2026-10-07T09:00:45.751Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
底特律——
阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德预测自己将以7个百分点的优势赢得密歇根州联邦参议员选举。
正如他上周五对CNN所言的那样，以及由此衍生的竞选策略，正是这一点让州内主要民主党人士私下担忧他根本无法获胜。
“密歇根民众清楚这场选举的利害关系，”一位一直试图提供帮助的知名州民主党人士表示，“他们愿意为民主党人投票，只是需要一个投票的理由——而非拒绝投票的理由。”
在周四晚间唯一一场辩论会举行前夕，尽管唐纳德·特朗普总统因伊朗战争及其关税政策在这个北部边境州极不受欢迎，密歇根州联邦参议员竞选仍局势胶着。即便民主党有望拿下堪萨斯、艾奥瓦和得克萨斯等保守程度更高州的参议院席位，该州选情依旧紧绷。
埃尔赛义德在外部资金大量涌入和国民民主党阵营质疑的背景下采取的强硬姿态，帮助他击败了众议员黑莉·史蒂文斯——尽管仅以1个百分点的优势胜出，而非他此前向CNN预测的两位数领先优势。但在与埃尔赛义德、共和党候选人迈克·罗杰斯以及该州各地政党领袖的交谈中可以明显看出，距离选举还有一个月之际，一些曾支持史蒂文斯的关键民主党选区选民仍未接受埃尔赛义德的竞选活动。
黑人和犹太裔领袖警告称，他们及其所在社区的许多人需要更多的竞选沟通。多名人士向CNN透露，他们与埃尔赛义德的对话中，他一方面请求他们的支持，另一方面也坦言可以在其他社区弥补在这些群体中失去的选票。
“选举结果在投票日到来前都不算定局，”众议员黛比·丁格尔说道，她在初选中保持中立，但在埃尔赛义德获胜后成为其主要支持者之一，其竞选团队也将他列为关键支持者。“我们必须争取每一个选民群体，不能想当然地认为胜券在握。”
底特律一位要求匿名的黑人领袖向CNN讲述了他与埃尔赛义德的一次对话，用他的话说，这次对话给人的感觉是“他们认为未必需要付出那么多努力就能争取到黑人选票”。他从未收到埃尔赛义德此前承诺的邀请，无法参加与该候选人的圆桌会议。
这足以让这位领袖与罗杰斯的助手们会面——但他并非毫无愧疚。
“我心里过意不去，还给埃尔赛义德发了短信，”这位领袖谈及埃尔赛义德时说道，“但我没有收到回复。所以，去他妈的。”
兰辛市市长安迪·肖尔在初选中支持史蒂文斯。肖尔表示，他的犹太血统也让他对从埃尔赛义德那里听到的一些言论感到不适。埃尔赛义德长期批评以色列，称其在加沙的战争是种族灭绝，并且拒绝表态支持以色列作为犹太国家存在。
肖尔说他不会投票给罗杰斯，但也不会支持埃尔赛义德——至少在他们进行对话之前不会。他还没有收到埃尔赛义德的联系。
“如果他不需要我，那就算了，”肖尔说道，“这是他们的战略决策。”
当被问及圆桌会议邀请或与肖尔安排会面的事宜时，埃尔赛义德的竞选团队未予回应。但在接受CNN采访时，他为自己仍在向心存疑虑的群体开展沟通进行了辩护。
“我与每一个我会面过的群体都表示，‘为你们的社区领导、与你们的社区并肩领导，是我关心的核心问题和关键考量’，”他说道，“我可以把所有时间都花在任何一个群体上，但这可能还不够。这完全合理。人们理应选出一位会现身倾听的联邦参议员，而我确实已经现身并倾听了。”
埃尔赛义德来到底特律75号餐车吃午餐，点了一份辣味鸡肉沙威玛，加了双份肉。他与在场的所有男性都来了个兄弟式拥抱，还合影留念。他询问了点餐员穆萨的名字，并提到自己有个同名的侄子。
兴奋的员工额外赠送了一份免费的芝士牛排蛋卷，还有一大份大蒜香菜薯条。穆萨过来和他合影，随后他的一位同事也过来了。
