DETROIT — Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) is making a closing pitch focused heavily on the black community, a demographic that could swing a tight Michigan Senate race in her favor.
In the final days of her primary against Abdul el Sayed, voters are being inundated with PAC-funded commercials that highlight former President Barack Obama and his 2018 praise for Stevens — a strategy that supporters and critics say could be influential with black voters.
At campaign stops, Stevens has complemented those ads with a promise to be an ally if elected to the Senate. Speaking to reporters in the Detroit suburbs over the weekend, Stevens touted an endorsement from her “brothers and sisters” in the Congressional Black Caucus while vowing to help deliver a historic speakership for House Democrats.
“I want to hit the ground running for us, and I want to be that top of the ticket voice to flip congressional seats here in Michigan and make Hakeem Jeffries, my Democratic leader, the first black speaker of the House,” she told the Washington Examiner at an event in Farmington on Friday.
The focus, slipped repeatedly into interactions with the press, gets at what Stevens and her campaign see as a vulnerability for el Sayed, her Democratic rival in the Aug. 4 primary.
El Sayed has kept the Senate race exceptionally close by energizing the political Left with a message focused on getting money out of politics and passing Medicare for All.
But polling suggests el Sayed is underwater with black voters, perhaps by 46 points, raising the question of whether he will struggle with a demographic that accounted for roughly a quarter of all Democrats in Michigan’s last midterm elections.
In Detroit, el Sayed drew an overwhelmingly white audience to a Saturday rally headlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) despite the city’s predominantly black population.
El Sayed dismissed the focus as a “narrative that a lot of folks would desperately like to be true.” He emphasized to reporters in Detroit his work to lower the infant mortality rate in the black community as a public health official and predicted the results on Election Day would vindicate him.
On the airwaves, he is attempting to compete for the same votes by highlighting his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, an overture that has been dwarfed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s involvement in the race.
Its super PAC has put $5 million behind the Stevens ad that features Obama, making it one of the most-played commercials of the cycle in Michigan. Neither Obama nor Harris has gotten involved in the Senate race.
Stevens continued her outreach to the black community on Sunday morning, speaking with congregants at a Baptist church service in Ann Arbor. In total, Stevens has visited more than 50 churches since entering the race last year.
Much of her emphasis has been on promoting a platform she says would empower black voters, bringing up legislation she’s drafted to support minority-owned businesses in Michigan. At a campaign event in Bloomfield, Stevens touted her co-sponsorship of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.
Her surrogates, meanwhile, have gone more negative in drawing a contrast with el Sayed.
The Congressional Black Caucus PAC denounced him earlier this month for endorsing William Lawrence, a progressive House candidate who claimed its members’ support for leadership in Washington “defangs the white Left.”
Keith Williams, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party’s black caucus, revived that scrutiny on Sunday, calling el Sayed “unfit” over his decision to rally with Lawrence in Lansing that day.
The focus has grown so contentious that the el Sayed campaign accused “other candidates” in the race of “trying to tokenize Black voters or worse, lie to them” — a thinly veiled jab at Stevens.
A spokesperson added that el Sayed’s “commitment is proven in his work” as Detroit’s top public health official, a role he held from 2023 to 2025.
“Black voters in Michigan deserve a candidate who has shown up to serve the community,” the campaign said in a statement.
In terms of endorsements, el Sayed counts Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley and several other black leaders in the state as supporters. In an interview, Neeley said he was drawn to el Sayed’s background in public health.
On the question of diversity, Neeley also emphasized that el Sayed is the son of Egyptian immigrants.
“It’s one thing to engage it, talk about it, advocate for it, but it’s also another thing when you have to live it,” Neely said.
He refrained from criticizing Stevens, calling her outreach to the black community “important.” Neely represents a majority-black city that has spent years recovering from the Flint water crisis.
Detroit councilwoman Mary Waters told the Washington Examiner that Stevens is not a “Johnny Come Lately” when it comes to relationship-building in the black community and predicted she will receive “most” of the vote in her city.
Waters has not endorsed Stevens but is a supporter.
The jockeying comes at a perilous moment for el Sayed, who until recently was considered the front-runner in the primary. He has since faced a deluge of outside spending that has put Stevens ahead in the latest independent polling.
Race has not been as pointed a theme in el Sayed’s stump speeches. He’s chosen instead to rail against the party leaders who oppose him and portray Stevens as a corporate-backed candidate.
Lately, he’s also attempted to dent the perception that Stevens is more electable in November because her politics are more centrist, calling the tens of millions in outside support a “crutch.”
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There is one point of reference on how el Sayed will perform in a black-majority city like Detroit, but the outcome — his third-place finish in 2018’s gubernatorial primary — predates his time as a local official. He received 26% of the city vote versus 35% for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and 38% for Shri Thanedar, who now represents Michigan’s 13th District in the House.
The demographic makeup of Stevens’s district, the 11th, is predominantly white, with black residents making up about 13% of the population.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
