Abdul El-Sayed was vastly outspent. He didn’t have the backing of the Senate’s top Democrat and has lost in a statewide primary before. He ran a starkly progressive campaign in a state Donald Trump won narrowly two years ago.

In short, by the party’s own traditional measure of electability he had no business winning. 

El-Sayed entered Wednesday as Michigan’s likely Senate Democratic nominee after a contentious primary with Rep. Haley Stevens. His win, far narrower than expected, was confirmed by the Associated Press just before 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

Progressives such as El-Sayed, in the Bernie Sanders mold, have angled for more influence in a party struggling to meet the moment. That’s an easy case to make in the bluest parts of the country. 

It’s far harder in a state as politically divided as Michigan. With Sen. Gary Peters retiring, this is a seat Democrats have to hold in order to maintain a reasonable chance to flip control of the Senate this November. Trump won Michigan in 2024 by about 80,000 votes. No Republican has won a Senate race here in 30 years, but the margins have been close enough that no one in either party can treat the seat as safe.

El-Sayed is now on track to face Republican Mike Rogers in November. Rogers, a former mid-Michigan congressman, was also the GOP’s standard-bearer in the 2024 Senate race, when he lost to Democrat Elissa Slotkin by about 20,000 votes. But he may represent conservatives’ best opportunity to flip a Democratic-held Senate seat, given a tough midterm environment for Trump’s party.

An MS NOW analysis of federal campaign finance records found that at least $59 million was spent by super PACs and other well-funded organizations seeking to sway the Democratic primary. Almost all of that money — at least $54 million — was either in support of Stevens or opposing El-Sayed.

Roughly $5 million in outside money ran the other way, either helping El-Sayed or opposing Stevens. The leading Stevens supporter headed into the primary was the United Democracy Project, a super PAC deeply associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. That outfit spent more than $30 million, federal campaign finance records show. 

If nothing else, Michigan’s results bring new questions about how to win, and be electable, in a primary versus the tests of a general election. The primary race proved to be close, reflecting that despite political anger among the Democratic base, winning in a presidential battleground state comes with challenges that could imperil Democrats’ general election calculus and path. 

Stevens won her way to Congress back in the 2018 midterms by flipping a congressional district from red to blue and helping her party take back control of the House during Trump’s first term as president. That same year, El-Sayed lost a Democratic primary for Michigan governor by more than 20 points. 

Electability was part of Stevens’ argument for why voters should trust her to help Democrats keep hold of the Senate seat. And for some that argument resonated. 

“I thought that Stevens has a better chance of winning in the general election,” said Kathy Luz, a Michigan Democratic voter.

But the logic of Democratic leaders in Washington has had a turbulent year. Before Tuesday, primary voters in several congressional battleground primaries had already rejected the candidates that had public support from the House Democrats’ campaign arm. 

And Democratic leaders’ chosen candidate in Maine’s critical Senate race abandoned her run amid anti-establishment disdain in the broader electorate.  

There are signals from Republicans that they are well prepared to run against El-Sayed. While El-Sayed is a progressive, he is not a democratic socialist. But GOP leaders have looked to capitalize on the Democratic Socialists of America’s primary wins in blue parts of the country this summer to tie the Democratic Party as a whole to the far-left flank.

In Michigan, that association — despite being untrue — seemed to be sticking already to El-Sayed hours before polls closed as some continued to view him as being easier for Rogers to defeat than Stevens. 

“He’ll do better against” El-Sayed, said GOP primary voter Jackie Rogge. “I don’t think that that party, the DSA, is going to be that hard to beat.” 

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