埃尔赛义德因呼吁推行“全民医保”并打击政治献金而受到全国关注。他对以色列的批评与民主党阵营中日益高涨的反以色列情绪相符。周一，他在纽约市参加了与众议员亚历山德里亚·奥卡西奥-科特兹共同举办的筹款活动，就在几小时前，他刚宣布巴拉克·奥巴马将于10月晚些时候与他一同在密歇根州开展竞选活动。
“我不是民主党人想要的那种民主党人，但我是民主党人现有的选择。而且我绝对不是共和党人。但我要告诉你：我是密歇根民众想要的民主党人，”埃尔赛义德在餐车外对CNN说道。
埃尔赛义德表示，自8月初选中击败更为温和的史蒂文斯以来，他一直面临调整立场的压力，但他坚称自己不会妥协。不过他现在较少提及美国以色列公共事务委员会（AIPAC）——该委员会通过其超级政治行动委员会斥资3300万美元试图击败他——而是更多地提及对牛肉馅、汽油和医疗保健价格高企的不满。
埃尔赛义德悄悄做出了一项让步：在初选结束前与主播哈桑·皮克一同开展竞选活动后，他与皮克划清了界限。皮克曾表示，继续支持以色列的犹太人应该担心自身安全，还称美国“从头到尾”都不如基地组织。据埃尔赛义德告知此事的两名人士透露，埃尔赛义德最近致电皮克，警告他的言论正在让自己流失选票，并要求他停止。皮克未回应置评请求。
埃尔赛义德离开午餐地点时，又与更多人合影，并与一位40多岁的黑人男子交谈。该男子询问他在广告中看到的一些说法是否属实：称埃尔赛义德与极端组织“伊斯兰国”（ISIS）有牵连，或是他并非在密歇根州出生。
这名男子事后向CNN表示，他不愿意公开自己的姓名，但埃尔赛义德的回答让他满意。
当被问及这是否足以让他为桌上的选票投给埃尔赛义德时，该男子表示他还有其他关于埃尔赛义德的说法需要核实。
坐在底特律南郊绍斯菲尔德的沙雷·泽德克犹太教堂办公室里，亚伦·斯塔尔拉比表示，尽管他为在哈马斯10月7日袭击后，为一场特别礼拜活动在这座混凝土搭配彩色玻璃的金字塔形圣殿里接待了3000人而感到自豪，但让他担忧的是犹太人的安全威胁。
斯塔尔是大屠杀幸存者的孙子，同时也是密歇根拉比委员会主席。在为遭受反以色列校园抗议威胁的大学生提供了三年心理咨询服务后，他不愿透露自己11月会把票投给谁。
“我不能投票给一位不肯认可我最基本核心需求和价值观的候选人，”斯塔尔说道。当被提醒这个席位可能决定参议院的控制权归属时，他补充道，“无论如何，我们都必须尽最大努力让美国成为每个美国人都更安全、更自由的国家。只有当我们感到安全时，我才能做到这一点，我的社区才能参与这些努力。”
埃尔赛义德在西布卢姆菲尔德的以色列圣殿发生反犹太袭击后，曾因发表“受伤的人会伤害他人”的言论而道歉。他已经获得了一些知名犹太领袖的支持，比如州总检察长达纳·内塞尔。
“这不是我们想要的选择，但这是我们面前的选择，”内塞尔本周对CNN说道。
内塞尔知道她的论点——从环境到民权、公共卫生再到移民海关执法局（ICE）突袭，她希望有一位参议员能制衡特朗普——极具争议，因此上个月她没有参加犹太新年和赎罪日的礼拜活动，以避免发生冲突。
初选结束后她也没有出席州民主党代表大会，因为她担心自身安全。前一年，她因指控密歇根大学的亲巴勒斯坦抗议者并对其提起诉讼而遭到嘘声，后来这些案件被她撤销了。
“还有其他事情让我感到不安全，不只是作为一名犹太人，而是作为一名美国人、一个人，”内塞尔对CNN说道，“关于阿卜杜勒，我可以肯定的一点是，他每次都会挺身而出对抗唐纳德·特朗普，”她说道。
