Washington sees this Senate race as a key test for Democrats. Michigan voters just want to get by

Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed, who are running for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan. Photograph: Getty Images View image in fullscreen Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed, who are running for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan. Photograph: Getty Images Washington sees this Senate race as a key test for Democrats. Michigan voters just want to get by Daily realities of healthcare, prices and Gaza driving wave of anti-establishment sentiment among Democratic voters in closely watched contest In Macomb county, Michigan – a blue-collar Detroit suburb that twice voted for Barack Obama before backing each of Donald Trump’s three runs for the US presidency – residents are exhausted. Time and again, township trustee Shannon King, a Democrat still making up his mind, hears similar complaints. “You’re going backwards in your paycheck. You’re going backwards in your healthcare,” he said. “You go to work every day. You might have a side hustle. Your significant other has a side hustle, too. And you’re still struggling to do childcare.” These are the realities faced by Michiganders as the Democratic party chooses its candidate for the US Senate contest in the state, one of the most closely followed races in November’s midterm elections. Ask around some of the key battlegrounds – like Lansing, Macomb county, Dearborn and Grand Rapids – and it’s clear residents aren’t following the daily beats of the primary. They don’t much want to. What they want to talk about is healthcare, rent, their parents’ social security checks, the devastation in Gaza and their cousins in Beirut, and whether anyone in office is going to do something about all this before it’s too late. View image in fullscreen Michigan US Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, greets volunteers at a canvassing event at Riverside Park on 7 July 2026 in Grand Rapids. Photograph: Kristen Norman/AP In Washington, though, this same election is being discussed as something else entirely: a proxy war over what the Democratic party is supposed to be after its devastating defeat in 2024. Cable panels and social media personalities have debated whether Abdul El-Sayed’s rise is a Mamdani-style insurgency while establishment energy has curdled against him, or whether Haley Stevens is the safe and “electable” pick. Three candidates had been vying for the Democratic nomination ahead of August’s primary in Michigan, until this weekend. Mallory McMorrow, who had tried to chart a course between her leftwing and moderate rivals, dropped out on Sunday. Spending has flooded the airwaves: at least five groups have poured more than $34m into boosting Stevens, led by Aipac’s United Democracy Project Super Pac, which alone has spent roughly $20m. Stevens’s ads have focused on her record working with Barack Obama’s bid to rescue the automotive industry, while El-Sayed launched his own TV ads in mid-June, leaning on his Michigan upbringing and his relationship with the influential progressive senator Bernie San