DETROIT — The most important person at Abdul El-Sayed’s first press conference as Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee arguably wasn’t the nominee himself, but the redheaded politician standing behind him.
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow was once a rival to El-Sayed in the primary, casting him earlier this year as inexperienced, untested and unlikely to deliver on his lofty policy goals. After he appeared alongside far-left streamer Hasan Piker, she accused him of “stoking division” — an attack later echoed by Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost the primary race to El-Sayed on Wednesday morning.
Now, a day after El-Sayed again appeared with Piker, McMorrow stood beside him as a symbol of the unity Michigan Democrats say they will need to repair a base fractured by a bruising primary and to defeat Republican nominee Mike Rogers, who has already begun running general-election attack ads and secured a $45 million pledge of support from the Senate Leadership Fund.
“I know that this was a long and brutal primary. Take it from me; I lived through it personally,” McMorrow began. “But what is most important now is that we recognize that for all of the differences we may have had in this primary, those differences pale in comparison to the contrast that we face in November.”
She went on to frame the task of unifying around El-Sayed as a way to oppose President Donald Trump. “Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are looking at Michigan, and they are hoping that these family fights that we had, the disagreements within the Democratic Party, are the fights that we’re going to maintain through November,” McMorrow said.
As Michigan Democrats chart a path forward roughly 90 days out from a November election that could determine control of the Senate, the party’s leaders — some at odds as recently as 24 hours earlier — are fine-tuning an early message aimed at reuniting the broad coalition that will decide whether the state elects its first Muslim senator or ends a 30-year streak of sending Democrats to Washington.
The first priority, El-Sayed’s allies said, is uniting the base and shoring up the weak spots exposed by Stevens’ overperformance with working-class, rural and Black voters. Stevens won Oakland County — home to the state’s largest Jewish population — by roughly 20,000 votes. El-Sayed addressed Michigan’s Jewish residents directly in his remarks.
“To all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith, or any faith at all, or no faith at all, I want you to know that my commitment to your safety — my commitment to Jewish safety — is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters,” he said.
Stevens’ strength in Wayne, Genesee and Saginaw counties — the ones with the highest shares of Black voters — suggests that polls showing her advantage with that group were accurate. McMorrow, whose district includes parts of northern Detroit, the largest majority-Black city in the country, said Stevens’ success there pointed to an area of growth for El-Sayed.
“The lesson that I would take, you know, Haley’s team was laser-focused on organizing in the Black community,” McMorrow told MS NOW. “Go in and have some of these deep listening sessions. [Stevens] is a wonderful retail politician; when she goes to churches, when she’s sitting down one-on-one, and she really listens and she internalizes that.”
McMorrow pointed to housing affordability as an issue El-Sayed could elevate as he works to further engage Black voters.
“A lot of my residents in Detroit have never owned a home,” she said. “They don’t have access to generational wealth that is built from passing a home on to the next generation.”
El-Sayed’s allies pointed to the results as evidence of the strength of his message, noting that the three planks of his core slogan — getting money out of politics, putting money in your pocket and Medicare for All — withstood more than $60 million in outside spending to boost Stevens. At Wednesday’s news conference, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel Jr. suggested that message would remain at the forefront of the party’s midterm pitch.
“We are united in the fact that every person deserves healthcare in this country. We are united in the fact that the cost of living is too high for American families,” Hertel said. “It is ridiculous that a family has to decide between the cost of prescription drugs and the cost of rent or housing.”
Michigan Democratic leaders will keep working to repair the cracks in the party’s base at several gatherings this week, including a “unity breakfast” expected to mark the first joint appearance by Stevens and El-Sayed since the primary, and a general-election kickoff rally featuring the statewide Democratic ticket.
El-Sayed will also benefit from an influx of institutional support — including from party leaders who had worked eagerly to keep him out of the Senate.
“Democrats are united by a common purpose: putting a check on Donald Trump by defeating his Republican enablers and taking back the Senate. We look forward to working with Abdul and Democrats across Michigan to win this seat in November,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who both backed Stevens, said in a joint statement.
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