内塞尔在初选结束后第一时间联系了埃尔赛义德，她说值得称赞的是，正如她敦促的那样，他基本上已经停止攻击AIPAC。她对他进入参议院后可能对以色列支持产生的影响感到不安，本希望他能开展更多实质性和象征性的外联工作，但这不足以让她考虑支持罗杰斯。
“他的团队有疏漏之处，但对我来说，我必须做出这个决定，”她说道。
据一位熟悉此次会面的人士透露，埃尔赛义德曾提议在初选结束一周后与犹太裔顶尖政治领袖举行一次此前未被报道过的会议，发表一场针对犹太裔担忧的演讲，但该演讲至今仍未安排。
埃尔赛义德的竞选团队发布了由数百名密歇根州犹太裔人士签署的支持信，他对CNN表示，他仍会对见面的犹太裔说：“我致力于保障犹太人的安全。我百分之百承诺。我知道被歧视、因信仰被针对是什么滋味。”
“我们不会在以色列问题上达成一致，”埃尔赛义德说道，“我们会激烈地持不同意见，但我们可以有风度地持不同意见。”
周六上午在大急流城，迈克·罗杰斯身着标准的无袖抓绒背心——背心上绣有密歇根州地图轮廓，作为其名字中的字母“O”——参加了为期一天的普拉斯基节游行，行进了一英里。一名手风琴手紧跟在他身后两步远的位置，演奏着《万岁，万岁，我们都到齐了》。
正如一名男子讽刺地指出的那样，这一场景比平时更为罕见，他嘲笑罗杰斯“居然有脸露面”。
“朋友，你礼貌点行不行？”罗杰斯回应道。
埃尔赛义德经常嘲笑罗杰斯很少公开开展竞选活动。但在反特朗普的政治环境中，这是一种刻意的策略：作为温和派和不满的民主党人的一个几乎毫无特色的替代选择。罗杰斯回避了CNN的提问，未透露自己是否会投票结束伊朗战争，或是确认未来特朗普提名的最高法院大法官人选。
罗杰斯列举了警察、消防员、农民和其他群体的支持，他表示这些支持源于他多年来在该州建立的关系。他辩称，埃尔赛义德与知名民主社会主义者的联盟，让他的竞选团队得以将这位民主党人描绘成极端分子。他的竞选团队及其盟友还投放广告，暗示如果埃尔赛义德当选，将成为美国首位穆斯林参议员，他在恐怖主义和国家安全问题上态度软弱。
谈及埃尔赛义德，罗杰斯说道：“他以为上全国电视节目、举办电视直播活动就算完成了工作。真正的工作是在社区里开展的。”
罗杰斯表示，他感觉自己已经团结了州内的共和党人，但由于州共和党多年来一直处于下滑状态，他正依赖外部团体为其投入巨额资金，这些资金已经淹没了电视广告和直邮宣传。在参加游行之前，他刚去过美国人促进繁荣行动委员会用作当地总部的单层砖楼。
该组织的顾问比利·拉杰泽对CNN表示，与2024年为罗杰斯开展的竞选活动相比，今年他们更加关注摇摆选民，斥资2000万美元助力开展上门游说活动，计划在选举日前敲开100万扇门，以抵消州民主党自身的大规模竞选努力。
“一旦他们了解到我们想要实现的目标，就会支持我们，”罗杰斯对CNN说道，“我们绝不能让如此极端、在竞选活动中融入民主社会主义理念的人当选。这就是为什么我们能吸引这么多民主党人。”
罗杰斯预测，这其中将包括该州多达50%的犹太裔选民。
罗杰斯表示，特朗普的减税政策和他的“不对小费征税”提案很受欢迎，尽管民众对杂货店和加油站的高成本、关税以及伊朗战争感到愤怒。无论是呼吁暂时禁止柴油出口还是其他主张，罗杰斯都称自己与特朗普的关系是一个卖点。
“没错，汽油价格很高，”罗杰斯说道，“他们知道我正在为此采取行动。他们知道我会与总统合作解决问题。他们也知道我是唯一能真正促成会面、解决问题的人。”
罗杰斯在上个月于达拉斯举行的共和党中期代表大会上发表了演讲，他表示如果特朗普总统提出在密歇根州举办一场集会，他会欣然答应——这个州在特朗普最近三次势均力敌的选举中，有两次将票投给了他。
“我认为总统在我们这里的一部分选民群体中确实非常受欢迎。他可以过来动员这些民众出来投票，我们不会有意见的，”罗杰斯说道。
