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{"id":25197,"date":"2026-07-02T13:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/aoc-endorses-el-sayed-in-michigan-senate-race\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T13:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:02:19","slug":"aoc-endorses-el-sayed-in-michigan-senate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/aoc-endorses-el-sayed-in-michigan-senate-race\/","title":{"rendered":"AOC endorses El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsed Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s campaign for Michigan\u2019s open Senate seat on Thursday, a decision that comes as progressives look to capitalize off a series of recent high-profile primary victories in New York, Colorado and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Her endorsement could provide El-Sayed with a critical boost just over a month before the state\u2019s Aug. 4 primary. The former public health official is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2026\/06\/27\/michigan-senate-democratic-primary-mackinac-island-00969506\" target=\"_blank\">locked in a heated contest<\/a> against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow for the right to take on Republican Mike Rogers in the general election.<\/p>\n<p>It also comes as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/polls\/michigan-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html\" target=\"_blank\">El-Sayed has risen to the top of the pack<\/a> in recent public polling.<\/p>\n<p>Virtually any Democratic path to flipping the Senate in this year\u2019s midterms would see the party hold the open Michigan Senate seat, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/01\/28\/gary-peters-not-running-for-reelection-in-battleground-michigan-00200925\" target=\"_blank\">two-term Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) retiring<\/a> at the end of his term.<\/p>\n<p>The race has emerged as perhaps the largest battleground over the ideological future of the party. El-Sayed, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018, has collected endorsements from progressives, while Stevens has the tacit backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, with AIPAC also boosting her candidacy.<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/07\/02\/us\/politics\/ocasio-cortez-endorses-abdul-el-sayed-in-crucial-michigan-senate-race.html\" target=\"_blank\">said in an interview with The New York Times<\/a>, is her party\u2019s best chance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite our ideological differences and whatever disagreements there are in the party, every single one of us sees this moment as existential,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think many people are willing to put aside differences in order to give us the best chance at winning. And I think that Abdul gives us that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsed Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s campaign for Michigan\u2019s open Senate seat on Thursday, a decision that comes as progressives look to capitalize off a series of recent high-profile primary victories in New York, Colorado and elsewhere. Her endorsement could provide El-Sayed with a critical boost just over a month before the state\u2019s Aug. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}