Former Vice President Kamala Harris headed to Michigan on Tuesday to campaign alongside U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
In 42 days, El-Sayed will face Republican Mike Rogers in the Nov. 3 general election, though Michigan voters can begin receiving absentee ballots Thursday.
The race is considered one of the most-important U.S. Senate races in the nation and millions of dollars are pouring into it from both sides of the aisle.
Harris, who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024 and lost the race to President Donald Trump, will appear at events in Detroit, including a black maternal health roundtable with El-Sayed.
El-Sayed said Tuesday that the visit is part of an effort to unify Democrats across the state.
“We’re building an electoral coalition here,” the 41-year-old said.
Of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate, 33 are up for regular election in 2026, along with two special elections. Democrats currently hold 13 of the seats on the ballot, while Republicans hold 22. That means this election cycle will determine which party controls the 120th Congress. Michigan, as a battleground state, will be on the frontlines of that decision.
In 2024, Michigan’s U.S. Senate race was decided by less than half a percentage point, with U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin narrowly defeating Rogers.
Rogers has received the endorsement of Trump, while recent polling shows El-Sayed leading Rogers 47.2% to 44.2%. That is according to the average of the five most recent polls compiled by 270toWin.
The polling marks a shift from before the primary, when Rogers held the advantage over El-Sayed. The gap has also widened in El-Sayed’s favor in recent polling since the Aug. 4 primary.
Rogers said El-Sayed must be getting “desperate” to bring in Harris.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he posted to social media on Tuesday. “Conman Abdul is so desperate he’s bringing Kamala Harris to Michigan to save his campaign – after leading the Uncommitted Movement against her in 2024.”
The Uncommitted movement was a 2024 Democratic primary campaign that urged voters to vote “uncommitted” to protest President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
El-Sayed brushed off media questions about potential disagreements with Harris, stating “My disagreements with the then-vice president’s commitments are clear.”
Harris’ appearance in Michigan also comes as Democrats were divided during the primary between El-Sayed and establishment-backed U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens. El-Sayed, who is seeking to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, narrowly won that race and has since turned his attention to the general election.
El-Sayed has cast himself as a progressive and the candidate taking on “AIPAC and the establishment.” The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying organization, spent millions backing Stevens’ campaign in the primary.
A coalition of Michigan Jewish leaders, who call themselves Nonnegotiable Michigan, has been seeking El-Sayed’s acceptance to five commitments addressing what the statewide campaign calls “baseline commitments” for Jewish “communal needs.”
That group sent Harris a letter calling on her to encourage El-Sayed to directly address its concerns.
“When you stand beside Dr. El-Sayed on September 22nd, we urge you to call on him to say what he has thus far been unwilling to say: that Jewish safety, including for Zionists, is nonnegotiable,” the letter said. “That our right to define our own identity is nonnegotiable. That Jewish statehood and self-determination in our ancestral homeland is nonnegotiable.”