在这一点上，罗杰斯和埃尔赛义德意见一致。
“我希望他能来这里，提醒人们他是谁、他想要什么，以及他给他们的生活带来了什么，”埃尔赛义德说道。
‘我看到的都是厌倦了现状的民众’
即便罗杰斯在游行路线旁折叠椅上向所有民众挥手致意的人数，也不如埃尔赛义德一天内吸引的人数多——有时仅一场活动就能达到这个规模。
周六下午，埃尔赛义德在木匠工会大厅吸引了400多人到场。当他首次出现在参议员伊莉萨·斯洛特金的活动现场时，人群立刻欢呼起来。斯洛特金本人在两年前仅以1.9万票的优势击败了罗杰斯。
活动地点设在麦克蒙县，这里是里根民主党人和特朗普民主党人的故乡。用斯洛特金的话说，她之所以能击败罗杰斯，是因为“我们在这里只多赢了一点点”，以及该州其他地区的支持。
在嘲笑卫生与公众服务部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪为了深挖指控特朗普腐败的证据，穿着牛仔裤锻炼而磨伤皮肤后，埃尔赛义德向人群呼吁，呼吁大家摒弃争斗，帮助他争取支持过总统的民众。
“他们想告诉我们麦克蒙县是红色的，”埃尔赛赛义德说道，“坦率地说，我在这里看不到任何红色的人。老实说，我也看不到任何蓝色的人。”
“我看到的都是厌倦了看总统轻视我们困境的民众。我看到的都是厌倦了担心下个月房租怎么付的民众。我看到的都是厌倦了 wondering 自己的工会何时才能得到尊重的民众。我看到的都是需要看医生的民众。”
活动结束后，沃伦市议会副主席梅洛迪·马吉与其他几位黑人女性聊天，她们都拿着埃尔赛义德的竞选标语准备回家。她在初选中支持史蒂文斯，但表示除了她的姐夫之外，她认识的所有人都已经接受了这位民主党候选人。
“就我认识的人里，只有他还在观望，”马吉说道。
前一天在底特律餐车吃完午餐后，埃尔赛义德承认自己最初预测的初选压倒性胜利并未实现——但他还是挺了过来。
“我参选不是为了成为中期选举的主角，”他说道，“我参选是为了为我的州服务。不过唐纳德·特朗普有一点不明白：他不懂自己权力的来源。我懂。他很擅长吸引注意力，也很擅长把注意力给我。继续谈论我吧，唐纳德。求你了。我希望你会这么做。”
Abdul El-Sayed is certain he’ll win Michigan’s Senate race. Some key Democrats quietly aren’t so sure
2026-10-07T09:00:45.751Z / CNN
Detroit—
Abdul El-Sayed predicts that he will win the Michigan Senate race by 7 points.
That attitude, as he expressed to CNN last Friday, and the approach stemming from it is why leading state Democrats privately worry he won’t win at all.
“Michiganders understand the stakes of this election,” said one prominent state Democrat who’s been trying to help. “They want to vote for Democrats and just need to be given a reason to — and not a reason not to.”
