ones to energize Democratic voters furious with President Trump. She was, by most accounts, good at one-on-one retail politics, but in a state with 10 million people, that can do only so much.
Donavan McKinney, Will Lawrence and Representative Wesley Bell won their primaries. Credit: Nick Hagen for The New York Times; William Lawrence for U.S. Congress; Eric Lee for The New York Times
D.S.A. candidates had a mixed night.
The primaries on Tuesday had the biggest stakes for progressive Democrats of any night on this year’s political calendar.
Dr. El-Sayed was the headliner, but three House candidates with ties to democratic socialism also faced primary voters.
Will Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement who once called himself a democratic socialist but no longer does, won a three-way primary for a battleground House seat in Central Michigan.
Another left-wing candidate in Michigan, Donavan McKinney, who remains a democratic socialist, narrowly defeated Representative Shri Thanedar, a Detroit congressman who was not beloved either in his district or among his congressional colleagues.
And Yousef Rabhi, a democratic socialist, ousted the incumbent mayor of Ann Arbor, Mich., Christopher Taylor.
But in Missouri, Representative Wesley Bell, a moderate, easily held off a challenge from Cori Bush, a democratic socialist whom he ousted from the seat two years ago.
Michigan was another defeat for Schumer.
Before this year, it had been a long time since a Democrat backed by Senator Chuck Schumer lost a Senate primary. Now it has happened twice this summer.
Mr. Schumer’s endorsement of Ms. Stevens may have signaled to donors to get behind her, but it cemented her position as the establishment candidate in a year when Democratic primary voters are furious with the establishment.
Plenty of things have gone right for Mr. Schumer this year. His recruits in Alaska, North Carolina and Ohio went unchallenged and appear in solid shape heading into November. His choice in Iowa cruised through a primary. And Ms. Stevens was not his first choice in Michigan; he initially tried to draft Gov. Gretchen Whitmer into the race.
But after Mr. Schumer’s primary stumbles in Michigan and Maine — where he recruited Gov. Janet Mills only for her to end her campaign a month before the primary — he has been left with two Democratic nominees in battleground states who have explicitly campaigned against him.
Now Mr. Schumer must make amends with Dr. El-Sayed. The minority leader is getting some practice at this: Last week, he met with Troy Jackson, the new Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, who said he would not back Mr. Schumer for leader and said he was not sure he would accept his help in the general election. The two did eventually agree to work together.
Former Representative Mike Rogers ran unopposed in the Republican primary for Senate in Michigan. Credit: Paul Sancya/Associated Press
Republicans are going to go after El-Sayed hard.
Ms. Stevens said throughout the final weeks of the primary that Mr. Rogers and his fellow Republicans were itching for Dr. El-Sayed to win the primary because they thought he would be easier to beat in November.
Now Republicans will get their chance to prove Ms. Stevens correct.
Republicans are about to turn Dr. El-Sayed into a left-wing boogeyman of epic proportions. They will highlight pieces of his résumé that did not get a close vetting by Democratic voters, including his association with Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer who once said “America deserved 9/11.” (He later walked back the remark.)
The Senate Republican campaign arm highlighted Mr. Piker’s remark, and Dr. El-Sayed’s refusal to disavow it, in a digital ad released Wednesday morning that referred to the Democratic candidate by his full given name — Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed — and called him “the most radical candidate in America.”
Whether the strategy works remains to be seen. Mr. Trump is so unpopular that Democrats are preparing to contest seats previously thought to be out of reach. But plenty of left-wing and right-wing candidates in both parties have won wave-year primaries only to blow general elections their compatriots thought were eminently winnable.
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:14 a.m. ET34 minutes ago
Bayliss Wagner
Politics reporter
In a statement, Stevens announced she would support El-Sayed in the general election and thanked her supporters.
“This was a thorough and rigorous campaign that brought out the full span of views within the Democratic Party — and that is why we have primaries,” she said. “I am proud to have put up my hand to serve and prouder to continue to work together to make sure this Senate seat remains blue, that we flip the United States Senate and continue the work for Michigan.”
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:07 a.m. ET41 minutes ago
Tim Balk
Reporting from Michigan
Representative Haley Stevens called Dr. Abdul El-Sayed to concede this morning, said Arik Wolk, a spokesman for the Stevens campaign.
