Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers are vying to represent Michigan in the Senate. Here’s what they say.

Control of the U.S. Senate after Tuesday’s midterm elections could return to Michigan, where a close and controversial battle is being played out between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers.

The test for Rogers, 63, is whether a Republican can win in the shadow of inflation, war and President Trump. negative approval ratings. The test for El-Sayed, 42, is whether the ideas that excite the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are what Middle America wants right now.

Who is Abdul El-Sayed and what is he campaigning on?

El–Sayed is the son of Egyptian immigrants. After a Rhodes Scholarship and medical degree from Columbia University, El-Sayed went straight into public health administration and then politics.

He won Michigan State Democratic primary against a more centrist rival by a margin of less than one percentage point. El-Sayed now has ambitions not only to beat his Republican rival Mike Rogers, but also to remake the Democratic Party. He advocates for transformation: breaking up monopolies, adopting “Medicare for all” and an arms embargo against Israel.

El-Sayed is often associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, but he is not a member and keeps his distance from the label. He describes himself as a capitalist, but one willing to take on monopolies and oligopolies, that is, producers who either have exclusive control over a particular market or a market situation in which a handful of producers can have an outsized effect.

“I’m a capitalist who understands the idea that you should have guaranteed health care in the country. Anyone who tells you it’s anti-capitalist doesn’t really understand how capitalism works,” El-Sayed said.

He promises a version of Medicare for All that he says would leave private health insurance options intact. El-Sayed would finance it, in part, with a drastic tax on the wealth of billionaires.

However, on the ground, he says that health is no longer voters’ primary concern. El-Sayed says the most important topic sparking concerns among voters is artificial intelligence.

“One of them is students saying, ‘So I just took out a $60,000 loan and the job that I was ultimately supposed to have doesn’t exist anymore or maybe won’t exist in 10 years,'” El-Sayed said. “Or it’s people in rural communities who say, ‘They’re trying to put a data center in my garden. I already can’t afford my utilities and I’m worried about what this will mean for our water.'”

El-Sayed wants a cabinet-level agency to regulate AI and a “complete pause” on cutting-edge AI research that some say threatens the human race.

Who is Mike Rogers and what is he campaigning on?

Even though El-Sayed sometimes looks like a presidential candidate, Rogers tries to keep things local.

“This is a game-changing election in Michigan,” he said, referring to the fact that Michigan has not elected a Republican senator in decades. “That’s why I don’t really care what’s going on in the country. I have to fix Michigan.”

In a populist age, Rogers may seem like a backward Republican. His agenda sometimes channels the “compassionate conservative” rhetoric of former President George W. Bush.

Rogers is a former Army officer and FBI agent. He is also a former member of Congress. Rogers left the House of Representatives in 2015 after 14 years, shortly before the start of the first Trump administration.

The candidate said he wants to focus on literacy, an issue he said has caught his attention during the pandemic.

“Patriotism runs deep in our family. One of the main reasons they failed to recruit during COVID and elsewhere was because kids weren’t reading well enough to pass the test in America in 2026,” Rogers said. “If we don’t change this, we will all be in trouble.”

Rogers spent time during his campaign primarily visiting Black neighborhoods that rarely see a Republican candidate attempt to persuade African-American voters that El-Sayed takes them for granted.

At a rally of supporters, Rogers called out El-Sayed for campaigning with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“He went to New York with AOC to talk about how they’re going to change the world in 2028. You know what I want to do? I want to take care of Flint,” Rogers said at the event. “I want to take care of all Michiganders who have children and grandchildren who want to stay in this state.”

The candidates and Trump

One of El-Sayed’s attacks is that a vote for Rogers is effectively a vote for Mr. Trump. The president’s trade wars, including tariffs on Canada — Michigan’s neighbor and trading partner — have cost the state about $23 billion since January 2025, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

Rogers said he didn’t like the tariffs and had raised his concerns with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He said Lutnick told him, “I’ll get back to you.”

When asked by 60 Minutes why other Republican senators couldn’t resolve the tariff issues when there was a Republican majority in the Senate, Rogers replied, “Well, you need one more Republican senator. That’s the way to do it.”

Ultimately, Rogers said he would support efforts to circumvent the president on tariffs.