Ahead of Thursday night’s sole debate, the Michigan Senate race has remained a nail-biter even as President Donald Trump is deeply unpopular due to the war in Iran and the impact of his tariffs in this northern border state. That’s even as Democrats are threatening to flip Senate seats in far more conservative states like Kansas, Iowa and Texas.
El-Sayed’s defiant approach amid a barrage of outside spending and national party doubts helped him defeat Rep. Haley Stevens – albeit by 1 point and not the double-digit margin he had predicted to CNN beforehand. But in conversations with El-Sayed, Republican nominee Mike Rogers, and party leaders across the state, it’s clear that some people in key Democratic constituencies that sided with Stevens are still not bought into El-Sayed’s campaign with one month to go.
Black and Jewish leaders are warning that they and many in their communities need more outreach. Multiple people relayed to CNN conversations they’ve had with El-Sayed in which he’s asked for their support but also noted that he can make up the votes he loses in their communities elsewhere.
“This election is not over until Election Day,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, who stayed neutral in the primary but has been a prime El-Sayed booster since he won and whom his campaign pointed to as a key supporter. “We’ve got to work every single demographic and not take anything for granted.”
One Black leader in Detroit who asked not to be named told CNN about a conversation with El-Sayed which left a feeling, in his words, of “they believe they don’t necessarily need to work as hard to get the Black vote.” He never received an invitation he was promised by El-Sayed to join a roundtable with the candidate.
That was enough for the leader to take a meeting with aides to Rogers – but not without some guilt.
“I felt so bad, I texted him,” the leader said of El-Sayed. “But I didn’t hear back. So, f**k him.”
Lansing Mayor Andy Schor supported Stevens in the primary. Schor says his Jewish heritage also leaves him uncomfortable with some of what he’s heard from El-Sayed, a longtime critic of Israel who has referred to its war in Gaza as a genocide and declined to say the country should exist as a Jewish state.
Schor said he won’t vote for Rogers but also won’t back El-Sayed – at least until they have a conversation. He hasn’t heard from El-Sayed yet.
“If he doesn’t need me, he doesn’t need me,” Schor said. “And that’s their strategic decision.”
El-Sayed’s campaign didn’t respond when asked about the roundtable invitation or scheduling the meeting with Schor. But speaking to CNN, he defended his outreach to groups that still have questions about him.
“Every community that I’ve met with, I’ve said, ‘Leading for and with your community is a concern and a key consideration for me,’” he said. “I could spend all of my time with any one community and it probably wouldn’t be enough. And that’s perfectly fair. People deserve a US senator who’s going to show up and listen, but I’ve showed up and listened.”
El-Sayed arrived for lunch at the Detroit 75 Kitchen food truck, ordering a spicy chicken shawarma, double meat. He exchanged bro hugs with all of the men and took photos. He asked the name of the man taking his order – Musa – and noted that he had a nephew with the same name.
Excited employees sent over a free order of cheesesteak egg rolls, then a large container of garlic-cilantro fries. Musa came over for a photo. Then one of his co-workers followed.
El-Sayed has captured national attention with his appeals to enact Medicare for All and target money in politics. His criticisms of Israel are in line with an increasingly anti-Israel party base. On Monday, he was in New York City for a fundraiser with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, hours after announcing Barack Obama would campaign with him in Michigan later in October.
“I’m not the Democrat the Democrats want, but I am the Democrat that Democrats have. And I am decidedly not a Republican. But this is what I’ll tell you: I am a Democrat that Michiganders want,” El-Sayed told CNN outside the food truck.
El-Sayed says he’s been pressured to modulate his positions since he beat the more moderate Stevens in the August primary, though he insists he will not. But he talks less about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent $33 million through its super PAC trying to defeat him, and sticks more to frustration over high prices for ground beef, gas and healthcare.
El-Sayed has quietly made one concession: He distanced himself from Hasan Piker after campaigning through the end of the primary with the streamer, who’s said that Jews who keep supporting Israel should worry about their safety and that America is “pound for pound” worse than Al-Qaeda. El-Sayed recently called Piker and warned his rhetoric was costing El-Sayed votes, asking him to stop, according to two people El-Sayed told about the conversation. Piker did not respond to requests for comment.
