Most signs point to a surging populist Abdul El-Sayed having a good showing on Tuesday over Rep. Haley Stevens, the Establishment favorite who has struggled to catch fire. Many consultants predict Michigan will be the most expensive primary on the Democratic side this year—even as it reveals the limits of money. Emerson College released a survey last week showing El-Sayed, a former public health official and podcaster, up 15 points. If Tuesday night results look anything like that, it would mean some $60 million in outside money could not boost Stevens and El-Sayed’s left-leaning platform and pointed critiques of Israel did not tank his candidacy, as many centrists had predicted it would.
But if the tone in this race’s final days is a hint, it signals that the win-at-all-costs footing that has defined the era of Trump has crept into the Democratic ether. Acrimony doesn’t even begin to get at the mood on the ground, according to operatives in both camps. In a recent podcast interview, El-Sayed called Stevens “the least capable candidate in America.” Stevens responded with a message on her social media on Thursday that showed how raw feelings have become: “Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.”
Stevens campaigns at the Jazz on the Ave festival in Detroit on August 1, 2026. —Finn Gomez—Getty Images
The issues in Michigan matter as much as the approach to campaigning. El-Sayed is promising wholesale change to politics, a progressive upheaval of traditionalist incrementalism, an outsiders’ indifference to tradition. Stevens is running almost a mirror campaign, one rooted in her technocratic experience on Barack Obama’s administration and pragmatic restraint.
El-Sayed wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Stevens wants reforms.
The list goes on and on but over the weekend, it seemed this increasingly contentious primary was rooted in almost anything but the issues. Both candidates appeared to get that the tone of the rhetoric has spiraled. The Detroit News captured the self-realization that unfolded over the weekend, after a parishioner of Fellowship Chapel in Detroit said to Stevens, “We know you’re gonna kick that Muslim’s butt." Stevens tried to deflect, telling the man, “You know what, we’re here for Michigan,” and then later emphasized to reporters, "Look, that’s not what my campaign is about."
The Democratic Party, as it stands, is a party that seems completely adrift. The Democratic National Committee is both broke and broken, a New York Times bombshell last weekend detailed. The party’s priorities are a scattershot of ideas with no unifying narrative. Michigan’s results may offer a hint about where the Democrats are heading, but the outcome alone is far from a guaranteed predictor. After all, some Democrats are still smarting about the 2008 presidential primary and more than a few are still stammering about the 2016 one. In both cases, an Establishment candidate who happened to be a woman faced a charismatic leader whose campaign became a movement. In both cases, the losing candidate was Hillary Clinton. Democrats are still—almost two decades on—trying to figure out what it all means, and how voters’ tastes have changed in the interim. That’s why it’s a sure bet that 2028 hopefuls (and their consultants) will be watching Michigan’s election dashboard very, very closely Tuesday night.
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