Sept. 23, 2025, 5:50 p.m.
The three Democrats running to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters in Michigan are elbowing their way through a bitter primary with competing visions for the state and for the future of the party.
Competitors in the crowded Democratic field, which features Rep. Haley Stevens, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, and former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed, are focusing on different appeals to primary voters as they prepare to take on Republican Mike Rogers, who is on a glidepath to the GOP nomination. With little time to transition their primary campaigns next August to the general election next year, their early rounds of messaging are centered on electability.
“This, I believe, is a very serious moment in Michigan, and my career has been defined by putting up my hand for our state in moments of unbelievable uncertainty,” Stevens told National Journal.
This is a serious moment not only for Michigan, but for the Democratic Party. The open seat is a must-win race for the party to have any chance of flipping the Senate in 2026 or in 2028. Last year, President Trump flipped Michigan by 80,000 votes while on the same ballot a Democratic Senate candidate won the seat by 10,000 votes. At a time when national Democrats are focus-testing their rhetoric after a blistering 2024 loss, the congresswoman is boasting a Michigan-centric message.
“I want to brag about our state,” Stevens said. “Michigan has a story to tell, and I want to tell that story in the United States Senate.”
Stevens’s commitment to telling the Michigan story has caught the eye of Washington leadership. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his team have reportedly signaled that Stevens is the strongest general-election candidate. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand has encouraged donors to support the congresswoman. But Stevens isn’t on a similar glidepath as Rogers or now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin was in the Democratic primary last year. The competitive primary mirrors some of the internal turmoil plaguing the national party as it finds its footing during the second Trump administration.
Even Stevens
A self-avowed “manufacturing geek,” Stevens is centering a "Made in America" message, believing the issue gives her a “magic with independents." She is a co-chair of the House Manufacturing Caucus, hosts “Manufacturing Mondays” visits in her district, and embarked on a statewide “Made in Michigan” tour last month to visit manufacturers across the state.
Stevens, who was a chief of staff on President Obama’s auto task force, also hasn’t been shy to push back on the Chinese government’s influence over the industry, introducing the No Chinese Cars Act and the Unearth America’s Future Act to reduce reliance on China for manufacturing.
“Frankly, we do not want to see the Chinese Communist Party circumventing trade laws and dumping into our market and avoiding the level playing field that we need,” she said.
China- and auto-focused ads were a mainstay during the last Michigan Senate race, often levied by Rogers and Republicans against Slotkin. The nonpartisan American EV Jobs Alliance estimated that $30 million was spent on electric-vehicle-related ads in 2024, with the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund airing ads that argued Slotkin “voted to allow states to ban gasoline vehicles” and “voted for millions in taxpayer subsidies for foreign [electric vehicle] companies.”
We have a blueprint that we created in Michigan that I want to take to Washington so that we can organize, rally, fight back, win, and then actually deliver for people, which is what they want us to do. ”
— State Sen. Mallory McMorrow
McMorrow seizes the spotlight
McMorrow and Stevens both entered politics during Trump’s first midterms in 2018, flipping seats in the Michigan Legislature and in Congress, respectively.
Despite residing within Stevens’ congressional district, McMorrow passed on a House bid to replace her, touting herself as a stronger Democratic Senate nominee.
“I fundamentally believe that this cycle, and this moment that we're in, requires somebody very different and somebody who can break through,” McMorrow told National Journal. “And, very candidly, I was not sure that the congresswoman could win statewide.”
McMorrow, harnessing the virality of a 2022 speech against a GOP colleague’s “groomer” accusations and a 2024 Democratic National Convention speaker slot, is looking to “bring people back not only to the Democratic Party, but to politics,” avoiding a “traditional run-of-the-mill, D.C.-style campaign.”
While pushing against Democrats in Washington, including Schumer, McMorrow points to her state legislative record on affordable housing, tax relief, and abortion rights.
“That is what I want voters to know, that we have a blueprint that we created in Michigan that I want to take to Washington so that we can organize, rally, fight back, win, and then actually deliver for people, which is what they want us to do,” McMorrow said.
El-Sayed’s populism returns
El-Sayed told National Journal he’s willing to directly challenge the national Democratic establishment, portraying himself as the only Democrat who can build a winning coalition and recognize that Trump “is just the worst symptom of a bigger disease of a corrupted politics.” He ran an unabashedly progressive campaign for governor in 2018, ultimately losing to now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the Democratic primary.
Through the “uncommitted” movement in the state last year, El-Sayed sought to challenge the Democrats’ support of Israel’s war in Gaza, calling it a “genocide” against Palestinians. Arab American communities in Michigan, like Dearborn, swung heavily away from Democrats.
“It was an inability to articulate as a broader party a vision that wasn't just 'we’re not [Trump],'” El-Sayed said. “The real access of our politics isn't Right-versus-Left. It's people who feel locked out versus the people who are locking them out.”
El-Sayed, bolstered by an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is touting his support for Medicare for All—a proposal he’s written a book about—and his rejection of corporate PAC donations as he rails against corporations and billionaires. The only non-elected official of the trio, El-Sayed is relying on his health care experience.
“My background speaks to the fact that I’m a public servant, not a career politician,” he said.
Rogers ready for a rerun
On the Republican side, Rogers is running a very different campaign this time around. The Republican launched his Senate bid earlier, consolidated the field, and quickly locked up endorsements from Trump and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Rogers notably joined Vice President J.D. Vance at his Howell rally on Wednesday, arguing the administration is challenging China’s manufacturing foothold.
“We've lost 30,000 manufacturing jobs because of policies coming out of Lansing and Washington in the last six years,” Rogers told National Journal. “We're talking about what it's going to take to get that going again, about a Michigan revival in manufacturing.”
Like Stevens, Rogers is honing in on manufacturing and decreasing dependence on China. The difference this cycle is he won’t have a Democratic president to rail against, and instead will be tasked with defending Trump’s second-term agenda. But Rogers says he isn’t scared to praise the president’s tariff policy and “working-family tax cut.”
“You're seeing the benefits of that already, and I know the Democrats oppose it because Donald Trump's name's on it,” he told National Journal. “I will try to work with those to understand how important these jobs are, and we cannot continue to be reliant on China for both our way of life and our ability to build things in America.”
The open race is set to be one of the most expensive Senate contests of the 2026 cycle. Rogers projected the race could cost upwards of $200 million. The Democratic contenders have so far spent six figures each on digital advertising, with McMorrow at $181,000, El-Sayed at $129,000, and Stevens at $120,000, according to the nonpartisan ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Rogers and the Great Lakes Conservatives Fund, a super PAC backing him, have reserved about $31,000 so far.
The three Democrats differ on how they view Rogers’ chances next November. Stevens criticized him as a “rubber stamp on the Trump administration.” McMorrow didn’t sugarcoat Rogers’ name-ID advantage, but she questioned Republican voters’ satisfaction with him. El-Sayed argued he’s “weaker,” calling him a non-player in politics.
Rogers says he doesn’t have a preference for which Democrat he’d like to compete against, expressing confidence that he can defeat any of them to become the first Michigan Republican elected to the Senate in three decades.
“We're going to beat anybody that comes out,” he said. “They all are, as I said, cut out of the same cloth. They are all radically liberal, and working families in Michigan are kind of tired of radically liberal politicians.”
