DETROIT — Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary is currently too close to call, with former Wayne County health official Abdul El-Sayed and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham) currently neck and neck with absentee ballots from Wayne County still being counted.
Unofficial election results show that with 96% of the votes counted, El-Sayed was slightly ahead of Stevens, 48.5% to 47.5%, respectively, per the Associated Press as of 8:49 a.m. Wednesday. A winner in the race has not yet been declared by the AP.
Regardless, Alia Kapasi, El-Sayed’s campaign manager, said in a statement released by the campaign that “Michiganders have spoken.”
“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.”
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak), who had dropped out of the race in early July, had earlier endorsed El-Sayed based on NBC News making the call just before 2 a.m.
“I’m proud to give Abdul my full endorsement and support as we head to November together as a unified party,” McMorrow said in a release. “Take it from me — this was a brutal primary. But whatever differences there were between the candidates in this race, those differences are nothing compared to the contrast in November. Donald Trump and Mike Rogers are banking on all of us being too bruised, too proud, and too hurt to come back together to beat them. Let’s prove them wrong.”
Results reported from across Michigan showed each candidate had strongholds. Kent County’s returns were 99% in as of midnight, with El-Sayed handily winning there 61.1% to 35.1%. Oakland County’s unofficial results, meanwhile, had Stevens up 51.8% to 45.3%. Ingham County was reporting El-Sayed with a sizable 59% to 36.2% for Stevens, while Macomb County saw Stevens winning 51.8% to 44.3% for El-Sayed. But Wayne County, the most populous in the state, is where both candidates have been battling it out. With 95% of the votes counted as of 7 a.m. Wednesday, Stevens holds a 50.8% to 46% lead over El-Sayed. However, she had been looking to run up the vote totals in Wayne to offset El-Sayed’s strengths elsewhere.
Stevens spoke to her supporters around 1 a.m. and said they were in it until the end.
Both Stevens’ and El-Sayed’s campaigns held their election night watch parties in Detroit, which has proven, as expected, to be a key battleground in the race.
El-Sayed addressed his supporters at around 1 a.m. at his watch party at the Majestic Theater.
“Know that the billionaires, corporations, and the special interests-they weren’t going to give up light. We all knew they were going to spend their money,” El-Sayed said. “We didn’t know they were going to spend $70 million of their money. We didn’t know that they were going to outspend us $11 to $1. And yet we’re still standing.”
El-Sayed also said that it has been said that, “Here in Michigan, we’re a purple state, that somehow everybody walks around wondering, ‘I wonder where I stand on the left-right spectrum.’”
“When really, up and down the state, what you hear is, ‘I wonder how I can afford my rent. I wonder how I can afford my groceries. I don’t know what’ll happen if I get sick because I can’t afford my deduction,’” he said. “We are not a purple state. We are a state in need of a movement, and despite their strength, despite their lies, old and ad after ad after ad after ad on TV, were walking into the rest of this evening with a three-point lead.”
As Craig Mauger of The Detroit News noted on social media, Detroit election officials typically grab absentee ballots from city drop boxes after polls in the city are closed, then tabulate those results, which is a laborious and time consuming process.
For those who are new to Michigan elections, Detroit election officials have to pick up absentee ballots from all of the drop boxes in the city after polls close and then, process and count those ballots.
It can take hours, and there could possibly be thousands of ballots.
— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) August 5, 2026
Videos are courtesy of a partnership with C-SPAN. This story will be updated as more results come in or if the race is called for either El-Sayed or Stevens.