Aug. 5, 2026, 9:55 a.m. ET53 minutes ago
Reid J. Epstein
National politics reporter
Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed pushed Israel to the center of the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, criticizing the country’s actions in Gaza and promising to pull back American military support. Credit: Nick Hagen for The New York Times
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic primary race for Senate in Michigan on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, giving progressives a victory that signaled liberal voters’ anti-establishment mood and shifting sentiment against Israel.
Dr. El-Sayed, 41, a former public health official, narrowly defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a four-term moderate, in a hostile race that was dominated by the politics of Israel and the role of big money in American elections.
He fiercely criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and promised to pull back American military support, while she vowed to continue sending U.S. military aid to Israel without conditions.
While most Michigan political observers expected in the campaign’s final days that Dr. El-Sayed would prevail, and polls showed him leading by a significant amount, the close margin between him and Ms. Stevens pointed to the tough general-election battle to come for Democrats.
Dr. El-Sayed overcame more than $60 million in super PAC spending on behalf of Ms. Stevens, including at least $30 million tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s most influential pro-Israel group. Another $30 million came from so-called dark-money groups whose donors remain hidden.
But even as he was vastly outspent on advertising, Dr. El-Sayed turned Ms. Stevens’s financial advantage into a liability, casting his bid as a grass-roots campaign up against the well-funded establishment. “The money against the many,” as he put it in stump speeches.
His primary victory delivers another shock to a Democratic Party in which left-wing challengers across the country have ousted longtime incumbents or beaten rivals supported by party leaders in Washington.
Dr. El-Sayed was backed by leading progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who went to Michigan to campaign for him. Ms. Stevens was supported by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and other prominent state Democrats.
In the general election, Dr. El-Sayed will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a race widely seen as crucial for control of the Senate. Mr. Rogers was a moderate Republican during his seven House terms, but like many others in his party, he has become an acolyte of President Trump. Mr. Rogers narrowly lost a 2024 Senate bid to Elissa Slotkin, even as Mr. Trump carried the state on his way back to the White House.
Democratic leaders worried — and Ms. Stevens argued — that Dr. El-Sayed could be the weaker candidate in the general election. He is a notably left-wing candidate in a battleground state, with his calls for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ushering in universal health care.
“We’ve got to do one thing, and that’s go beat Mike Rogers,” Ms. Stevens said in an interview last month. “We’ve got to be eyes on the prize, and that’s winning in November.”
The Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, Dr. El-Sayed made no secret of his ambitions of progressive leadership within the Democratic Party. He said that he hoped to recalibrate the party’s politics on Israel and wanted to make opposition to funding its military a litmus test for Democrats running for president in 2028.
Defanging AIPAC, he argued, was crucial: “I want AIPAC to cease to be a force in Democratic primaries,” he said in an interview last month. “The best way to do that is to defeat them in a state like Michigan.”
He made much of his campaign pitch a rebuke of both the group and corporate politics. At his events, attendees chanted his slogan along with him: “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”
It was no accident that Israel emerged as a fault line in a major Democratic primary in Michigan. The state, which has large numbers of Muslim and Jewish voters, delivered a rebuke to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2024, when 13 percent of Democratic primary voters voted for “uncommitted” in protest of his policy on Israel amid its war with Gaza.
Dr. El-Sayed’s base was seen as the state’s Arab and Muslim voters, as well as younger and more liberal Democrats. Ms. Stevens had pushed to win over the state’s Black voters, whom AIPAC had targeted with a flood of advertisements featuring a clip of former President Barack Obama praising Ms. Stevens during her first run for Congress in 2018.
The contest, which until early July also included Mallory McMorrow, a state senator who sought a middle ground between Ms. Stevens and Dr. El-Sayed, became quite nasty in its final weeks.
So many of Dr. El-Sayed’s supporters mocked Ms. Stevens’s mannerisms and Michigan accent that he urged them to stop making fun of her “for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics.” In the final days before the primary, Ms. Stevens lashed out at Dr. El-Sayed, posting on social media, “Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.”
Now, Dr. El-Sayed will face the task of uniting Michigan Democrats for the general election.
