Abdul El-Sayed Courts Black Voters in Michigan Senate Race as 2024 Dearborn Shift Still Divides Democrats
Updated
Updated · The Boston Globe · Oct 21
Abdul El-Sayed Courts Black Voters in Michigan Senate Race as 2024 Dearborn Shift Still Divides Democrats
3 articles · Updated · The Boston Globe · Oct 21
Summary
Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is intensifying outreach to Black voters as he tries to repair rifts with Arab American Democrats ahead of the Nov. 3 Senate election.
Those tensions trace to 2024, when anger over Biden’s Gaza policy helped Trump narrowly win Michigan and carry Dearborn 42% to 36% over Kamala Harris after more than 100,000 Democratic primary voters chose “uncommitted.”
El-Sayed, who narrowly beat Haley Stevens in the August primary, is centering affordability and his Detroit public-health record while campaigning with Ayanna Pressley, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Raphael Warnock; Barack Obama has filmed an ad and plans a Detroit rally.
The coalition remains fragile: some Black voters say they still distrust El-Sayed, while Republican Mike Rogers is also targeting Black neighborhoods and churches in a race critical to Senate control.
A win would make El-Sayed the first Muslim U.S. senator and mark another milestone for Dearborn, where Arab Americans are now the majority of the city’s 106,000 residents.