Progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been declared the winner of Michigan’s closely watched Democratic Senate primary, narrowly beating out Congressmember Haley Stevens, according to the Associated Press and other news agencies. AIPAC and its affiliated groups spent as much as $46 million to help Stevens in what has become the most expensive Democratic Senate primary contest in U.S. history. El-Sayed will face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in November to fill the seat now held by Democratic Senator Gary Peters, who is retiring. If El-Sayed wins the general election, he would become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history. His key supporters included Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the United Auto Workers.
“Dr. Abdul El-Sayed worked unbelievably hard in this race,” says John Nichols, executive editor of The Nation, pointing out that El-Sayed campaigned in rural counties across Michigan. “It was literally about physically going to the people early, and then again and again and again, and talking to them about issues.”
We also speak with Andy Levin, a former Democratic congressmember from Michigan who lost to Stevens in 2022 after AIPAC spent $4.3 million on her campaign. El-Sayed’s rise represents “a movement of Americans who are saying, ‘Enough of politics as usual,’” says Levin. “’We’re done with the parties as they are. We need some way more active effort for us to be able to have living wages and healthcare and education and childcare and retirement.’”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
ANJALI KAMAT: Voters went to the polls in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia and Washington state on Tuesday. In the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is claiming victory over Congresswoman Haley Stevens. NBC has called the race, but other outlets say the race is still too close to call.
Stevens vastly outspent El-Sayed. AIPAC and its affiliated groups spent, by some counts, as much as $46 million to help Stevens in what was the most expensive Democratic U.S. Senate primary contest in U.S. history.
The winner of the race will face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in November to fill the seat now held by Democratic Senator Gary Peters, who is retiring. If Dr. Abdul El-Sayed wins in November, he would become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history. His key supporters included Senator Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the United Auto Workers.
Dr. El-Sayed spoke to supporters last night.
DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED: Across that movement that we built, there was an inspiration in the idea that we could take our government back, government of the people, by the people and for the people, instead of government of the corporations, by the special interests and for the billionaires. And because you had the audacity to believe in that, you know that the billionaires, the corporations and the special interests, they weren’t going to give up lightly. We all knew they were going to spend their money. We didn’t know they were going to spend $70 million of their money. We didn’t know that they were going to outspend us $11 to $1. And yet we’re still standing.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed currently holds a 21,000-vote lead over Congresswoman Haley Stevens in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary. Early this morning, Dr. El-Sayed wrote online, “Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All. Michigan… We won. I am so proud to be your Democratic nominee for US Senate. Let’s win in November,” he said.
Dr. El-Sayed is the former executive director of the Detroit Health Department, director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services, also co-author of the book Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide.
Dr. El-Sayed’s opponent, Congressmember Haley Stevens, has served in the House since 2019. She spoke to supporters last night as results were still coming in. She focused on the need to defeat Republicans in November.
REP. HALEY STEVENS: Do you want to keep the Senate red so Mike Rogers can ban abortion, gut healthcare and roll back workers’ rights and voting rights? Friends, we are not going to let that happen.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by two guests to talk about this race and primaries around the country, as well as referenda. John Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation, his recent piece headlined “Abdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans.” And we’re joined in Michigan by Andy Levin, a former Democratic congressmember from Michigan. In 2022, AIPAC spent millions on unseating Levin in his race against Haley Stevens. Levin is the son of Sander Levin, who served in the House for 16 years, and Andy Levin’s uncle Carl Levin represented Michigan in the Senate for 36 years, including long stints as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Andy Levin himself, before being a congressmember, also was the president of his synagogue.
I want to start, Andy Levin, with you. If you can talk about the significance of this race? As we have gone to air, the news is just breaking. Although Dr. El-Sayed did not claim victory last night in his speech, he is doing so this morning, as is NBC, but other networks aren’t. Talk about what was the key to his possible victory.
ANDY LEVIN: Well, Amy, it’s so great to be with you. And hi to John and, you know, I can’t see you all, but whoever is there.