MEANWHILE...THIS IS WHAT IS KNOWN AS GOOD NEWS...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/us/politics/el-sayed-stevens-michigan-democratic-senate-primary.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/us/politics/el-sayed-stevens-michigan-democratic-senate-primary.html
Abdul El-Sayed Wins Democratic Senate Primary in Michigan in a Victory for the Left
Dr. El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, narrowly defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate, in a bitter primary dominated by the politics of Israel.
Listen · 5:40 minutes
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed pushed Israel to the center of the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, criticizing the country’s actions in Gaza and promising to pull back American military support. Credit: Nick Hagen for The New York Times
by Reid J. Epstein
August 5, 2026,
New York Times
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic primary race for Senate in Michigan on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, giving progressives a victory that signaled liberal voters’ anti-establishment mood and shifting sentiment against Israel.
Dr. El-Sayed, 41, a former public health official, narrowly defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a four-term moderate, in a hostile race that was dominated by the politics of Israel and the role of big money in American elections.
He fiercely criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and promised to pull back American military support, while she vowed to continue sending U.S. military aid to Israel without conditions.
While most Michigan political observers expected in the campaign’s final days that Dr. El-Sayed would prevail, and polls showed him leading by a significant amount, the close margin between him and Ms. Stevens pointed to the tough general-election battle to come for Democrats.
Dr. El-Sayed overcame more than $60 million in super PAC spending on behalf of Ms. Stevens, including at least $30 million tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s most influential pro-Israel group. Another $30 million came from so-called dark-money groups whose donors remain hidden.
But even as he was vastly outspent on advertising, Dr. El-Sayed turned Ms. Stevens’s financial advantage into a liability, casting his bid as a grass-roots campaign up against the well-funded establishment. “The money against the many,” as he put it in stump speeches.
His primary victory delivers another shock to a Democratic Party in which left-wing challengers across the country have ousted longtime incumbents or beaten rivals supported by party leaders in Washington.
Dr. El-Sayed was backed by leading progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who went to Michigan to campaign for him. Ms. Stevens was supported by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and other prominent state Democrats.
In the general election, Dr. El-Sayed will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a race widely seen as crucial for control of the Senate. Mr. Rogers was a moderate Republican during his seven House terms, but like many others in his party, he has become an acolyte of President Trump. Mr. Rogers narrowly lost a 2024 Senate bid to Elissa Slotkin, even as Mr. Trump carried the state on his way back to the White House.
Democratic leaders worried — and Ms. Stevens argued — that Dr. El-Sayed could be the weaker candidate in the general election. He is a notably left-wing candidate in a battleground state, with his calls for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ushering in universal health care.
“We’ve got to do one thing, and that’s go beat Mike Rogers,” Ms. Stevens said in an interview last month. “We’ve got to be eyes on the prize, and that’s winning in November.”
The Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, Dr. El-Sayed made no secret of his ambitions of progressive leadership within the Democratic Party. He said that he hoped to recalibrate the party’s politics on Israel and wanted to make opposition to funding its military a litmus test for Democrats running for president in 2028.
Defanging AIPAC, he argued, was crucial: “I want AIPAC to cease to be a force in Democratic primaries,” he said in an interview last month. “The best way to do that is to defeat them in a state like Michigan.”
He made much of his campaign pitch a rebuke of both the group and corporate politics. At his events, attendees chanted his slogan along with him: “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”
It was no accident that Israel emerged as a fault line in a major Democratic primary in Michigan. The state, which has large numbers of Muslim and Jewish voters, delivered a rebuke to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2024, when 13 percent of Democratic primary voters voted for “uncommitted” in protest of his policy on Israel amid its war with Gaza.
Dr. El-Sayed’s base was seen as the state’s Arab and Muslim voters, as well as younger and more liberal Democrats. Ms. Stevens had pushed to win over the state’s Black voters, whom AIPAC had targeted with a flood of advertisements featuring a clip of former President Barack Obama praising Ms. Stevens during her first run for Congress in 2018.
The contest, which until early July also included Mallory McMorrow, a state senator who sought a middle ground between Ms. Stevens and Dr. El-Sayed, became quite nasty in its final weeks.
So many of Dr. El-Sayed’s supporters mocked Ms. Stevens’s mannerisms and Michigan accent that he urged them to stop making fun of her “for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics.” In the final days before the primary, Ms. Stevens lashed out at Dr. El-Sayed, posting on social media, “Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.”
