Moderate Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens holds a seven-point lead over far-left rival Abdul El-Sayed, and leads big with working-class and Black voters, in a crucial political fight not only for the Democratic Senate nomination in battleground Michigan but potentially for the fate of the party, according to new polling.
Stevens, who is backed by longtime Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer and the party establishment, stands at 48% support among Democrats likely to vote in the Aug. 4 primary, with El-Sayed, a former Wayne County Health Department director endorsed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at 41%.
The Detroit News/WDIV poll, conducted by Glengariff Group, indicated roughly 10% of respondents remained undecided with the primary just three weeks out.
In the wake of attention-grabbing victories by socialist and far-left candidates in blue congressional districts in New York City and Colorado in recent weeks, the primary in Michigan is viewed as the biggest battle to date between the left-wing and the center-left establishment for the future of the Democratic Party.
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The poll indicates Stevens with a large 22-point lead among non-college educated voters, while El-Sayed holds a seven point advantage among those with college degrees.
El-Sayed is up by 12 points among White voters, while Stevens holds a massive 46-point advantage among Black voters in the survey, which had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
The results are reminiscent of polling that came out shortly before Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, a progressive similar to El-Sayed also endorsed by Sanders, dropped out of the race this month that showed him trailing with working class voters by a large margin.
The poll of 500 likely voters was conducted entirely after last week’s televised debate between El-Sayed and Stevens. That showdown came just two days after progressive state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, once the third major Democrat in the primary, suspended her campaign.
McMorrow, who has seen her national profile expand in recent years and was running as a progressive in an ideological space between El-Sayed and Stevens, exited the race amid faltering poll numbers and fundraising that weren’t keeping pace with her two main rivals.
McMorrow pledged to fully support whichever Democrat wins the primary and will ultimately face off against Rogers, who is running for the Senate for a second straight cycle after losing in 2024 to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin by a razor-thin margin.
Either Stevens or El-Sayed will take on former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who is on a glide path to the GOP nomination, in the crucial midterm faceoff to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.
The rare open Senate seat is a top Republican target and is a must-hold for the Democrats as they aim to win back the Senate majority from the GOP, which currently controls the chamber with a slim 53-47 margin.
The poll’s release comes ahead of this week’s trip to Michigan by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, where they are scheduled to team up with El-Sayed at three events.
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El-Sayed, who, if elected, would make history as the nation’s first Muslim senator, is an epidemiologist who unsuccessfully ran for governor as an insurgent candidate in 2018. He has made support for Medicare for all a major component of his campaign.
The far-left candidate has also called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and is a vocal critic of Israel amid its war with Hamas — even characterizing Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” against Palestinians. And El-Sayed, who served as a top surrogate on Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has vowed not to accept PAC donations.
Schumer and the party establishment view Stevens as more electable than El-Sayed, who has sparked controversy with his past comments. They worry that El-Sayed as the party’s nominee would jeopardize the Democrat-controlled Senate seat by pushing the party too far to the left in a state that President Donald Trump carried two years ago by just over one percentage point.
Earlier this week, Peters, who to date had stayed neutral in the race to succeed him, endorsed Stevens.
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The primary showdown has become combustible and expensive, with outside groups spending big bucks to flood the campaign trail with ads.
The biggest spending is United Democracy Project, a political action committee aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The group reports spending nearly $15 million in support of Stevens and against El-Sayed.
“Haley is leading in this race because the stakes of this election could not be higher,” Sam Barrett, campaign manager on the Stevens campaign, told Fox News Digital in a statement in reaction to the poll.
“When Democrats win in November, we’ll keep Mike Rogers out of the Senate, and stop Donald Trump from having free rein to appoint Supreme Court justices who will ban abortion, cut health care, and strip away workers’ rights. Michigan needs a Senator who is ready on day one to fight and has won tough races before. That’s Haley, and that’s why her message of lowering costs, protecting manufacturing, and taking on Trump’s corruption and abuses of power is resonating across the state.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the El-Sayed campaign for comment.
