Abdul El-Sayed has just three months to convince a fractured Democratic Party to unite behind him after a nasty primary.<\/p>\n

Even before his narrow win over moderate Rep. Haley Stevens became official Wednesday<\/a>, El-Sayed had begun the difficult process of trying to patch things up with a moderate wing of the party he\u2019d spent months flaying as corporatist stooges as Republicans launched their first wave of attacks of the general election. He says he looks forward to \u201cbuilding relationships\u201d with Jewish voters. And some top Democrats in Michigan and Washington alike are largely filing behind him in a show of unity ahead of November\u2019s high-stakes election.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo all of our supporters here tonight, watching on TV, tomorrow we begin to mend fences,\u201d El-Sayed told a crowd of supporters early Wednesday before the race was called, asking them to show \u201cmagnanimity in victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to move forward and start bringing this party together,\u201d El-Sayed reiterated on MS NOW\u2019s Morning Joe hours later.<\/p>\n

And, in a speech formalizing his victory after it was called at 10 a.m. Eastern, he said: \u201cWhatever differences that we might have had in the primary, they pale in comparison to what unifies us.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed has little time to force a reconciliation before he faces off against Mike Rogers, a Donald Trump-endorsed former representative with the backing of Washington\u2019s GOP Senate apparatus. Michigan is one of the nation\u2019s top battlegrounds, a state Trump has won twice but where Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin narrowly defeated Rogers in 2024.<\/p>\n

Early voting begins in five weeks.<\/p>\n

Already prominent Michigan Democrats like Slotkin and Rep. Debbie Dingell are working to consolidate support behind El-Sayed, showing efforts from both the moderate and progressive flanks after a bitter primary that put tensions over Israel and campaign finance in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have to unite,\u201d Dingell said in an interview. \u201cAbdul\u2019s got to figure out how he’s going to bring people that were part of Haley’s coalition and have them know that he cares about the values that they have, which I know he does, but he’s got to talk to them. This coalition has got to be a very broad coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan Democrats plan to hold their so-called post-primary \u201cunity breakfast\u201d Thursday morning in Southfield, where they will rally behind party nominees. The contest was separated by less than a percentage point when the AP called the race Wednesday morning. Stevens immediately conceded and called for unity. And state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped her U.S. Senate bid a month before the primary, had already endorsed El-Sayed, saying she wanted to enter<\/a> November \u201cas a unified party\u201d after \u201ca brutal primary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must elect Democrats up and down the ballot,\u201d Stevens said in a statement<\/a> Wednesday, promising her support to El-Sayed after calling her primary with him \u201ca thorough and rigorous campaign that brought out the full span of views within the Democratic Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

The primary was animated by charges of sexism, racism and religious bigotry. Splits over Israel played prominently in the race: El-Sayed attacked Stevens incessantly for relying on outside spending from groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent a record $32 million on her behalf. In the race\u2019s final days, Stevens and her allies accused El-Sayed of antisemitism<\/a> and sexism<\/a>, and El-Sayed\u2019s allies accused Stevens of Islamophobia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Outgoing Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who had endorsed Stevens, said he spoke with El-Sayed Wednesday morning and congratulated him. He said he will \u201cwork hard to make sure\u201d Democrats coalesce behind El-Sayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe party has to all come together right now,\u201d he told Blue Light News. \u201cWe don’t have a lot of time, but everybody has to come together and understand that as Democrats, whatever differences we have between us as Democrats are minor compared to the differences between our Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans are already plastering the airwaves with their preferred attack: Painting El-Sayed as \u201cradical\u201d and \u201cdangerous\u201d while emphasizing the full name of the American-born son of Egyptian immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, the most radical Senate candidate in America,\u201d a new National Republican Senatorial Committee ad says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbdul El-Sayed: Dangerously radical,\u201d says a new<\/a> Senate Leadership Fund ad.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> Wednesday morning, Rogers called El-Sayed an “extremist\u201d who \u201ccampaigns with people who refuse to condemn terrorism\u201d \u2014 likely a reference to comments made by his ally, far-left streamer Hasan Piker<\/a>, which Piker has since said he regretted. \u201cI spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice,\u201d said Rogers, a former FBI special agent. \u201cNever in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cullen Schwarz, a longtime Democratic strategist in Michigan, said Democrats need to portray Rogers as the extreme one if they\u2019re going to emerge victorious in the must-win Senate race.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Democrats move forward, I hope we remember that in politics, the real battle is over moving the Overton window,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Republicans are going to try to paint progressives across the country as extreme. It’s extreme to support Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that is the frame, Schwarz said, he doesn\u2019t think Democrats will have any issues reunifying. \u201cDemocrats will immediately remember the fight we’re facing in the fall,\u201d he said. \u201cThere’s been no force more unifying for Democrats than Donald Trump,\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed could have the most work to do in rural, working-class areas and among Black voters. He won just 34 percent of the vote in Detroit, according to unofficial returns. And Stevens won a majority of votes across counties where less than 30 percent of adults have a college degree, according to a POLITICO<\/a> analysis.<\/p>\n

Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said Democrats \u2014 from Michigan to Washington \u2014 need to line up behind El-Sayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, the Democratic establishment needs to very quickly consolidate around him \u2014 all of them,\u201d said Duss, executive vice president at Center for International Policy. \u201cIf they believe what they say about needing to take Michigan for Democrats in the Senate, they can show us by getting all in behind El-Sayed right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed\u2019s emergence from the contentious primary \u2014 which saw record levels of outside spending in one of the nation\u2019s key battlegrounds \u2014 will require some Washington Democrats who previously kept him at arm\u2019s length to now embrace him. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). said he preferred Stevens<\/a> in the primary, but he released a statement Wednesday saying he and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand \u201clook forward to working with Abdul and Democrats across Michigan to win this seat in November.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the narrow result is forcing progressives who had been expecting a dominant, double-digit victory to recalibrate their expectations as their attention shifts to the general.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough result for Democrats,\u201d said Adrian Hemond, founder of a Michigan-based bipartisan advocacy and outreach firm. \u201cThe promised populist wave was a dud\u2026 If you think the primary was nasty, just wait until next week. General election voters are less college educated and less ideological, so they have to find a way to sell ideology to normal people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica Piper, Adam Wren, Ali Bianco and Mia McCarthy contributed reporting.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abdul El-Sayed has just three months to convince a fractured Democratic Party to unite behind him after a nasty primary. Even before his narrow win over moderate Rep. Haley Stevens became official Wednesday, El-Sayed had begun the difficult process of trying to patch things up with a moderate wing of the party he\u2019d spent months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26760","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=26760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}