Now, Dr. El-Sayed will face the task of uniting Michigan Democrats for the general election.
Reid J. Epstein is a Times reporter covering campaigns and elections from Washington.
See more on: Democratic Party, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), U.S. Politics
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08/05/us/michigan-election-results-primary#eadaaf73-6ba6-55f0-87d2-6523d3a67d52
LiveUpdated
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:42 a.m. ET1 minute ago
Primary Elections Live Updates: El-Sayed Wins Michigan Senate Primary
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate, in a Senate primary that had divided the Democrats, according to The Associated Press.
Video
Live
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed defeated Representative Haley Stevens in the Democratic Michigan Senate primary.
Latest
Pinned
Updated
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:18 a.m. ET25 minutes ago
Kellen Browning and Shane Goldmacher
Here’s the latest.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive and vocal critic of Israel, edged Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate, early on Wednesday to win the Michigan Senate Democratic primary, according to The Associated Press, securing a high-profile victory for the ascendant political left.
In a contentious race that divided the party, Dr. El-Sayed overcame $60 million in outside money supporting Ms. Stevens, including about $32 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a hard-line pro-Israel group whose involvement became a source of frequent conflict in the contest.
Dr. El-Sayed will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a general election clash for an open battleground seat that could determine control of the Senate.
Dr. El-Sayed and his allies argued that his populist rhetoric would energize voters across the political spectrum who are unhappy with the status quo. But Democratic leaders had rallied around Ms. Stevens, a centrist and fierce ally of Israel, fearful that the left-wing views espoused by Dr. El-Sayed, a former public health official and proponent of universal health care, could imperil the party’s chances of defending an crucial open seat.
Speaking to supporters in the hours before the race was called, Dr. El-Sayed said that if he won the primary, “we’ll have taken $70 million on the chin and kept fighting back.” In a nod to the divisive nature of the primary, he added: “Tomorrow, we begin to mend fences.”
Elsewhere, results were mixed in closely watched Democratic primaries. In Missouri, the establishment struck back at the progressive left, with Representative Wesley Bell fending off a primary challenge from former Representative Cori Bush, a democratic socialist.
Ms. Bush, a critic of Israel and member of the so-called Squad — a group of progressive women of color in Congress — was ousted from her St. Louis seat by Mr. Bell two years ago and had been attempting a comeback.
But progressives scored a victory in a Michigan Democratic primary that included Lansing, where William Lawrence, an organizer, beat two centrist Democrats in a House race. He will face Representative Tom Barrett, a Republican, in the fall — a competitive contest that will test whether left-wing populism is viable in swing districts.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Michigan defeat: Representative Shri Thanedar, a second-term Democrat, lost to the democratic socialist challenging him, State Representative Donavan McKinney, joining a wave of Democratic incumbents in Congress whom primary voters have sent packing in a surge of anti-incumbent fervor this cycle.
A Pacific primary fight: Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, an outspoken and vulnerable centrist Democrat who faced challenges from her left and right in the state’s top-two primary system, advanced to a general election against a Republican in her district in southwestern Washington state.
Control in Kansas: Cindy Holscher, a populist Democratic state senator, and State Senator Ty Masterson, a Trump-endorsed candidate, will battle for the Kansas governorship after winning their respective parties’ nominations. The winner will replace Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, a Democrat, who is leaving office because of term limits.
Key House matchup set in Virginia: Democratic primary voters chose former Representative Elaine Luria to face Representative Jen Kiggans, a Republican, in a House race expected to be one of the most competitive in the country this fall. The district is home to several military bases, and both women are Navy veterans.
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:42 a.m. ET4 minutes ago
Tim Balk
Reporting from Michigan
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is holding a small rally in downtown Detroit. Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic state lawmaker who ran for Senate but suspended her campaign last month, has joined him at the event. She endorsed El-Sayed early this morning.
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:23 a.m. ET22 minutes ago
Bayliss Wagner
Politics reporter
Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat who had been neutral in the primary, congratulated Abdul El-Sayed on Wednesday morning.
“It’s been a long primary, but now it’s time to gear up to beat Mike Rogers (again) and win up and down the ticket,” Slotkin wrote on social media. “There is nothing more important than the mission of the next 90 days: uniting, keeping this seat blue, flipping the House and Senate, and providing a real check on President Trump.”
