This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Sign up for a free newsletter here.
- Abdul El-Sayed won a narrow victory over Haley Stevens through blowout wins in progressive strongholds
- He did well in same-day voting and may have benefited from votes cast for Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out of the race but remained on the ballot
- El-Sayed lost all of metro Detroit and underperformed in traditional African-American strongholds
Progressive Abdul El-Sayed propelled big showings in liberal strongholds and college towns to eke out a win over Haley Stevens in Michigan’s closely watched US Senate Democratic primary, a Bridge Michigan analysis shows.
He overcame a massive spending disadvantage and Stevens’ strength in southeast Michigan to move on to the general election, where he’ll take on former US Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican who narrowly lost a 2024 US Senate bid to Democrat Elissa Slotkin.
El-Sayed and Rogers will compete to succeed retiring US Sen. Gary Peters, who joined Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other establishment Democrats supporting Stevens. El-Sayed was a favorite of progressives including US Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The race between El-Sayed and Stevens was seen by many as a barometer for the future of the Democratic Party. Here’s a look at how El-Sayed won the Michigan map.
Fewer counties, but wide margins
El-Sayed secured his roughly 1 percentage point victory without winning the majority of Michigan counties or winning any single county in metro Detroit, according to unofficial results.
He carried the Democratic primary vote in 30 of Michigan’s 83 counties, including nine in the Upper Peninsula and nine north of Grand Rapids. The rest of his victories came in west Michigan and mid-Michigan.
Stevens ran the table in metro Detroit and the Thumb, along with much of northern Michigan.
El-Sayed fared particularly well in Kent and Washtenaw counties, each of which he won with more than 60% of the vote. In some parts of Ann Arbor, one of the state’s most reliably liberal cities, he topped 70%. More than 80% of voters backed him in some Grand Rapids precincts.
El-Sayed was the first Democrat to win statewide in Michigan without carrying any of Wayne, Oakland or Macomb counties since Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race.
Weakness in Black regions
El-Sayed did not fare well in some of the state’s African-American centers, signaling a potential weakness in the general election.
Of the 12 Michigan counties with at least 133,000 residents and a Black population of 11%, Stevens won seven by an average of 8.5 percentage points, including Wayne, Saginaw and Genesee counties.
El-Sayed won five – inducing Ingham, Kalamazoo and Washtenaw – by an average of 20.4 percentage points. Those counties, though, are also home to big universities that are often more progressive.
He was the first Michigan Democrat to win a statewide primary without carrying Detroit since the 2018 primary, when now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer narrowly lost the city to Shri Thanedar.
Stevens won more than 60% of the vote in Detroit, the state’s largest Black-majority city, according to unofficial results.
The McMorrow effect?
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign for US Senate in early July but was still on ballots Tuesday. She received about 4% of the statewide vote, more than El-Sayed’s 1% margin over Stevens.
Like Stevens, McMorrow is from Oakland County and tried to stake an ideological middle ground between her and El-Sayed. But she stepped aside following pressure from party establishment leaders like Peters and conventional wisdom made it harder for Stevens.
McMorrow didn’t endorse in the race until backing El-Sayed overnight after NBC News declared him the winner. Even when she wasn’t on the ballot, she took 2.2% of votes cast in metro Detroit on Election Day.
Young and in-person voters
El-Sayed toured college campuses in a bid to build support among youth voters. Unofficial results suggest it paid dividends.
In Washtenaw, Ingham, Kalamazoo, Isabella and Kent counties, where many college-aged voters live, El-Sayed received almost 60% of the vote.
While El-Sayed lost metro Detroit overall, he did well with Election Day voters in the region, suggesting they likely played a key role in his victory.
According to unofficial results, Stevens won about 51.6% of the total vote in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. But 59% of voters who cast ballots in those counties on Election Day went for El-Sayed, compared to 37.9% for Stevens, a margin of about 56,000 votes.
Statewide, more than 1.3 million voters cast their ballot before polls opened on Election Day, with the vast majority being absentee ballots, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. More than 139,000 voters cast ballots at an early voting site.
Voter turnout
El-Sayed, who courted disaffected voters, also likely benefited from solid turnout.
According to unofficial results, about 2.5 million Michiganders cast ballots overall, with more than 1.2 million casting ballots in the Democratic Senate primary.
By comparison, about 933,000 voted in the 2024 Democratic primary between now-US Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Hill Harper, with a total of 2 million voters casting ballots overall, including the GOP primary. Slotkin defeated Harper and took every county in that primary before beating Rogers in the general election.