In 2024, the last time Michigan had a coveted open seat for the U.S. Senate, the appetite for intraparty ideological conflict was at a deep Biden/Harris-era ebb, and anger at the Democratic establishment was not so sharply pronounced among the party base. With help from Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Elissa Slotkin was able to mostly clear the Democratic field 18 months before the primary, and sail to an ultimate victory, defeating Trump-endorsed Republican Mike Rogers in November.
But though Rep. Haley Stevens could very well follow Slotkin’s path to victory, it appears nowhere near as straightforward. Stevens is, like Slotkin was, understood to be supported by Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). But where Slotkin could just reap the organizational, institutional, and financial benefits of Schumer’s backing, Stevens has already faced pointed questions about his role as Democratic leader, amid much furor around his handling of the second Trump administration. And while Slotkin’s only opposition was the woefully underfunded progressive actor Hill Harper, Stevens faces considerably tougher and better-financed opposition from public-health expert Abdul El-Sayed and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.
The three candidates have to this point been on largely equal ground in terms of fundraising and polling. But they differ enough on policy, while presenting starkly different visions of the Democratic Party, to make Michigan the most interesting Senate race of 2026.
STEVENS HAS CONTENDED THAT QUESTIONS about Schumer’s leadership only serve to benefit Trump and the Republicans, though she did call him a “great leader” during a CNN interview last March. Stevens further argued in a June Semafor interview that Schumer-related inquiries are “inside baseball” and that the subject was not one that Michigan voters care about. When asked in April by WDET 101.9 FM about the historic unpopularity of the Democrats and how to win back disaffected voters, Stevens answered by saying, “Well, I’m really excited to talk to you about why I’m running for the U.S. Senate, to meet the needs of Michiganders, to earn their vote, to let them know I want to be their champion in the United States Senate.”
McMorrow, by contrast, has stated that Chuck Schumer should step down as Senate Democratic leader, while El-Sayed has said that he would like to consider who the alternatives are before taking a definitive stance.
El-Sayed’s only other foray as a political candidate was when he ran for governor in Michigan’s 2018 primary against then-former state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer and businessman (now congressman) Shri Thanedar. El-Sayed left his position as health director of Detroit to pursue that race and would go on to garner endorsements from figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) before finishing runner-up to Whitmer with 342,179 votes, or 30 percent of the vote.
McMorrow is pretty obviously staking out the center-left middle ground between moderate insider Stevens and progressive outsider El-Sayed.
“When I ran last time, I was 32,” reflected El-Sayed in a recent interview with the Prospect. “I had never run for office in my life. I’d only been in public service for just under two years. This time around, I’m 41 with two kids and a mortgage … And I think this time around there is both an understanding of who I am and what I’m about.”
El-Sayed, who in between political races served as health director of Wayne County, once again received an endorsement from Sanders, along with Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).
“People understand that I’ve been consistent about the things that I say I’m going to show up for, whether it’s eliminating medical debt, or making sure that kids have glasses, or making sure that we’re protecting folks from corporate polluters,” he continued. “And there’s a trust that I’m going to fight for them and take on that disease of our politics when I get to D.C.”
McMorrow also began her political career in 2018, flipping Michigan’s 13th state Senate district by defeating Republican incumbent Marty Knollenberg. Jim Ananich, who was the Democratic leader of the Michigan state Senate that year, recalled in an interview with the Prospect that he had been initially anxious about that race, only for McMorrow to quickly assuage his concerns during an introductory coffee meetup at Whole Foods. “I remember leaving with the person I was with and saying, ‘I was worried about this seat but she’s gonna be tough. We’re gonna handle it. We have a real shot at the seat with her.’”
Ananich was glowing in his assessment of McMorrow. “She’s really personable in a small group and really good on the stump. I’ve been in politics for 20 years. I’m OK in a big room, you’re not gonna walk away thinking I’m RFK,” joked Ananich, before clarifying that he meant RFK senior. “But she can do both. I used to tell people, ‘If you’re struggling to talk about issues, just listen to her talk for a minute.’”
McMorrow, who was not made available for an interview, is pretty obviously staking out the center-left middle ground between moderate insider Stevens and progressive outsider El-Sayed. Her positioning on America’s involvement in the war on Gaza is emblematic of this delicate balancing act. For instance, she made news in October by declaring the mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza a “genocide,” but only after having avoided the term previously. She appears to support a two-state solution featuring “a peaceful and democratic Palestinian state” and has said that she will not accept donations from AIPAC. McMorrow did however praise the “incredible expertise” of IDF soldiers after a trip to Israel in 2023 and reportedly wrote an “outstanding” position paper for AIPAC. Position papers are typically submitted to organizations in the hopes of an endorsement. Reporting by Jewish Insider in April also revealed that McMorrow had written a position paper for “at least one Democratic pro-Israel group.”
“The Palestinian-Israeli issue seems to be something that’s going to be, you can’t hide from it,” said Ananich. “I don’t know if it’ll make or break the election, but it will be a segment of the population that it will be the only issue that they care about.”
Michigan is home to the highest concentrated population of Arab Americans in the country. Polling conducted by YouGov and the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project has suggested that 32 percent of Michigan voters who favored Joe Biden in 2020 but did not support Kamala Harris in 2024 cited the war in Gaza as their top concern. The topic is certain to animate both the August 4 Democratic primary and the November general election.