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:15 a.m. ET31 minutes ago
Reid J. Epstein
National politics reporter
The left wins a nail-biter in Michigan: Here are eight takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s close primary victory signaled that he has work to do to unite Democrats and turn out swing voters in November. Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, won a razor-thin victory in the Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan that serves as the most significant triumph for his party’s left wing this year.
Dr. El-Sayed prevailed in a highly contentious contest against Representative Haley Stevens, who argued to the end that he was unlikely to win a general election in a battleground state.
Now Dr. El-Sayed will test the longstanding progressive hope that left-wing candidates can energize enough voters to beat Republicans in swing terrain. He will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who narrowly lost the state’s 2024 Senate race and ran unopposed in this year’s primary. They are competing for the seat of Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat who is retiring.
The stakes for both Mr. Rogers and Dr. El-Sayed are perhaps higher than two years ago. Michigan is widely seen as a crucial state for Senate control. And how a progressive like Dr. El-Sayed performs in a must-win state in November is likely to have ramifications on how Democratic primary voters perceive their presidential candidates’ ideology and electability in 2028.
Here are eight takeaways from a big primary night in Michigan and four other states:
The left beat the establishment, but the results showed its limits.
Dr. El-Sayed campaigned hard against the Democratic political establishment. That was enough to win, but enough voters backed Ms. Stevens to suggest that the establishment still has plenty of influence.
Ms. Stevens showed strength among Black voters in Detroit and Flint and carried most of the state’s interior rural counties, aside from a few with college towns and resort communities.
Dr. El-Sayed was strongest in communities with young voters, college students and educated and wealthy white voters. That coalition carried him through the primary, but he will have work to do to beat Mr. Rogers in November.
In all, the Michigan map demonstrated the limitations — for now, at least — that face a dyed-in-the-wool progressive running on a foreign policy platform to the left of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Representative Haley Stevens, a supporter of Israel, was trailed by that position all campaign and dodged questions about her significant financial backing from pro-Israel groups.Credit...Paul Sancya/Associated Press
The ground has shifted under pro-Israel Democrats.
The Democratic Party’s rapid retreat from support for Israel has been well documented in polls, election results and votes in Congress.
But Dr. El-Sayed’s primary success in Michigan was arguably the most remarkable victory yet for the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States — and maybe the biggest setback for pro-Israel Democrats.
Dr. El-Sayed, the Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, won by putting Israel squarely at the center of the campaign. He labeled Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. He said he would cut U.S. military aid. And he said he did not believe Israel should exist as an explicitly Jewish state.
Throughout the race, Dr. El-Sayed hammered Ms. Stevens over her pro-Israel stance. Her defensiveness on the issue was clear to all: She consistently dodged questions about her support from AIPAC.
Dr. El-Sayed has said for months that if he becomes a senator, he would hope to influence U.S. policy on Israel — particularly among Democrats seeking his party’s 2028 presidential nomination. Last month, the Democratic National Committee announced that Michigan was likely to be one of the early nominating states in 2028.
AIPAC was dealt a narrow but costly defeat.
More than any other Democrat running this year, Ms. Stevens was the candidate of AIPAC.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee used its super PAC to invest more money, at least $30 million, to help her than any other outside group spent on any primary candidate in any race this year. It was almost, but not quite, enough for her to win.
The defeat, even by a narrow margin, serves as a rebuke to AIPAC, which has won far more Democratic primaries than it has lost in recent years.
Dr. El-Sayed, like other Democrats who have toppled AIPAC-backed candidates this year, leaned into the group’s antipathy for him and used it as a selling point.
Ms. Stevens ran a far quieter campaign than Dr. El-Sayed did.Credit...Nic Antaya for The New York Times; Nick Hagen for The New York Times
Stevens was unable to match El-Sayed’s gifts as a communicator.
One candidate danced to Taylor Swift videos on his social media pages. The other used her final campaign ad to complain about “cool kids on the internet.”
It was not hard to figure out which candidate was a more gifted political communicator.
Dr. El-Sayed is a skilled orator. His stump speeches are easily clipped for viral consumption online. And he also worked the state hard. Since beginning his campaign in April 2025, he crisscrossed Michigan, holding more than 500 in-person events.
