Abdul El-Sayed Wins Michigan Senate Primary, Delivering Progressives a Major Battleground Victory

Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official, narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, delivering the party’s insurgent progressive wing a major victory in a contest that became a fierce referendum on whether Democrats need to move further left to fully harness plummeting support for President Donald Trump.The Associated Press called the race early Wednesday for El-Sayed, ending one of the midterm’s most expensive and bitter primary races. With 99% of the votes counted, El-Sayed was leading by about 15,000 votes, out of nearly 1.5 million votes cast. Michigan is widely viewed as critical to Democrats’ effort to regain control of the chamber, and some party leaders and strategists view El-Sayed as less competitive against Mike Rogers, the former congressman who ran unopposed in the Republican primary.The race between El-Sayed, 41, and Stevens, 43, had become a proxy fight over the Democratic Party’s future. El-Sayed, a non-practicing doctor who previously ran for governor, built his campaign around a sweeping progressive agenda, calling for Medicare for All, a 7% annual tax on the wealth of billionaires, and a broader effort to challenge what ...