WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — Michigan voters in two communities still raw from the war in Gaza are finding the state’s open U.S. Senate seat a far more personal choice than a typical partisan contest, with Election Day on Nov. 3 now about two weeks off.
The race pits Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who previously ran public health for Wayne County. The two split on nearly every major issue, though both have backed some kind of pause on new data center construction. If El-Sayed wins, he would become the first Muslim to serve in the U.S. Senate.
A recent statewide survey shows how close it is. Rasmussen Reports found 46% of likely Michigan voters backing El-Sayed and 44% backing Rogers in polling of 798 likely voters taken Oct. 12-14, a gap inside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. Five percent were undecided, and three minor-party candidates drew a combined 5%.
Rogers has worked to pull Jewish voters away from their usual Democratic lean, casting his opponent as an extremist. Much of that effort is aimed at Oakland County, a county of about 1.3 million just north of Detroit that has drifted steadily toward Democrats over two decades and is home to a large share of the state’s Jewish residents. Rogers has scheduled an event there later this month with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
The backdrop includes a March attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, when a man drove a truck packed with fireworks and gasoline into the synagogue and traded gunfire with a guard. El-Sayed condemned it but took heat for an early response and later apologized to anyone his words had hurt.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump asserted that El-Sayed belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood. No evidence links El-Sayed to the group; he is a Michigan native whose parents came from Egypt. The administration earlier this year declared the Brotherhood’s chapters in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon to be terrorist organizations.
Democrats have not fully closed ranks since a bruising primary in which Israel was a central issue. U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost that primary with help from about $30 million in spending by groups tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, gave El-Sayed her endorsement yet has stayed off the trail with him.
South of Oakland County, Arab American voters in Dearborn, a city of nearly 100,000 that Trump carried by 6 points in 2024, have grown more critical of the president since he returned to office, and Republican attacks on El-Sayed have deepened that frustration.
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