Ms. Stevens, by contrast, held relatively few public events. She spoke often about her love for Michigan and its manufacturing industry — important issues in her home state but hardly ones to energize Democratic voters furious with President Trump. She was, by most accounts, good at one-on-one retail politics, but in a state with 10 million people, that can do only so much.
Donavan McKinney, Will Lawrence and Representative Wesley Bell won their primaries. Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times; William Lawrence for U.S. Congress; Eric Lee for The New York Times
D.S.A. candidates had a mixed night.
The primaries on Tuesday had the biggest stakes for progressive Democrats of any night on this year’s political calendar.
Dr. El-Sayed was the headliner, but three House candidates with ties to democratic socialism also faced primary voters.
Will Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement who once called himself a democratic socialist but no longer does, won a three-way primary for a battleground House seat in Central Michigan.
Another left-wing candidate in Michigan, Donavan McKinney, who remains a democratic socialist, narrowly defeated Representative Shri Thanedar, a Detroit congressman who was not beloved either in his district or among his congressional colleagues.
And Yousef Rabhi, a democratic socialist, ousted the incumbent mayor of Ann Arbor, Mich., Christopher Taylor.
But in Missouri, Representative Wesley Bell, a moderate, easily held off a challenge from Cori Bush, a democratic socialist whom he ousted from the seat two years ago.
Michigan was another defeat for Schumer.
Before this year, it had been a long time since a Democrat backed by Senator Chuck Schumer lost a Senate primary. Now it has happened twice this summer.
Mr. Schumer’s endorsement of Ms. Stevens may have signaled to donors to get behind her, but it cemented her position as the establishment candidate in a year when Democratic primary voters are furious with the establishment.
Plenty of things have gone right for Mr. Schumer this year. His recruits in Alaska, North Carolina and Ohio went unchallenged and appear in solid shape heading into November. His choice in Iowa cruised through a primary. And Ms. Stevens was not his first choice in Michigan; he initially tried to draft Gov. Gretchen Whitmer into the race.
But after Mr. Schumer’s primary stumbles in Michigan and Maine — where he recruited Gov. Janet Mills only for her to end her campaign a month before the primary — he has been left with two Democratic nominees in battleground states who have explicitly campaigned against him.
Now Mr. Schumer must make amends with Dr. El-Sayed. The minority leader is getting some practice at this: Last week, he met with Troy Jackson, the new Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, who said he would not back Mr. Schumer for leader and said he was not sure he would accept his help in the general election. The two did eventually agree to work together.
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Former Representative Mike Rogers ran unopposed in the Republican primary for Senate in Michigan.Credit...Paul Sancya/Associated Press
Republicans are going to go after El-Sayed hard.
Ms. Stevens said throughout the final weeks of the primary that Mr. Rogers and his fellow Republicans were itching for Dr. El-Sayed to win the primary because they thought he would be easier to beat in November.
Now Republicans will get their chance to prove Ms. Stevens correct.
Republicans are about to turn Dr. El-Sayed into a left-wing boogeyman of epic proportions. They will highlight pieces of his résumé that did not get a close vetting by Democratic voters, including his association with Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer who once said “America deserved 9/11.” (He later walked back the remark.)
The Senate Republican campaign arm highlighted Mr. Piker’s remark, and Dr. El-Sayed’s refusal to disavow it, in a digital ad released Wednesday morning that referred to the Democratic candidate by his full given name — Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed — and called him “the most radical candidate in America.”
Whether the strategy works remains to be seen. Mr. Trump is so unpopular that Democrats are preparing to contest seats previously thought to be out of reach. But plenty of left-wing and right-wing candidates in both parties have won wave-year primaries only to blow general elections their compatriots thought were eminently winnable.
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:14 a.m. ET34 minutes ago
Bayliss Wagner
Politics reporter
In a statement, Stevens announced she would support El-Sayed in the general election and thanked her supporters.
“This was a thorough and rigorous campaign that brought out the full span of views within the Democratic Party — and that is why we have primaries,” she said. “I am proud to have put up my hand to serve and prouder to continue to work together to make sure this Senate seat remains blue, that we flip the United States Senate and continue the work for Michigan.”