As El-Sayed left lunch, he posed for more photos and chatted with a Black man in his 40s who asked whether some of what he’d been seeing in ads is true: that El-Sayed had some connection to ISIS or that he wasn’t born in Michigan.
The man told CNN afterward that he wasn’t comfortable with his name being public, but that El-Sayed’s answers satisfied him.
Asked if that was enough to earn his vote on the ballot sitting on his desk back home, the man said he still had other claims about El-Sayed to sort through.
Sitting in his office at the Shaarey Zedek synagogue in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Rabbi Aaron Starr said that while he was proud to host 3,000 people in the concrete and stained-glass ziggurat of a sanctuary for a special service right after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, it’s the threat to Jews’ safety that has him concerned.
Starr is a grandchild of Holocaust survivors and the president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis. After three years of counseling college students who felt threatened by anti-Israel campus protests, he wouldn’t say who he’s voting for in November.
“I can’t vote for a candidate who won’t affirm my most basic core needs and values,” Starr said. Reminded that the seat could end up determining control of the Senate, he added, “No matter what, we’re all going to have to do our very best to make America a safer and freer country for every American. I can only do that, my community can only participate in those efforts, if we feel safe.”
El-Sayed apologized after the primary for saying that “hurt people hurt people” after the antisemitic attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. He has won the support of some prominent Jewish leaders like state Attorney General Dana Nessel.
“It’s not the choice we wanted. But it’s the choice in front of us,” Nessel told CNN this week.
Nessel knows her argument — that from the environment to civil rights to public health to ICE raids, there are many major issues she wants a senator who would be a check on Trump — has been so controversial that she didn’t attend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services last month to avoid confrontations.
She also skipped the state Democratic convention after the primary because she was concerned about her own safety. Nessel was booed the previous year following her decision to charge pro-Palestinian protesters who participated in an encampment at the University of Michigan, cases she later dismissed.
“There’s all these other things that make me feel unsafe, not just as a Jew, but as an American, as a human,” Nessel told CNN. “The one thing I can say about Abdul I know for sure is that he’s going to stand up to Donald Trump every single time,” she said.
Nessel reached out to El-Sayed as soon as the primary finished, and she said to his credit, he has largely stopped attacking AIPAC, as she urged him to do. She is disturbed by what having him in the Senate may mean for support for Israel and would have liked him to do more outreach, both substantive and symbolic, but that’s not enough to make her consider Rogers.
“There are misses by his team, but for me, I have to live with this decision,” she said.
A speech addressing Jewish concerns El-Sayed floated delivering in a previously unreported meeting with top Jewish political leaders a week after the primary has not yet been planned, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
El-Sayed’s campaign has put out support letters signed by hundreds of Jewish Michiganders, and he told CNN that he continues to tell Jews he meets with, “I am committed to Jewish safety. I am, 100%. I know what it’s like to be discriminated against and targeted for what I believe.”
“We’re not going to agree on Israel,” El-Sayed said. “We’re going to vehemently disagree, but we can disagree agreeably.”
On Saturday morning in Grand Rapids, Mike Rogers marched a mile in the Pulaski Days parade in his standard sleeveless fleece vest with an outline of the state map embroidered as the ‘O’ in his name. An accordion player was two steps behind, squeezing out “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.”
This was a rarer sight than it tends to be, as one man noted sarcastically when he mocked Rogers for having “the balls to show up.”
“Where are your manners, my friend?” Rogers replied.
El-Sayed regularly mocks Rogers for not campaigning in public much. But in an anti-Trump environment, this is a deliberate strategy to be a mostly nondescript alternative to moderates and disaffected Democrats. Rogers ducked CNN questions about if he’d vote to end the war in Iran or to confirm a potential future Trump nominee to the Supreme Court.
