Dr. Abdul El-Sayed says he saw it coming.

“When you launch a campaign and you’re trying to get money out of politics,” he told The Metro, “that invites record amounts of spending against you.”

More than $60 million in outside money went into last week’s Michigan Senate primary, most of it aimed at stopping him. The largest single source was AIPAC, whose super PAC spent about $30 million backing U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens — the most the pro-Israel group has ever put into a congressional primary.

El-Sayed won by fewer than 15,000 votes.

He ran health departments in Detroit and Wayne County, and he now faces Republican Mike Rogers for a seat that could decide control of the Senate. If he wins, he would be the first Muslim to serve there.

He sat down with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent — in the same studio where he announced his run in April of last year.

The money that defined the race

El Sayed came back to the spending repeatedly, including when asked why he lost Detroit. “Ask yourself, if there was no outside spending in this campaign, where do we think votes would have gone?”

He won’t stop saying genocide

Did calling the war in Gaza a genocide drown out his message on health care? He said it isn’t a trade he’ll make: “The job’s not worth it. The work is worth it.”

To Jewish voters who hear his criticism of Israel as criticism of them: “Judaism and the Jewish people are a light unto the world. But Judaism and the Jewish people are different than AIPAC and the Israeli government.”

Black Democrats and the ‘uncommitted’ vote

Many Black Democrats in Michigan blame the 2024 “uncommitted” protest vote, which El-Sayed backed, for costing Kamala Harris the state. Keith Williams, who chairs the state party’s Black Caucus, endorsed Stevens and said El-Sayed was with uncommitted only when it suited him.

“Convenience would have been to say nothing and stay quiet,” El-Sayed said. He noted that Harris endorsed him Friday. “I don’t think she thinks I’m the reason that she lost.”

On mistrust between Black and Arab Detroit, he said Arab and Muslim Michiganders can’t object to anti-Arab racism while tolerating racism toward Black Detroiters. “Standing up against racism is about principle. It’s not about tribalism.”

Data centers and health care

El-Sayed said what he’d write into federal law on data centers, after campaigning against the Oracle and OpenAI project in Saline Township: protections for local water, no utility rate increases, guaranteed union jobs, and money held in escrow before construction begins.

On Medicare for All, he acknowledged a freshman senator can’t deliver it alone. “You can’t get it all in one shot. But politics, as all of us know, doesn’t just move linearly.”

The Metro has invited Republican candidate Mike Rogers on the program several times and has not heard back.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

More stories from The Metro

DETROIT (AP) — Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan’s Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, defeating U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in a massive victory for the party’s progressive wing in a battleground state.

The real test of El-Sayed’s and progressives’ strength will now come in a November matchup against Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman who ran unopposed for the GOP nomination. The seat is pivotal to Democrats’ chances of flipping the Senate and El-Sayed will face the challenge of uniting a divided Democratic base after a bruising primary.

The race remained tight throughout Tuesday night, with a winner not declared until early Wednesday. In his final remarks at a primary night party before the race was called, El-Sayed said “tomorrow we begin to mend fences.”

El-Sayed’s campaign said Stevens called to concede Wednesday.

El-Sayed’s win represents a significant shift for the Democratic Party; in 2018 he lost the gubernatorial primary to now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by 21 percentage points.

El-Sayed, a former health official, campaigned on “Medicare for All,” halting military aid to Israel and campaign finance reform. He had support from progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who framed the race as a grassroots-focused movement and a broader fight against the establishment and big-money spending.

Stevens, a more moderate candidate, was backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and tens of millions in outside spending, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s largest outlay ever in a single race.

Now comes the more difficult challenge for Democrats: uniting the party to defeat Rogers, for whom Republicans have already reserved large sums of money ahead of the general election. Democrats consider the seat a must-win if they are to flip control of the Senate this year.

El-Sayed called for unity to defeat Rogers

Early Tuesday evening, El-Sayed’s supporters in Detroit’s Majestic Theatre cheered at the first batches of votes, before mellowing. Hours later Stevens’ previously subdued partygoers roared as she narrowed the margin.