Aug. 5, 2026, 10:07 a.m. ET41 minutes ago
Tim Balk
Reporting from Michigan
Representative Haley Stevens called Dr. Abdul El-Sayed to concede this morning, said Arik Wolk, a spokesman for the Stevens campaign.
Aug. 5, 2026, 9:55 a.m. ET53 minutes ago
Reid J. Epstein
National politics reporter
Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.
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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed pushed Israel to the center of the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, criticizing the country’s actions in Gaza and promising to pull back American military support.Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic primary race for Senate in Michigan on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, giving progressives a victory that signaled liberal voters’ anti-establishment mood and shifting sentiment against Israel.
Dr. El-Sayed, 41, a former public health official, narrowly defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a four-term moderate, in a hostile race that was dominated by the politics of Israel and the role of big money in American elections.
He fiercely criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and promised to pull back American military support, while she vowed to continue sending U.S. military aid to Israel without conditions.
While most Michigan political observers expected in the campaign’s final days that Dr. El-Sayed would prevail, and polls showed him leading by a significant amount, the close margin between him and Ms. Stevens pointed to the tough general-election battle to come for Democrats.
Dr. El-Sayed overcame more than $60 million in super PAC spending on behalf of Ms. Stevens, including at least $30 million tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s most influential pro-Israel group. Another $30 million came from so-called dark-money groups whose donors remain hidden.
But even as he was vastly outspent on advertising, Dr. El-Sayed turned Ms. Stevens’s financial advantage into a liability, casting his bid as a grass-roots campaign up against the well-funded establishment. “The money against the many,” as he put it in stump speeches.
His primary victory delivers another shock to a Democratic Party in which left-wing challengers across the country have ousted longtime incumbents or beaten rivals supported by party leaders in Washington.
Dr. El-Sayed was backed by leading progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who went to Michigan to campaign for him. Ms. Stevens was supported by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and other prominent state Democrats.
In the general election, Dr. El-Sayed will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a race widely seen as crucial for control of the Senate. Mr. Rogers was a moderate Republican during his seven House terms, but like many others in his party, he has become an acolyte of President Trump. Mr. Rogers narrowly lost a 2024 Senate bid to Elissa Slotkin, even as Mr. Trump carried the state on his way back to the White House.
Democratic leaders worried — and Ms. Stevens argued — that Dr. El-Sayed could be the weaker candidate in the general election. He is a notably left-wing candidate in a battleground state, with his calls for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ushering in universal health care.
“We’ve got to do one thing, and that’s go beat Mike Rogers,” Ms. Stevens said in an interview last month. “We’ve got to be eyes on the prize, and that’s winning in November.”
The Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, Dr. El-Sayed made no secret of his ambitions of progressive leadership within the Democratic Party. He said that he hoped to recalibrate the party’s politics on Israel and wanted to make opposition to funding its military a litmus test for Democrats running for president in 2028.
Defanging AIPAC, he argued, was crucial: “I want AIPAC to cease to be a force in Democratic primaries,” he said in an interview last month. “The best way to do that is to defeat them in a state like Michigan.”
He made much of his campaign pitch a rebuke of both the group and corporate politics. At his events, attendees chanted his slogan along with him: “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”
It was no accident that Israel emerged as a fault line in a major Democratic primary in Michigan. The state, which has large numbers of Muslim and Jewish voters, delivered a rebuke to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2024, when 13 percent of Democratic primary voters voted for “uncommitted” in protest of his policy on Israel amid its war with Gaza.
Dr. El-Sayed’s base was seen as the state’s Arab and Muslim voters, as well as younger and more liberal Democrats. Ms. Stevens had pushed to win over the state’s Black voters, whom AIPAC had targeted with a flood of advertisements featuring a clip of former President Barack Obama praising Ms. Stevens during her first run for Congress in 2018.
The contest, which until early July also included Mallory McMorrow, a state senator who sought a middle ground between Ms. Stevens and Dr. El-Sayed, became quite nasty in its final weeks.
So many of Dr. El-Sayed’s supporters mocked Ms. Stevens’s mannerisms and Michigan accent that he urged them to stop making fun of her “for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics.” In the final days before the primary, Ms. Stevens lashed out at Dr. El-Sayed, posting on social media, “Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.”
Now, Dr. El-Sayed will face the task of uniting Michigan Democrats for the general election.
