El-Sayed Says He Spoke With Obama, Hopes He'll Campaign
Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee said his Friday call with the former president was "really warm and inspiring" as the party works to close ranks after a bitter primary.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, said Sunday that he has spoken with former President Barack Obama and hopes Obama will campaign with him as the party tries to unite after a bitter primary that exposed deep rifts between its progressive and moderate wings.
El-Sayed said the Friday conversation was "really warm and inspiring," but did not provide details.
"I was grateful for his advice. It was very warm, very inviting, and I know that he knows the critical role that Michigan is going to play," El-Sayed told NBC's "Meet the Press."
Asked whether he would like Obama to come to Michigan to drum up support for Democrats before the November midterm elections, El-Sayed said he "really" hoped so, adding that Obama "knows a lot about winning Michigan" after carrying the state in the 2008 and 2012 presidential races. An Obama spokesperson confirmed the call.
The conversation came the same day that a group of Michigan nominees and other prominent national Democrats tried to present a united front at a rally in Detroit. The crowd cheered loudest for El-Sayed, a former public health official who narrowly defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens last week in a contentious and closely watched primary. A Democratic victory in the fall is crucial to the party's chances of regaining a Senate majority.
Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is not seeking reelection in the perennial swing state, which Republican Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024 and Democrat Joe Biden carried in 2020.
El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman who narrowly lost the 2024 Senate race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin and has tried to capitalize on lingering tensions inside the Democratic Party. Rogers has released a video message aimed at Democrats who believe their party is moving too far to the left with El-Sayed. "You have a home with us," Rogers says in the video.
In an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," El-Sayed acknowledged that "we aired our differences" during the heated primary, but said the internal divisions are "so much smaller than the similarities that we share."
"You're seeing folks come together," he said, adding of moderate Democrats: "We might see the world differently. But we also recognize the responsibility to come together."
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), in accordance with our editorial policy.
