Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Democratic Senate primary as voters pivot to the left

Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive, anti-establishment Democrat running for Senate in Michigan, defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in one of the most closely watched and impactful primary elections of the 2026 midterm election.

El-Sayed beat Stevens by 1 percentage point as The Associated Press called the race Wednesday morning with 99% of votes counted. El-Sayed had captured 48.5% of the votes to Stevens' 47.5%. Mallory McMorrow, who had suspended her campaign a month before the primary, received 4% of the votes.

The results set up El-Sayed to face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the general election this November.

"We took on a machine," El-Sayed said in his victory speech Wednesday morning. "What we showed is that the power of our many is greater than the power of their money."

El-Sayed, a former public health official, and Stevens, a more moderate Democrat, were vying for the seat Democratic Sen. Gary Peters will vacate at the end of this Congress. The result could help decide control of the Senate for the next Congress and influence the direction of the Democratic Party in the coming years.

El-Sayed's win is a boon for the left flank of the Democratic Party, which has recently scored upsets in New York and Colorado. He had notched endorsements from progressive heavyweights like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and came into Tuesday with a polling edge, though the race was much closer than projections indicated it would be.

Stevens' campaign told voters she had the best chance to beat Rogers in November. Michigan is seen as a must-win for Democrats if they want to retake a Senate majority. It's also a crucial seat for Republicans if they are to retain control of the chamber. Her supporters included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, both Democratic heavyweights in the state. 

Investment firm Piper Sandler in a note to clients called El-Sayed's victory "a major setback for Democratic hopes of winning back the Senate by choosing the more liberal candidate.

"Overall, the election environment looks very challenging for Republicans, but Democratic primary voters, especially in critical Senate races in Maine and Michigan, may have saved the Republican majority in the Senate," the firm wrote. On the heels of El-Sayed's likely victory, the firm raised the odds of Republicans keeping a Senate majority from 55% to 60%.

Michigan is a bellwether state in national elections. President Donald Trump won there by 1.4 percentage points in 2024 after losing to Joe Biden by 2.8 percentage points in 2020. In 2016, Trump won Michigan by less than a third of a percentage point. The results of Tuesday's Senate primary will provide a window into how voters are feeling nationally two years before the next presidential election.

"When she got elected to the Congress, she flipped a seat from a Republican to a Democrat. She knows how to beat Republicans" Peters said of Stevens, who came to the House in 2019, at a campaign event on Monday. "We have to win in November. We have to keep Michigan blue. Haley Stevens is the person to do that."

What started as a three-way race winnowed to two in July when McMorrow, a state senator who tried to stake out a middle ground between Stevens and El-Sayed, dropped out. McMorrow, in an attempt at fostering unity within the party, endorsed El-Sayed after he took a commanding lead in the results.

"Take it from me — this was a brutal primary. But whatever differences there were between the candidates in this race, those differences are nothing compared to the contrast in November," McMorrow said in a statement. "Donald Trump and Mike Rogers are banking on all of us being too bruised, too proud, and too hurt to come back together to beat them. Let's prove them wrong."

El-Sayed struck a similar note in his victory speech, praising Stevens as "one of the most committed public servants that you'll ever meet."

"Whatever differences that we might have had in the primary, they pale in comparison to what unifies us — a recognition that, so long as we want to keep our democracy, that democracy better be working for people," El-Sayed said.

The contest between El-Sayed and Stevens had been tense at times, as the two candidates split over issues like AI data centers and U.S. foreign policy, especially aid to Israel.

"If you believe like me that rather than fund the genocide perpetrated by a foreign government, we better build schools right here in Grand Rapids, then we better put ourselves in democracy," El-Sayed said at a recent campaign stop.

Stevens, meanwhile, cast El-Sayed as an extremist and as the GOP's preferred candidate this November.

"You see the Republicans, they're propping up my Democratic opponent. The Republican in this race, he said … my opponent is going to make it easier for him to win. Well, I don't plan on making anything easier for these guys," Stevens said on MS NOW.

Downballot in Michigan, incumbent Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar lost his primary to Donavan McKinney, a member of the Michigan House of Representatives. McKinney will face Republican Taras Nykoriak in the general election in the 13th congressional district in the Detroit area that is considered a safe Democratic seat.

The Michigan primary came as Republicans, including Trump, are increasingly calling their Democratic adversaries communists and raising alarms about the extreme policies of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Neither Stevens nor El-Sayed are members of DSA. El-Sayed, while running to the left of Stevens, rejects the socialist label. Still, Trump in the Oval Office on Monday characterized the race as a battle between far-left ideologies.

"Well, you have a very interesting group. Who I'm really voting for is Mike Rogers, because I think he's going to be a great senator," Trump told reporters after being asked who he is voting for in Michigan, a state where he doesn't vote. "You have a communist versus a socialist. That's the way I look at it … it looks like the communist is leading. We're talking about the Democrat primary. But for the Republican you have a very good man, and he should be able to win."

—Garrett Downs and Luke Fountain contributed to this report.