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

Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic primary for US Senate, defeating Rep. Haley Stevens after a bitter and expensive contest that highlighted the party’s divide between progressives and establishment leaders. 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 the margin was under 15,000 votes, or just below 1 percentage point, with more than 1.5 million ballots counted late Wednesday morning. Stevens had support from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, while outside groups spent heavily on her behalf. The Michigan race is now a high-stakes test of whether an unabashedly left-wing Democrat can win statewide in a battleground state.