Abdul El-Sayed, Haley Stevens square of Tuesday in Michigan primary

Michigan Democratic voters head to the polls Tuesday to choose between Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens as their Senate candidate in one of the most closely watched and impactful primary elections of the 2026 midterms.

Stevens, a more moderate Democrat, and El-Sayed, a former public health official who has run an anti-establishment, progressive campaign, are vying for the seat Democratic Sen. Gary Peters will vacate at the end of this Congress. The result could help decide control of the Senate for the next Congress and influence the direction of the Democratic Party in the coming years.

El-Sayed has notched endorsements from progressive heavyweights like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and appears to have the edge according to polling. A win for him would be a massive boon for the left-flank of the Democratic Party, which has recently scored upsets in New York and Colorado.

Michigan is a bellwether state in national elections. President Donald Trump won there by 1.4 percentage points in 2024 after losing to Joe Biden by 2.8 percentage points in 2020. In 2016, Trump won Michigan by less than a third of a percentage point. The results of Tuesday’s Senate primary will provide a window into how voters are feeling nationally two years before the next presidential election.

Stevens’ supporters include Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, both Democratic heavyweights in the state. Stevens’ campaign has told voters she has the best chance to beat former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, in the general election this November. Michigan is seen as a must-win for Democrats if they want to retake a Senate majority. It’s also a crucial seat for Republicans if they are to retain control of the chamber.

“When she got elected to the Congress, she flipped a seat from a Republican to a Democrat. She knows how to beat Republicans” Peters said of Stevens, who came to the House in 2019, at a campaign event on Monday. “We have to win in November. We have to keep Michigan blue. Haley Stevens is the person to do that.”

What started as a three-way race winnowed to two in July when Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who tried to stake out a middle ground between Stevens and El-Sayed, dropped out. 

The contest between El-Sayed and Stevens has been tense at times, as the two candidates split over issues like AI data centers and U.S. foreign policy, especially aid to Israel.

“If you believe like me that rather than fund the genocide perpetrated by a foreign government, we better build schools right here in Grand Rapids, then we better put ourselves in democracy,” El-Sayed said at a recent campaign stop.

Stevens, meanwhile, has cast El-Sayed as an extremist and as the GOP’s preferred candidate this November.

“You see the Republicans, they’re propping up my Democratic opponent. The Republican in this race, he said … my opponent is going to make it easier for him to win. Well, I don’t plan on making anything easier for these guys,” Stevens said on MS NOW.

The Michigan primary comes as Republicans, including Trump, are increasingly calling their Democratic adversaries communists and raising alarms about the extreme policies of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Neither Stevens nor El-Sayed are members of DSA. El-Sayed, while running to the left of Stevens, rejects the socialist label. Still, Trump in the Oval Office on Monday characterized the race as a battle between far-left ideologies.

“Well, you have a very interesting group. Who I’m really voting for is Mike Rogers, because I think he’s going to be a great senator,” Trump told reporters after being asked who he is voting for in Michigan, a state where he doesn’t vote. “You have a communist versus a socialist. That’s the way I look at it … it looks like the communist is leading. We’re talking about the Democrat primary. But for the Republican you have a very good man, and he should be able to win.”