Former public health official Abdul El-Sayed is projected to win the Democratic primary for Michigan's U.S. Senate seat, defying more than $50 million worth of super PAC spending supporting his opponent to claim one of the biggest victories in the history of the modern progressive movement.
El-Sayed topped moderate Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and will now face former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, in November in a major test of whether progressives can triumph in the nation's most critical battleground states.
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The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday, with El-Sayed leading Stevens, 48.5% to 47.5%. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who officially dropped out of the race last month, nonetheless earned 4% of the vote.
The contest was unexpectedly close. Polls in the weeks leading up to the primary had pointed to a double-digit win for El-Sayed, but Stevens turned in an unexpectedly strong performance in many parts of rural Michigan where progressive candidates have won in the past.
Stevens won by a significant margin in Detroit, but El-Sayed racked up large margins in many of the state's college towns, held his own in the suburbs, and dominated in Grand Rapids, the state's second-biggest population center.
Progressives will nonetheless count his narrow victory as a stinging rebuke to the establishment of both parties and proof of both the popularity of a populist economic message and of the unpopularity of unblinking support for Israel within the Democratic Party.
A brash and unapologetic personality, El-Sayed campaigned with the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and summarized his campaign with a pithy three-part slogan: "Money out of politics, money in your pocket and Medicare for all." He defined himself in part by his enemies, regularly noting a super PAC with ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent more than $30 million opposing his candidacy.
Appearing on MSNOW on Tuesday morning, El-Sayed said his campaign was about more than simply changing the Democratic Party, and he reached out to those who had backed Stevens.
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"This is not about the future of a party," he said. "This is about the future of the people of the state of Michigan who deserve to know that their roads are competent, deserve to know where they'll get their healthcare when they need it, who deserve to know that their kids go to great schools."
He added: "This is a big movement. And in order for us to build together, we're going to have to be able to come together around the things that unite us. It's the feeling that we get when we look our kids in the eye. It's the feeling that we get when we think about what our country ought to be. And it's the opportunity we have to take on all that Donald Trump has done to corrupt our country and to corrupt our government.
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Stevens, the preferred candidate of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, proved to be an awkward-at-best fit for the Democratic primary electorate. A longtime ally of AIPAC, she favored unquestioned weapons transfers to Israel, a nation most Democratic voters believe is committing genocide. She welcomed corporate PAC donations and tried to focus her campaign on revitalizing manufacturing in Michigan.
Stevens also attracted the near-unanimous support of the local party establishment, with outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, former Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer all endorsing her and insisting she gave the party the best chance to win in November.
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All of those leaders quickly rallied behind El-Sayed on Wednesday morning.
"Abdul El-Sayed has run an energetic campaign that inspired thousands of Michiganders across the state, with a clear focus on lowering costs and standing up for working families," Schumer and Gillibrand said in a joint statement. "Democrats are united by a common purpose: putting a check on Donald Trump by defeating his Republican enablers and taking back the Senate. We look forward to working with Abdul and Democrats across Michigan to win this seat in November.
Republicans will welcome an El-Sayed victory, believing he will be the easier candidate to defeat in November. Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC, released a digital ad shortly after his victory attacking him for old statements he made questioning whether police officers needed to carry guns and suggesting he would not have spent state money enforcing federal immigration law.
"From calling to disarm the police to his close ties to extremist figures, Abdul El-Sayed is uniquely dangerous and unqualified," said Alex Latcham, the group's executive director.
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But the political environment distinctly favors Democrats, and El-Sayed has already declared his intention to attack Rogers harshly.
"He generally has the charisma of a doorknob," El-Sayed told HuffPost in an interview last month. "He carries all the MAGA baggage, but he also has the aesthetic of the guy at a country club who sneers at you from his Lincoln."
Compared with some other progressive candidates, El-Sayed boasts traditional credentials. The son of Egyptian immigrants, he was the class speaker at his graduation from the University of Michigan and a Rhodes scholar. He graduated from medical school but decided to become a professor and public health official rather than go through a residency after realizing how many people struggled to afford care.
He left his position as Detroit's public health officer to run for governor in 2018, losing badly in the Democratic primary to Whitmer. He became a podcaster with Crooked Media, was a prominent surrogate for Sanders' 2020 presidential bid and then became the lead public health official in Wayne County, Michigan.
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