As the dust settles after Tuesday’s primary election, Michigan Democrats are facing the massive challenge of uniting their party after the ugly and caustic intraparty fight between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed, a former public health official from Ann Arbor, won Tuesday’s contest by 1 percentage point, 48.5% of the vote to 47.5% for four-term US Rep. Stevens of Birmingham to vie against Republican nominee Mike Rogers in the fall, according to unofficial results.
Even before the polls opened Tuesday, Democratic leaders in the state were wringing their hands about some backers of the losing candidate threatening to sit out the November election rather than vote for El-Sayed, potentially depressing turnout in the battleground state at a moment that Democrats need to hold Michigan to retake the Senate majority.
Both El-Sayed and Stevens, during their campaigns, pledged to support the eventual nominee and help them fight to defeat Rogers in November’s election. But bringing along Stevens’ followers could be a delicate and perhaps difficult task, particularly among some Jewish Democrats and Black voters, leaders in those communities said.
Party figures stressed this week that it will take deliberate outreach, listening and time to get Democrats united behind El-Sayed after the finger-pointing and divisions of the past year, including character attacks, demonization and mocking by surrogates and “bros” in an intensely online race.
“The reason I support the ticket is because we are at a historic moment in our country as it relates to protecting our democracy and putting the brakes on the corruption of Donald Trump,” said former US Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Lansing Democrat who backed Stevens for Senate.
“We have to keep that in mind. (The primary) was very contentious in so many ways and extremely divisive. But the fact it was so close says that people on both sides should be respectful of people’s opinions and positions,” Stabenow added.
“If we are going to unify, if we are going to beat Mike Rogers, people have to be willing to listen to each other, and to be tolerant and respectful and really focus on the big goal. Not their emotions. … This should not be a moment of bravado and back-slapping and crowing. This needs to be a moment of humility to understand that we don’t win this seat unless people are able to be respectful and understand each other.”
But Michigan state Rep. Noah Arbit of West Bloomfield Township, who represents large swaths of Stevens’ congressional district in Oakland County, said El-Sayed will have a lot of work to do after clinching the nomination, and that he should not take the votes of Jewish Democrats as a given.
‘El-Sayed’s comments on Jews alarming’
“I’m Jewish, and some of the things (El-Sayed) has said, even setting aside his policies relating to Israel … but the way he talks about Jewish power, influence, money, et cetera, is incredibly alarming and dangerous and threatening,” Arbit said.
Arbit’s district is anchored by West Bloomfield Township and the cities of Orchard Lake, Keego Harbor, Sylvan Lake, and parts of Commerce and Bloomfield townships and contains a large Jewish population.
“I’m going to need to see a real soul-searching from the candidate, if he should prevail, before he would be able to earn my vote and, frankly, the votes of my constituents, particularly in the Jewish community,” Arbit said Tuesday.
“I have grave concerns about his ability, should he win, to unite this party and be the nominee that the Democrats need.”
One veteran Michigan Democratic leader contends the path to unifying the party lies with the cost of gas, groceries and Trump’s track record in office.
“Remember what’s at stake in November. We need to remember all of the horrific things that have happened in the last two years,” said US Rep. Debbie Dingell, an Ann Arbor Democrat who remained neutral in the Stevens and El-Sayed race. “That’s how we unite.”
Unity event set for Friday
The Michigan Democratic Party has scheduled a unity event Friday in Detroit with headliner former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, and the newly minted statewide Democratic nominees. Stabenow said she plans to attend.
“Frankly, whoever wins, what they do to reach out to the other side in this primary will be important,” said Chris DeWitt, a Democratic strategist who wasn’t involved in the Senate primary contest.
“If not handled correctly, that unity event on Friday could turn into a real s— show.”
At his election night party in Detroit, El-Sayed delivered a message of building bridges with Stevens supporters and coming together to defeat Rogers.
“We’ve got 13 weeks to beat Mike Rogers. And however we might feel about the campaign we’ve just come through, I want you to understand that it pales in comparison to the cynicism, in comparison to the corporatism, in comparison to the lies that Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are going to tell,” El-Sayed said.
He added: “However much we might disagree with our Democratic opponent, there is so much more that unites us than divides us.
“To all of our supporters here tonight, watching on TV tomorrow, we begin to mend fences. Whatever happens tonight, we have a responsibility to assure that we unite.”
El-Sayed also advised his supporters not to gloat if he were to come away with the win.
“Always magnanimity in victory. So if your instinct is to be like, ‘I told you’ – nope. Let’s come together to build a movement that’s even bigger, that’s even stronger, that’s even more powerful, that reaches into the very depths of this state, that reminds us of the best of who we are and who we can be.”
Another influential voice in the race, former Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak, immediately endorsed El-Sayed after the first race call early Wednesday and joined him at his victory speech several hours later in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue outside Detroit’s city hall. McMorrow dropped out of the Senate primary on July 5.
“We need all of you, all of us, to stay in this fight every minute going forward,” McMorrow said. “Because I can promise you that today Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are looking at Michigan and they’re hoping these family fights we had, the disagreements within the Democratic party, are the fights we’re going to retain through November.”
‘We have to do the work’
Former US Rep. Andy Levin, a Bloomfield Township Democrat who supported El-Sayed, suggested that fears that Democrats are too fractured to unite behind the nominee have been overstated, saying most of Stevens’ supporters “will come over fine.”
“But we have to do the work. Abdul will do the work of reaching out. I feel confident we can do that,” Levin told The Detroit News.
