With six days left before the November 3 midterms, the Michigan U.S. Senate race between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican nominee Mike Rogers remains a dead heat. Early voting is already underway across the state.
As the campaign enters its final stretch, El-Sayed has focused part of his schedule on outreach to Black voters, including an extended visit to a Black barbershop where he discussed his support for Medicare for All.
Former President Barack Obama campaigned for El-Sayed in Michigan the previous Saturday, but public commentary around the visit has focused as much on unrelated details, including a stop at The Cheesecake Factory and Obama’s presidential library, as on the Senate race itself.
El-Sayed has also been citing a Fox News appearance on Jesse Watters’ program in which he defended his record on reparations. In that interview, Watters asked, “Did I hear you say a tacit support for reparations?” El-Sayed replied, “Oh, I’m not tacit, I’ve been very clear about this…I literally went on Jesse Watters and defended reparations.”
Reaction from Black Michigan voters has been mixed. In a panel discussion aired on MS NOW, one Black Michigan voter pushed back directly on the assumption that her vote is automatic: “Black people are Democrats, and he thinks we’re just gonna vote for him anyway. And I’m like, ‘No, sir, I’m uncommitted.'”
Charles E. Williams, Michigan director of the National Action Network, went further in a video obtained by The Midwesterner, accusing El-Sayed of “selling snake oil” over his Medicare for All and money-out-of-politics proposals. “You know you realistically can’t get it done,” Williams said.
Meanwhile, Rogers has been campaigning directly in Detroit, Flint, and Pontiac — three majority-Black Michigan communities — and has picked up endorsements from Black Detroit leaders in recent days.
With the race deadlocked and early voting already underway, how undecided and uncommitted Black voters in these cities break in the final days could prove decisive in determining who wins the seat.
