‘We took on the machine’: El-Sayed celebrates triumph over outside spending after winning Democratic nomination in Michigan Senate race – live

Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers released a statement urging general election voters to make the “simple” choice between “common sense and complete insanity”, following Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow primary win for the Michigan US Senate seat.

“This election isn’t just about choosing a Senator. It’s about deciding whether Michigan has a future built on common sense – or whether we hand the keys to the most fringe extremists in the nation,” said Rogers, who ran unopposed on Tuesday, and is gunning for the open seat after narrowly losing the 2024 Senate race to Elissa Slotkin.

In Michigan’s 13th congressional district – which includes parts of Detroit – Donavan McKinney beat incumbent Shri Thanedar in a closely watched Democratic primary that mirrored many of identity battles facing the party this midterm cycle.

McKinney, 34, a state lawmaker who received the backing of many progressives in Congress, including the Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib and the independent senator Bernie Sanders, won his race by almost four points, and successfully ousted the two-term Thanedar, 71, who was endorsed by the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.

While some of Thanedar and McKinney’s platform policies overlap, Thanedar’s win in 2022 marked the first time the majority-Black Detroit area has not had a Black representative in Congress in years.

McKinney, who was recruited by Justice Democrats – a progressive Pac – was also endorsed by some House Congressional Black caucus members, despite party leadership backing Thanedar.

The new nominee was also outspoken about the war in Gaza – calling it a “genocide” while campaigning to end military aid to Israel. McKinney also campaigned alongside Abdul El-Sayed, who went on to win the Democratic nomination for Michigan’s open US Senate seat.

“They spent an unprecedented amount of money to beat us” Abdul El-Sayed said, after officially winning the Michigan’s Democratic nomination for US Senate.

El-Sayed remarked on the millions in outside spending while holding his first press conference in downtown Detroit as the newly minted nominee. “But it turns out the commercials are the part of the television show most people don’t want to watch,” he added.

“We took on a machine. You’re not supposed to be able to beat $70m dollars of outside spending – a record amount of money spent in a campaign against a Democrat in a primary in any campaign,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be able to beat that. And what we showed is that the power of our money is greater than the power of their money.”

Ahead of the Associated Press calling the Michigan Democratic primary for US Senate, various conservative groups got to work blasting Abdul El-Sayed as the likely nominee.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) released a video on Wednesday, decidedly referring to the candidate by his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, and branding him as “the most radical Senate candidate in America” and “wrong for Michigan” – while highlighting comments from leftwing influencer Hasan Piker that “America deserved 9/11” during a stream in 2019. Piker has campaigned alongside El-Sayed, and routinely apologized for his past remarks.

State and national Democrats have begun to coalesce around Abdul El-Sayed after he narrowly won the primary for the Michigan US Senate seat.

One of Michigan’s Democratic senators, Elissa Slotkin, congratulated El-Sayed and said there is “nothing more important” than “uniting, keeping this seat blue, flipping the House and Senate, and providing a real check” on Donald Trump.

Others in the party have also urged the fractured coalition to work together in the short runway until November to retain a vital seat for Democrats to have any chance at reclaiming the majority in the upper chamber.

“I urge folks to come together – the stakes are high, and we need Abdul in the Senate to stand up for all Michiganders and the country we love,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Marlyand.

Meanwhile, Mallory McMorrow, who also ran in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary before suspending her campaign in July, said that El-Sayed has her “full endorsement and support”.

McMorrow’s name still appeared on Tuesday’s ballot, and she wracked up more than 60,000 votes – all of which El-Sayed hopes to absorb in November.

“This was a brutal primary,” McMorrow said. “Trump and Mike Rogers are counting on us staying divided. Let’s prove them wrong by beating Mike Rogers and taking our country back.”

In Las Vegas, Donald Trump has weighed in on the results from the Democratic primary for Michigan’s US Senate seat.

After Abdul El-Sayed won the party’s nomination, the president called it “great news” for Republicans in a post on Truth Social.

Trump went on to call El-Sayed a “communist loser who hates Jews and Israel”, despite the Democratic nominee’s frequent denunciations of antisemitism.

The president also noted that Stevens “was not expected to do nearly as well as she did”.

“Now, the Dumocrats crazy policies will only get worse!” Trump wrote.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has said it now looks forward to working with Abdul El-Sayed in the wake of his primary victory in Michigan.

The main campaign arm for Senate Democrats had backed Haley Stevens in the bitter race for the nomination, but praised El-Sayed for his “energetic campaign that inspired thousands of Michiganders across the state”.

In a statement Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and Kristen Gillibrand, chair of the DSCC, said that Democrats are united by a “common purpose” in this midterms cycle, “putting a check on Donald Trump by defeating his Republican enablers and taking back the Senate”.

They called Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee who ran unopposed in his primary, “a rubber stamp” from the president, and accused him of backing the same “reckless agenda that has driven up costs for working families”. Rogers lost his bid for Senate to Democrat Elissa Slotkin in 2024 by fewer than 20,000 votes.

Haley Stevens has conceded in the hotly contested Democratic Senate primary in Michigan. The Asssociated Press called the race a short while ago.

“I love Michigan and am so proud to have put up my hand to serve. I spoke with Abdul a few moments ago to offer him my full support as we work to defeat Mike Rogers this November,” she said on social media.

Stevens’ saw a deluge of outside spending to boost her campaign, including more than $30m from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a pro-Israel lobby group.

Abdul El-Sayed has won the Democratic nomination in the US Senate seat in Michigan, beating Haley Stevens in a bitter competition that became a referendum on the changing face of the Democratic party.

El-Sayed won the race by a single point, fewer than 15,000 votes, according to the Associated Press. He will now face Republican nominee Mike Rogers – who ran unopposed – for a key battleground seat that is vital for Democrats to retain in order to achieve their lofty goal of reclaiming the majority in the upper chamber of Congress.

The Democratic primary became a proxy battle between the establishment and progressive wings of the party, with El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former state public health official, receiving the backing of many leaders on the left flank. Meanwhile Stevens, a serving US congresswoman who flipped her district blue in 2018, received support from party leaders – including the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer – and was supported by tens of millions of dollars in outside Pac funding from the pro-Israel lobby. The latter was a point on which El-Sayed hammered on the campaign trail in Michigan, the birthplace of the uncommitted movement – which saw a sizeable portion of Arab-American voters eschew Kamala Harris in 2024 over the Biden administration’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war.

“This was always going to be the many versus the money, and tonight, we have shown that Michiganders want money out of politics, money in their pockets, and Medicare for all. We are building a coalition that is fired up and ready to go beat Mike Rogers,” said El-Sayed’s campaign manager, Alia Kapasi, in a statement.

Wayne county – Michigan’s largest – is the area of the state we’re still waiting on before the Associated Press calls the race. As of now, 88% of votes in the county have been counted.