Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate primary, setting up Rogers race

Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic primary for the US Senate, defeating Rep. Haley Stevens after a bitter and expensive race that exposed divisions inside the party. El-Sayed, a former public health official backed by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will face Republican Mike Rogers in November. BBC reported that fewer than 15,000 votes separated El-Sayed and Stevens out of more than 1.5 million ballots counted, a margin of just under 1 percentage point. Stevens had support from Democratic leaders including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, while outside groups spent heavily on her behalf. The race is now a high-stakes test of whether a left-wing Democrat can win statewide in a battleground state.