Amy, this is just such a huge moment in our country. So many Democratic establishment politicians lined up one after the other to endorse Haley in a kind of politics of anxiety and a politics of fear and a very kind of static notion of electability, like, “Oh, all the conservatives will vote for the Republicans, and all the liberals will vote for the Democrat in November, so it’s all about the middle. It’s all about the independents. It’s all about the soft Ds and the soft Rs.” And I just think that’s so wrong, and they don’t see the reality of America in 2026, which is not just the Democratic base, but the whole polity — Republicans, Democrats, independents.
We are, they are so sick of the money in politics, of the corporate control, of the special interests, of all the politicians with their, like, careful talking points and their consultants. And they want authenticity. They want truth telling. And they want brave policy, not just proposals, but action, so they can breathe in their life, so they can not live paycheck to paycheck.
And not just Abdul El-Sayed, who seems to be on the cusp of winning this U.S. Senate race, perhaps, despite being wildly outspent, but, look, Will Lawrence won the primary in the Elissa Slotkin House seat, the 7th Congressional District in Michigan. Will is an unabashed progressive, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and a community organizer, 35 years old, I believe. I endorsed him. It was so great to campaign with him. There’s a chance Donavan McKinney will knock off Shri Thanedar in our 13th Congressional District. And Detroit will be maybe what would be the first big city in America to be exclusively represented by DSA members.
So, this is — this is a movement of Americans who are saying, “Enough of politics as usual. The income and wealth inequality of this country is so extreme. We’re done with the parties as they are. We need some way more active effort for us to be able to have living wages and healthcare and education and childcare and retirement.” Just a bit — forget the American dream. American voters just want to be able to breathe, and they’re just not believing all the BS TV ads and this avalanche of dark money, which is coming after Abdul and so many others.
ANJALI KAMAT: Andy Levin, talk about the role of AIPAC in this election and how much money they poured into opposing Abdul El-Sayed. You yourself faced an avalanche of AIPAC spending against you four years ago.
ANDY LEVIN: Yeah, and what a difference four years makes, right? I mean, they attacked me in part because I introduced the Two-State Solution Act, which in today’s terms seems like such a milquetoast bill. It just said that the U.S. needed to do everything it could to prevent war and support peace, to drive the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table, end the occupation, realize Palestinian human and political rights — even, you could say, for Israel’s own sake, right?
But anyway, today AIPAC is spending more and more and more. They’re by far the biggest spender in Democratic primaries in our country. And let’s take a step back. Most of their money comes from Republicans, sent to millionaires and billionaires. So, this is a toxic situation for our whole democracy, not just for the Democratic Party. But democracy doesn’t work if people from the other party are choosing the nominee of the other party. It’s terrible.
And so — but what Abdul did so effectively was make AIPAC one of the issues and try to expose the fact that, what, 80 or 90% or more of the money spent on Haley Stevens’ behalf was spent by this special interest group. And we don’t even know yet the full extent of it, because AIPAC didn’t just spend money through its own dark money channels. They gave money to, like, Chuck Schumer’s super PACs and stuff to spend on Haley’s behalf, for her, against Abdul, whatever they thought would work. And, of course, none of this money is spent saying “Yay Israel” or “Abdul is against Israel” or “He’s for Palestinians” or anything like that. It’s totally nontransparent about who’s giving the money, and then they’re not even honest about what they’re about. They just, you know, run ads on whatever they think hurts the candidate they’re against or helps the candidate they’re for.
So, they played a huge role in this race, both in providing a humongous portion of Haley Stevens’ money for her effort and in becoming a lightning rod themselves, or AIPAC itself, on what kind of democracy are we going to have. Are we going to have a democracy where the the voters of each party actually pick their standard-bearer in some kind of an open process? And we’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure that’s the way it goes.
ANJALI KAMAT: And, Andy, how has Michigan’s Jewish community responded to Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign? And does AIPAC represent American Jews accurately?
ANDY LEVIN: You know, AIPAC represents a slice of American Jews, but there’s myth and this projection that they are the Jewish community or, you know, the leadership of the Jewish community. Actually, you know, I know there’s so many young Jews, some who used to work for me, some who, you know, were in my campaign or in my office, others who are in my synagogue, others just all around, who were deeply engaged in Abdul’s effort, who really believe, whether they’re Zionists — some are Zionists. Some are anti-Zionists. Some don’t even care much about that. But they care about human rights for everybody. Their Judaism says to them that we have to love the other as ourselves, treat the other with respect. Palestinians are certainly an important other for Jews.
And in general, somebody like Abdul, who is so forthright in saying we’ve got to change our politics completely, so that the government facilitates a life for people that works for them, and not just go along with whatever corporations want or whatever the special interest groups want. People look at Abdul El-Sayed, including a lot of Jewish people, and they say, “There’s someone who’s incredibly smart, who’s going to always look at a policy issue and say, ’Where’s the money? Follow the money. Where do the interests lie? I’m always going to stand with the working people, the poor, the Americans who are just trying to make ends meet. And I’m going to stand up for the human rights of everybody.’” And that’s attractive to a lot of Jewish voters.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring —
ANDY LEVIN: So, I don’t know the percentages.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring —
ANDY LEVIN: But certainly, yeah, he has support from —
AMY GOODMAN: — John Nichols into this conversation, executive editor of The Nation, his recent piece, “Abdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans.” Let’s just talk about that, John. And, I mean, one of the key issues of Dr. El-Sayed is Medicare for All, and he headed the Health Department in Detroit. And the significance of that? And I want to ask you if this makes Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist, a kingmaker, which is sort of funny.
JOHN NICHOLS: Well, I don’t think Bernie Sanders would call himself a kingmaker. I’ve obviously interviewed him a lot of times, talked to him in a lot of settings, and one thing I will tell you is he has a great delight in young people who had backed him in 2016 or 2020 and who are now running for office and winning in places across the country. So, I really do think that that’s how he looks at it, much in the way that the great British parliamentarian Tony Benn used to say that he wanted to be remembered with the phrase, “He encouraged people.” And I think that’s Bernie Sanders.
Now, as to the money in this race and some of the dynamics of this race, I think this is something worthy of a deep analysis. And that is that Abdul El-Sayed was outspent unquestionably. He was outspent from the start. There was no question that he was not going to be able to rival the TV spending, the general spending in this race, and it would be at an epic level of spending against him — three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 to one.
And so, what he did was to learn how to talk about money in politics in a new way. And one of his arguments in the Democratic primary was that someone who needs to outspend their opponent by that level is actually a weak candidate, not a strong candidate. That puts the measures that a lot of pundits, a lot of political analysts and, frankly, a lot of party insiders use, you know, it turns it on its head. Effectively, it says, you know, if you’re a good fundraiser, that doesn’t mean you’re a good candidate. In fact, all that means is that you’re very good on what’s called call time. You’re great at talking to wealthy people who might write a check to you, or special interests that might write a check to you. And he really dove in. He went deep on that argument. He talked about it a lot in the debates and in other settings.
My sense is that he will take that to the November election, as well, because there’s no question Republicans are going to spend an immense amount of money on this race. This is an essential race for control of the U.S. Senate. So, the fact that El-Sayed figured out how to talk about this, and that he is actually, frankly, very good at doing so, I think, is a big factor in a race where people really are starting to understand a lot more about how money in politics shifts the dynamics.
One other thing, though, that I think is really important to keep an eye on: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed worked unbelievably hard in this race. And this is a big deal. When I was watching those results come in last night — and I will counsel that there are still some results to come in, so let’s keep an eye on all of that. But as I was watching the results come in last night, I was seeing rural counties and, you know, distant counties up in the Upper Peninsula go for El-Sayed. And you say, “Well, how does this happen? How does a candidate, you know, coming out of Wayne County in Detroit do so well in so many outstate places?” Doesn’t win everywhere, but does very well. Well, the fact is, he went there. In a way, he ran an old-fashioned campaign. It was literally about physically going to the people early, and then again and again and again, and talking to them about issues.
And a final element I’ll bring in here is, when you talk to voters, as opposed to donors and as opposed to big money folks, you actually get ahead of the curve. You learn things. And with Dr. El-Sayed, one of the things that he learned was that people across Michigan were deeply concerned about data centers and AI — AI in general, but especially AI data centers. And he made that a big part of his campaign. Obviously, the national coverage focused a lot on all the issues we’ve been talking about here, all of which are important. But his focus on data centers connected him with a lot of small towns, with a lot of rural areas, with a lot of outstate areas, and I think it had a real impact on showing him to be a candidate who wasn’t in the pocket of big money or utilities.
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