Michigan Democrats Choose Between El-Sayed and Stevens Today in a Primary That Has Become a Fight Over the Party Itself

Michigan Democrats vote Tuesday in a Senate primary that national party leaders have spent months trying to control, choosing between Rep. Haley Stevens, the 43-year-old suburban Detroit moderate recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Abdul El-Sayed, the 41-year-old former county health official running with the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The winner takes the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters — one of a small number of seats Democrats must hold to have any mathematical path to control of the chamber in November. Waiting on the other side is former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who is running unopposed in his primary and who lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024 by less than a point. That margin is the reason both sides have treated Tuesday as something closer to a general election than a nominating contest.

The substantive gap between the two Democrats is real but narrower than the tone of the race suggests. El-Sayed has run on Medicare for All and has been among the sharpest Democratic critics of the Israeli government and the war in Gaza, an issue with unusual weight in Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country. Stevens supports a two-state solution and has taken substantial funding from pro-Israel groups, which El-Sayed seized on during their debate earlier this month. Stevens has spent most of her closing weeks on affordability, health care and housing.

Speaking with CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe on the eve of the vote, El-Sayed argued the party has drifted from what voters actually want. "Sometimes, when the Democratic Party talks about a big tent, we push everybody into the corner and then go talk and pander to the corner," he said. "I'm just trying to bring everybody to the tent pole in the middle to talk about what we really need. We need good housing. We need good schools. We need healthcare."

Stevens, in her own interview with O'Keefe, accused El-Sayed of treating the Senate as a launching pad. "This is six years of hard, unglamorous work that I'm signing up for. I'm Michigan's workhorse. That's what I want to be," she said. "My opponent, he's already got his website for president." Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Stevens last month. A third candidate, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, dropped out in July without explaining why, collapsing what had been a three-way race into a straight ideological matchup.

Michigan is also picking nominees for governor, with Whitmer term-limited. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson faces Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson on the Democratic side, holding a 60-point lead in a July Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll. On the Republican side, Rep. John James has effectively cleared the field after President Trump endorsed him: former Attorney General Mike Cox and Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt both quit and backed James, leaving businessman Perry Johnson as his only remaining opponent.

Four other states vote Tuesday. In Virginia, the state Supreme Court struck down the voter-approved Democratic redistricting plan that would have netted the party up to four seats, so the state reverts to maps drawn by a nonpartisan commission in 2021. In Missouri, redistricting litigation is still live, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's district has been redrawn to favor Republicans, and former Rep. Cori Bush is trying to take back the 1st District seat from Rep. Wesley Bell, who beat her two years ago. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is term-limited, opening the governor's race in a reliably Republican state. And Washington runs its top-two system, where seven candidates are chasing Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the 3rd District and former Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, a socialist, is challenging longtime Rep. Adam Smith.