The unity mission could be hardest among some of Stevens’ supporters in the Jewish community and the Black community. Some Black voters are wary of El-Sayed’s early involvement in the 2024 uncommitted effort to oppose President Joe Biden over the war in Gaza, arguing it dampened enthusiasm for Kamala Harris, America’s first African American vice president, even though El-Sayed endorsed her soon after she declared her candidacy to replace Biden on the ticket.
“Black people have a right to be pissed off about the uncommitted stuff. There’s going to need to be some healing, big time,” said Keith Williams, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party’s Black Caucus.
“And don’t just think that Black folks will fall in line. They need to talk to us.”
In the Jewish community, some Democrats have worried publicly about El-Sayed’s fierce criticism of US support for Israel and the “corrupting” influence of the pro-Israel lobby coming at a time of increased antisemitism within the far left of the party.
El-Sayed has repeatedly stressed that he loves and respects Judaism and the Jewish people and that his criticism is specific to AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – and the Israeli government.
“Judaism and the Jewish people are a light unto the world – a beautiful faith, a beautiful people. The contributions they’ve made to this country alone are staggering,” El-Sayed said Sunday on MS NOW. “I’m looking forward to standing with the Jewish community against antisemitism. After all, antisemitism and Islamophobia are one and the same, and we need to take them on.”
But the American Jewish Committee, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that doesn’t endorse political candidates, called El-Sayed’s victory a “deeply troubling reflection of the growing mainstreaming of divisive rhetoric and exclusionary politics in America.”
“Of particular concern to the Jewish community is El-Sayed’s portrayal of supporters of Israel as illegitimate and morally corrupt, while simultaneously demonizing Israel itself,” the AJC said in a Wednesday statement.
Some Jewish voters express concern
Several voters Tuesday said they would have to overcome considerable hurdles to vote for El-Sayed in the November election.
Oak Park residents David and Maia Snider, who voted for Stevens, said they have “a lot of issues” with El-Sayed and didn’t want to cast a vote for someone they didn’t trust to represent them.
“I voted for Haley Stevens,” said David, a self-described moderate Democrat. “She’s our (congressional) representative, and I’ve liked her a lot. If Abdul El-Sayed wins the primary, I probably will end up voting for the Republican.”
More: El-Sayed rides huge turnout to Senate victory, but did it set a record?
Maia said she wasn’t sure she’d immediately decide to vote for Rogers, but instead would wait to see how the next few months develop.
“We’re going to see what happens in the next couple of months in other states at the national level and make a call based on what seems best at that time,” Maia said. “I don’t think we can commit now. … I might choose not to vote in that specific case.”
Outside a polling station at Norup Elementary School in Oak Park on Tuesday, a pair of voters debated whether El-Sayed would protect them from antisemitism if he won, given his rhetoric about Israel and AIPAC.
Avi DuBois, 37, was concerned that an El-Sayed victory could hurt the Michigan Jewish community and render Michigan a dangerous place for Jews.
“I’m scared of antisemitism being empowered and encouraged and inflamed,” DuBois said. “I’m scared of making a safe place for that to happen, for antisemitism to fester.”
Allan Brill, a 77-year-old Oak Park resident who is Jewish, spent time volunteering for the El-Sayed campaign and said he was frustrated with his neighbors’ and family members’ perceptions that Stevens was the only candidate that they could feel comfortable with.
Brill said the idea that El-Sayed “hates Jewish people” is “propaganda” spread by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Brill, who lost family in the Holocaust, said El-Sayed was right to express concern about the Palestinian lives lost in the Gaza war and the billions of dollars spent by the US government for weapons for Israel.
Brill added that he didn’t like the idea of AIPAC spending so much on a primary to try to defeat El-Sayed.
“The whole idea of spending millions of dollars to buy a senator is objectionable,” he said. “No one should support a candidate who is bought off.”
Isabella Collins, a 20-year-old Jewish college student at Western Michigan University, wore an “I voted” sticker on her white shirt at Stevens’ primary election party at Hotel Saint Regis in Detroit.
“I voted for her because, as a Jewish college student, I feel much safer with her representing our state rather than the competitor,” Collins said of El-Sayed. “I like her views and her actions on Israel.”
Collins said she wanted Stevens to work more on protections for Jewish students. “I think there’s a lot of work to be done still. I still find myself, like, just hiding my necklace and little things like that,” she said.
Levin, a former synagogue president, acknowledged that El-Sayed likely won’t win over single-issue Democratic voters prioritizing unconditional US support for Israel, but he said they don’t represent the Jewish community writ large.
“That’s only some of the Jews. They do not represent all Jews or the majority of Jews,” Levin said. “There was such a robust Jews for Abdul effort. They’re deeply committed to Abdul as a candidate, who they find inspiring and who will stand up for human rights.”
Eric Weissman, 53, of West Bloomfield said he identifies as an independent but leans more conservative. He added he was concerned about rising ideas in the Democratic Party he didn’t agree with, and he worried they could damage the party.
“There are certain ideological movements that I think make absolutely no sense,” Weissman said. “But they’re here. And one of two on the Democrat side are for it.”
Hamtramck resident Sarah Tarian, 39, a volunteer and donor to El-Sayed’s campaign, said she believes he will be able to unite the party in Michigan.
She praised his “positive energy” and “down-to-earth demeanor,” drawing a parallel to her experience with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
“He can unite people and bridge rifts,” Tarian said.
She cited an example when El-Sayed interacted with someone during the campaign who said they were not going to vote for him. But after discussing his health care policies, the person became a supporter.
“He is the kind of person,” Tarian said, “who can reach across and find common ground.”