Rogers rattles off endorsements from police, firefighters, farmers and other groups he says are the product of the years he spent building relationships in the state. He argues El-Sayed’s alliances with prominent democratic socialists allow his campaign to paint the Democrat as extreme. And his campaign and allies have run ads suggesting El-Sayed, who would be the first Muslim senator if he wins, is soft on terrorism and national security.
Of El-Sayed, Rogers said, “He thinks going on national TV, he thinks by having a televised event, he’s done some work. The real work happens out in the community.”
Rogers said he feels like he’s consolidated state Republicans, but with the state GOP in a years-long tailspin, he is relying on huge spending on his behalf from outside groups already swamping television ads and mailboxes. Before hitting the parade, he was at the one-story brick building that Americans for Prosperity Action is using as its local base.
Billie Rajzer, an adviser to the group, told CNN that compared to the 2024 effort for Rogers, this year they’re much more focused on swing voters, with $20 million helping with an effort to knock on 1 million doors by Election Day, trying to counter the state Democratic Party’s own extensive efforts.
“Once they hear about what we want to accomplish, that’s how we’re getting them to stick with us,” Rogers told CNN. “We just can’t let a guy that’s this extreme, who’s marrying democratic socialist ideas in his campaign. That’s why we’re getting so many Democrats.”
That will include, Rogers predicted, up to 50 percent of the state’s Jewish voters.
Trump’s tax cuts and his “no tax on tips” proposal are popular, Rogers said, as angry as people are about costs at the grocery store and the pump, or the tariffs and the war in Iran. Whether it’s his call for a temporary export ban on diesel or other ideas, Rogers called the relationship he’d have with Trump a selling point.
“Yes, gas prices are high,” Rogers said. “They know I’m doing something about it. They know that I’m going to work with the president to do something about it. And they know I am the only guy that can actually get a meeting to get it fixed.”
Rogers spoke at last month’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas, and he said he’d gladly say yes if the president offered to headline a rally in Michigan — a state Trump carried in two out of his last three very close elections.
“I think the president is really, really popular with a segment of our base here. And so he can come and get those folks whipped up and out to vote, we’d be OK with that,” Rogers said.
On this, Rogers and El-Sayed agree.
“I hope he’ll come here and remind people who he is and what he wants and what he’s done to their lives,” El-Sayed said.
‘I see folk who are sick and tired’
Even all the people Rogers waved to along the parade route in their folding chairs are fewer than El-Sayed tends to draw in a day — sometimes just at a single event.
Saturday afternoon, El-Sayed drew over 400 people who started cheering as soon as he popped his face into the room at a carpenters’ union hall for his first-ever event with Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who herself beat Rogers by just 19,000 votes two years ago.
They were in Macomb County, home of the Reagan Democrats and the Trump Democrats, and where, in Slotkin’s telling, she beat Rogers because “we did only a couple of clicks better here” and in other parts of the state.
After mocking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for chafing from working out in jeans to digging deep on accusing Trump of corruption, El-Sayed left the crowd with a plea to get past the fighting and help him appeal to people who supported the president.
“They want to tell us that Macomb County is red,” El-Sayed said. “I don’t see any red folk here. Frankly, I don’t see any blue folk either.”
“I see folk who are sick and tired of watching the president make light of our plights. I see folks who are sick and tired of having to worry about how they’re going to afford next month’s rent. I see people who are tired of wondering when their union will be dignified. I see some folks who need access to a doctor.”
Afterward, Warren city council vice chair Melody Magee chatted with several other Black women all taking home El-Sayed signs. She supported Stevens in the primary but says her brother-in-law is the only person left she knows who is not on board with the Democratic nominee.
“That’s about the only person I know that’s on the fence,” Magee said.
As he finished lunch at the food truck in Detroit the day before, El-Sayed acknowledged that his confident prediction of a primary blowout hadn’t come through — but that he made it through anyway.
“I didn’t run to be the main character of the midterms,” he said. “I ran to render service for my state. The thing about Donald Trump, though, is he doesn’t understand the source of his power. I do. He was really good at getting attention, and he’s been really good in giving it to me. Keep talking about me, Donald. Please. I hope you will.”