On another domestic issue, Rogers had supported Mr. Trump’s unpopular war on Iran but said in September that she must end it.

Rogers, a former FBI agent who worked on organized crime and public corruption cases, chooses his words carefully when asked if the Trump administration has a corruption problem.

“I’m going to act as a U.S. senator in the best interests of Michigan. I can tell you that right now,” Rogers said, adding, “I’ll take the facts as I see them and make a decision based on that.”

He also said he would not have accepted a plane from a Middle Eastern country as Mr. Trump did, but “I don’t think it’s illegal for the president to do that.”

It’s a delicate relationship. Mr. Trump needs Rogers to reverse the siege. Rogers needs the president to mobilize the party base.

They campaign together in Port Huron, Michigan, last week, where Mr. Trump took aim at El-Sayed.

“I’m here to guard a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member to become a United States senator,” Mr. Trump said at the campaign event.

El-Sayed says Trump is targeting his faith

The president was talking about an Islamist movement whose ramifications in certain countries have recently been designated as a terrorist group by the United States

Rogers also accused El-Sayed of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, citing a 2012 letter that El-Sayed signed after the Arab Spring in support of Egypt’s new democratically elected government, supported by the Muslim Brotherhood.

El-Sayed declined to comment on the letter, but said he disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood. He maintains that the Republicans are aiming at his Islamic faith.

El-Sayed’s faith is important to him and has helped shape his politics.

“There’s this idea of ​​telling the truth, even if it’s against yourself. And I try to be radically honest,” he said.

Middle East plays leading role in Michigan race

In a state with one of the largest Arab-American populations in the country – and about 100,000 Jewish voters – the Middle East is a territory where national and local elements of campaigns converge.

El-Sayed has spoken out against US support for Israel.

“First, we have been told that we are seeking a two-state solution, only to aid, arm and abet the very people who are trying to exclude the possibility of a second state. So that is inconsistent in itself. Second, I don’t know about you, but I don’t pay my taxes to buy a bomb or a tank from another country. It’s Israel. It’s Egypt. It’s Saudi Arabia. It’s Pakistan,” said El-Sayed. “Third, the State of Israel has committed genocide.”

Following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, El-Sayed frequently accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. It is an accusation that Israel denies. Rogers strongly objects to such claims.

“His language is wrong,” Rogers said of El-Sayed using the word genocide.

“I passionately defend Israel’s right to defend itself and exist as a Jewish state. This immediately puts me at odds with my opponent. He refuses to even recognize that Israel has a right to exist,” Rogers said.

According to El-Sayed, Palestine has the right to exist, as does Israel “if there is a common understanding.”

“I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinians and Israeli Jews. If the Palestinian people decide and the Israeli people decide that they want two states for two people, and they decide that on an equal footing, I am for it,” El-Sayed said. “If they decide they want a state to be divided up in a different way, I’m all for it.”

Closer to home, El-Sayed condemned the violence last March after the terrorist attack attack on Michigan synagogue and preschool. But he also added that “hurt people, hurt people,” seeming to place the blame on Israel. El-Sayed later apologized.

Rogers said his opponent’s rhetoric fueled an atmosphere of anti-Semitism and questioned whether El-Sayed wanted to represent Palestine or Michigan.

In a close election, Rogers’ campaign hopes that Jews in Michigan, typically a reliably Democratic constituency, could be one of the keys to victory.

El-Sayed emphasized commonalities with Jewish voters, saying: “No matter where we disagree when it comes to Israel, there are many other things we agree on here. When it comes to standing up for American Jews, I will be there. »

In a surprising twist, Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated in the Democratic primary on Sunday, two days before the election, Rogers approved in the Senate, due to his disagreement with El-Sayed on Israeli policy.

Regardless of the outcome of the Jewish vote, the state’s more than 200,000 Arab Americans are expected to vote for El-Sayed in record numbers. If El-Sayed wins, he will become the country’s first Muslim senator.

El-Sayed and Rogers: what to expect if they win

Both candidates were asked what could be most different in American politics if they win.

“The ability to run a campaign and make large amounts of money by engaging with people. Having a conversation about who we are and who we want to be,” El-Sayed said.

Rogers said, “Well, I’m not sure about American politics, but I’m definitely going to change Michigan politics. Because you’ll have someone who will stand up for the state of Michigan.”