El-Sayed told the Prospect that he believed that the war in Gaza had become “a bit of a moral Rorschach test … If you can’t identify the murder of 20,000 children and more, nor the destruction of their hospitals and their schools, and the destruction of their homes, and the murder of tens of thousands of more people, and the attempts to push them into neighboring countries because they speak the same language … if you can’t identify that as a genocide, like, at some point, you’re just not a very serious person, morally.”
“And I think the notion that you’re then going to show up and stand up against Donald Trump,” he continued, “or you’re going to stand up to the pharmaceutical CEOs gets undercut, because you’re not even willing to stand up to the people who are trying to enforce a broken moral logic on your own party.”
Stevens, on the other hand, is unabashedly pro-Israel, and indicated in the aforementioned WDET interview that she supports continued American taxpayer money going to Israeli military operations. In 2022, she was the beneficiary of millions of dollars from AIPAC in a high-profile incumbent-vs.-incumbent primary fight against Andy Levin, a Jewish congressman considered insufficiently pro-Israel by his critics. Stevens was not made available for an interview.
“Democrats in the state expect AIPAC to spend heavily on behalf of Stevens again,” wrote Politico’s Elena Schneider in October. Stevens has, according to Track AIPAC, received over $5 million in all from the Israel lobby throughout her career, and was recently endorsed by the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC. But the political zeitgeist has shifted since 2022, and it is by no means a given that Stevens will benefit electorally from this support the way she did four years ago. Levin, it should be noted, is backing El-Sayed in this race.
ON DOMESTIC POLICY, THE THREE CANDIDATES are where just about every other Democratic politician in the country is at the moment: centering affordability and cost-of-living issues.
“I think in 2026 the question is: Who is best placed to take on the economic pain of how hard it has become to afford your life in America,” said El-Sayed, “and who has an understanding of what’s causing that pain, and how to solve it.”
Ever the public-health Ph.D., El-Sayed frequently makes medical-adjacent metaphors when talking about his policy proposals. Take for instance his frame of reference when contrasting the practical application of targeted tariffs with Donald Trump’s reckless approach.
“It’s kind of like chemotherapy,” he said. “If you are very clear about what tissue you’re targeting, how you’re targeting it, and the dosage and the amount in which you’re targeting it … you can deploy it in a very surgical way to cure the cancer. And that’s not what’s happening here.”
An El-Sayed primary victory could portend a true populist uprising in the Democratic Party.
El-Sayed’s holistic prescription for America’s economic disease includes empowered labor unions, strong anti-monopoly laws and enforcement, and Medicare for All. It also involves making sure that big tech corporations like Vrbo and Airbnb pay their fair share when it comes to reinvesting in available housing stock and proliferating affordable housing through zoning and licensing reforms, as well as expanded subsidies and investment.
McMorrow’s cost-of-living platform calls for an inflation-tied federal minimum-wage raise starting at $15, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, restoration of the Biden-era Child Tax Credit, and national paid family and medical leave. On health care, she says she will prioritize care affordability and accessibility by protecting “Medicare and Medicaid from the funding cuts” and by creating “a public option available to any Michigander who wants it.” Absent, however, is support for a national universal health care plan such as Medicare for All. El-Sayed noted this absence from McMorrow’s agenda in a recent tweet.
Where Stevens stands on any number of issues is not explicitly clear; it is curious that her campaign website has to this point eschewed an “issues” and/or “platform” type section. She did earlier this year introduce the No Tariffs on Groceries Act in the House, a bill that she says “will reduce the cost of groceries nationwide.” The bill has not yet seen movement in the Republican-controlled House, but shortly after its introduction and amid a torrent of frustration about grocery prices, the Trump administration rolled back its tariffs on certain food items not produced in the U.S., like coffee and bananas. This is not expected to lower retail prices right away.
ONE PROBLEM FOR STEVENS is that McMorrow is well positioned to compete for her potential supporters. But McMorrow is also fighting for potential El-Sayed voters. The “glass half full” take for McMorrow is that appealing widely across the Democratic ideological spectrum could unite the party base and provide unique general-election electability. The “glass half empty” take, however, is that by transparently casting a wide net, McMorrow risks an unsustainable trapeze act. Her positioning on Gaza in particular is likely to haunt her.
An El-Sayed primary victory could portend a true populist uprising in the Democratic Party. He is often lazily compared to Zohran Mamdani for predictable reasons, but El-Sayed’s success in a swing state would confirm that what took place in New York City in 2025 was not an isolated one-off. Also like Mamdani, El-Sayed will need to build and maintain a multiracial, big-tent coalition.
Stevens has compared her campaign to those of Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill in 2025, arguing that as with those two successful Democratic Party gubernatorial candidates, critics are underestimating her. Those comments came a few weeks after NOTUS published a story about the murmurs throughout Michigan Democratic Party circles that Stevens’s campaign was sorely underperforming for that of a de facto establishment front-runner.
Stevens’s core argument in this race seems to focus on an image of her as a productive and practical legislator ready to translate those skills from the House to the Senate. The bet being made is that Michigan Democrats are already acquainted with her and her overall worldview, that DSCC-aligned interests and AIPAC can do some of the talking for her, and that support from Michigan’s Black community and educated center-left suburbanites is a given. It cannot be ignored, though, that Stevens is quite far from being a lock in this race despite her seeming advantages.