Michigan Democratic Senate primary winner Abdul El-Sayed arrives to a press conference in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue on Aug. 5, 2026, in Detroit. Photo: Finn Gomez/Getty Images
Eoin Higgins is the author of “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voice on the Left.”
Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic Party’s nominee for the Senate in Michigan after besting Rep. Haley Stevens by less than 1 percentage point. Not long after The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday morning, Stevens threw her “full support” behind El-Sayed. While the votes were still being counted on Tuesday night, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow — who had dropped out of the running in July — also endorsed her former opponent, acknowledging that despite a “brutal” primary race, what is most important now is to head into November as a “unified party.”
What remains to be seen is whether moderates and Democratic Party pundits will follow suit, get on board, and vote blue no matter who.
But centrists seem more interested in saving face than a Senate majority. Complaining that primary voters picked the candidate more likely to lose on Election Day has become a face-saving tactic for moderates as they’ve watched their preferred picks lose against upstart insurgent campaigns like El-Sayed’s.
