Trump-backed Republican Mike Rogers has moved into the lead over far-left Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate race. The former congressman pulled 45.8% support compared with 44.4% for El-Sayed in a new survey of likely voters, with another 9% remaining undecided. The updated numbers give Republicans another encouraging sign in their effort to flip the open Senate seat.
The contest pits Rogers against a Democrat whose campaign has been powered by the party’s socialist wing. El-Sayed is backed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and he previously served as a national surrogate for Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. Although El-Sayed doesn’t self-identify as a democratic socialist, his own platform calls for a sweeping expansion of federal power over healthcare, immigration, energy, elections, and the Supreme Court. Rogers has described his opponent as an “extremist.”
The survey questioned 600 likely Michigan voters and carried a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. Rogers’ 1.4-point advantage remains within the margin of error, leaving the contest statistically tied despite the Republican’s top-line lead. Richard Czuba, the veteran Michigan pollster who conducted the survey, called the race a “toss-up.” Rogers is nevertheless pulling ahead at a critical point in the campaign.
As Breitbart News reported, the result reverses several recent surveys that placed El-Sayed in front. An EPIC-MRA poll released the previous week showed the Democrat leading Rogers by four points, 47% to 43%. A Susquehanna survey conducted earlier in the summer gave El-Sayed a seven-point advantage. The latest numbers represent a substantial shift from those earlier results.
El-Sayed’s platform helps explain why Republicans have worked to define him as one of the most radical Senate nominees in the country. His campaign website calls for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, eliminating the Senate filibuster, opposing mandatory voter ID requirements like the SAVE Act, imposing term limits on Supreme Court justices, and creating a federal system under which each presidential term receives the same number of appointments. He also supports Medicare for All, shutting down the Line 5 pipeline, and moving the country toward 100% renewable energy.
His foreign-policy agenda includes an immediate arms embargo against Israel and renewed funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known as UNRWA. El-Sayed has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and has demanded an end to what he calls the “illegal and unjustifiable war in Iran.” He also supports renewed American engagement with the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement. Those positions place him firmly within the Democratic Party’s hard-left faction, regardless of which ideological label he uses to describe himself.
El-Sayed has also faced scrutiny over his political alliance with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who infamously declared that “America deserved 9/11.” El-Sayed said during an April Fox News interview that he would “never” agree that the terrorist attacks were justified and called the day “horrible,” but he nonetheless continued defending his decision to campaign with Piker. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, El-Sayed argued that Piker’s remarks required “context” and accused critics of engaging in “cancel culture.” “Because you appear with somebody doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything,” he said.
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Rogers performed particularly well with independent voters in the new survey, leading El-Sayed among that group by nearly 14 points. The Republican also posted stronger numbers with voters older than 40 and residents without college degrees. El-Sayed led among younger voters, college graduates, and some black voters. Those divisions give Rogers a potential path through independents and working-class Michiganders who remain wary of El-Sayed’s radical agenda.
The poll contained a warning for Rogers when respondents were separated according to their commitment to voting. Among voters who said they were most certain to cast a ballot, El-Sayed led 46.7% to 44.4%. Czuba also found a 10-point enthusiasm gap between base Democrats and base Republicans who said they would “definitely” vote, the largest such gap he had measured across four elections.
El-Sayed’s narrow primary victory also exposed a potentially serious weakness with Black Democrats, particularly in Detroit. A July Detroit News poll found that only 34% of Black Democratic primary voters supported him. As Reuters reported, El-Sayed’s statewide lead tightened as ballots were counted in Detroit, Flint, and other heavily Black communities where Haley Stevens performed strongly. Stevens carried Detroit and Wayne County by wide margins, even though El-Sayed narrowly captured the statewide nomination by less than a single percentage point.
Featured image credit: U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons