Senate Candidate El-Sayed Says It's "Funny To Me" To Assume Michigan Votes For Moderates When It Voted Twice For Trump

By Anne Bryson, CBS Detroit

August 4, 2026

In his race to be the next Democratic senator from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive populist, is challenging perceptions about who Michigan's voters are and what they really want. In an interview with CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe, El-Sayed questioned the characterization of the state's voters as moderates.

"It's always funny to me that people want to say that this state votes for moderates when it voted for Donald Trump twice," he told O'Keefe in Detroit Monday, on the eve of the Michigan primaries. "It may just be that the better explanation is not that the state wants moderates: It's that it's so sick and tired of the establishment bought off by corporations on both sides of the political aisle that it was willing to hold its nose and vote for Donald Trump twice."

El-Sayed's main opponent in the Democratic primary Tuesday is Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate who represents a district outside Detroit and was recruited for the race by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Stevens has the support of most establishment Democrats, while progressives like independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are in El-Sayed's corner.

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