“Whatever happens tonight,” El-Sayed told a thinned but still energetic crowd, “we have a responsibility to ensure that we unite, unite to make sure that Mike Rogers never sees the inside of the U.S. Senate.”

El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director, campaigned on “Medicare for All,” campaign finance reform and ending military aid to Israel.

Stevens, a four-term congresswoman, focused on manufacturing and the economy. She stressed her past victories in tough races, saying she would be best positioned to beat Rogers.

Stevens benefited from tens of millions of dollars in outside spending, including the largest investment in a race ever from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supports pro-Israel candidates.

Michigan is a must-win Senate race for Democrats

The race will help decide which party controls the chamber in the last two years of President Donald Trump’s term. Those stakes have added heat to the rivalry, with moderates arguing that El-Sayed would have a harder time than Stevens against a Republican in the general election.

Stevens won election to Congress in 2018 after serving as chief of staff to President Barack Obama’s auto task force, which helped oversee the federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Her campaign and allied groups have repeatedly highlighted that experience.

El-Sayed cast himself as the anti-establishment candidate and argued that Democrats need to reject corporate influence and embrace a more progressive agenda.

While the candidate has said he is not a democratic socialist, he found support from some of the group’s members. That included Melat Kiros, who recently beat a longtime incumbent in a Democratic primary for a Denver-based House seat and was at El-Sayed’s watch party. Also there was Hasan Piker, a progressive and controversial influencer online.

The candidates’ differences were clear to some voters.

Kenneth Woodside, 87, of West Bloomfield, said he voted for El-Sayed over Stevens because “the nation is ready for someone who wants to take some more action rather than on the road we are now, which is on the road to an oligarchy and authoritarianism.”

Nessa Fuller, 51, of Birmingham, said she voted for Stevens because she will “fight to get the right things done, and she’ll work with other people, which is really important to me.”

Outside influences spent millions on the Senate race

National groups poured unprecedented sums into the race, making it one of the country’s biggest tests of outside spending.

Groups backing Stevens spent more than $50 million, led by more than $30 million from AIPAC and its affiliates.

The spending thrust Israel policy into the center of the race even though the ads never mentioned it. While El-Sayed called for ending military aid to Israel, Stevens maintained strong support for the relationship.

Israel became a contentious issue within the Democratic Party amid a war in Gaza that killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in its retaliatory offensive after about 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages were taken in attacks by the militant group Hamas.

A Detroit US House primary also too early to call

In a heavily Democratic district representing Detroit, the 13th, Rep. Shri Thanedar looked to fend off a primary challenge from state Rep. Donavan McKinney, who argued that the city should once again have a Black representative in Congress.

After Thanedar won election in 2022, Detroit had no Black representation in Congress for the first time since the early 1950s.

Story written by Joey Cappelletti, Jacqueline Ganun and Jesse Bedayn at the Associated Press.

In this episode

• The current status of the Michigan US Democratic Senate race.
• Will the budget get done by the July 1st deadline?

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Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Over the past month, Michigan’s U.S. Senate race has emerged as one of the most competitive contests in the country. This week on WDET’s MichMash, Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow and Alethia Kasben break down the major developments that have shaped the race.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens appear to have pulled ahead of state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. Fellow state Sen. Sam Singh said he still hopes McMorrow can gain ground before the primary election.

“What we are seeing right now is significant investment by outside groups [supporting Dr. El-Sayed and Rep. Stevens]. My understanding is that McMorrow has some independent expenditures that are happening. Now that people are spending real money, I think you’ll begin to see a clear path.”

The Michigan primaries is on August 4th 2026.

• More from WDET:
  Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on reaching voters and prioritizing issues near home
  Haley Stevens weighs in on energy costs, tariffs and Michigan jobs
  State Sen. Mallory McMorrow says she’s working to win over undecided voters, find path back to bipartisan cooperation