A nearly full DeVos Performance Hall in Grand Rapids erupted Sunday night as Abdul El-Sayed and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told the crowd the Michigan Senate race was shaping up as a direct referendum on President Donald Trump. The hall, which holds about 2,500 people, was packed for the pair's joint appearance just over a week before Michigan voters head to the polls on Nov. 3.
El-Sayed used the stage to frame the contest against Republican rival Mike Rogers in the starkest possible terms. “Everybody ought to vote like Donald Trump is on the ballot,” he told the crowd, according to the Detroit News, adding that “a vote for Mike Rogers is a vote for the Donald Trump agenda.” It was a direct appeal to tie his opponent's candidacy to a president whose approval rating in the state has slipped.
Sanders, for his part, cast El-Sayed as exactly the kind of candidate he has spent his career championing. “You're going to be bringing somebody who is a fighter,” Sanders said of El-Sayed, according to the same report, framing him as a check against corporate influence and a voice for working-class Michiganders.
Sanders Pushes AI Moratorium and Wealth Tax
Beyond the attacks on Trump, Sanders used the Grand Rapids stage to lay out a broader progressive wish list. He called for a ban on superintelligence and a moratorium on the construction of data centers, arguing artificial-intelligence development has outpaced oversight. He also pushed for a wealth tax on billionaires, more affordable housing, Medicare for all and a higher minimum wage, according to the Detroit News account of the rally.
The policy pitch arrived as Michigan voters report real financial strain. Forty-three percent of likely voters said their personal family finances had gotten worse over the past year, according to a Marist Poll conducted in mid-October. That same survey found El-Sayed narrowly ahead of Rogers, 50% to 48%, among likely voters — a margin tight enough that a majority of those surveyed, 51%, still predicted El-Sayed would ultimately win.
A Race Watched Well Beyond Michigan
The stakes extend far past Grand Rapids. Michigan's Senate race between El-Sayed and Rogers is among a handful of contests that could determine control of the chamber, as PBS NewsHour has reported. If elected, El-Sayed would become the nation's first Muslim senator — a historic marker that has also made him a target of attacks over his religious identity. The Marist survey also showed Michigan voters favoring Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by 52% to 46% on the generic ballot, with Trump's statewide approval sitting at just 42% against 57% disapproval.
The Grand Rapids rally landed in the middle of a whirlwind stretch of marquee visits to the state. It came a day after former President Barack Obama rallied Democratic voters in Detroit, according to the Detroit News, an appearance NBC News reported was aimed partly at shoring up El-Sayed's standing with Black voters. A recent YouGov survey cited by NBC News found El-Sayed leading Rogers 84% to 11% among Black voters, a dramatically wider margin than a Fox News poll from late September that put Rogers' support among that group at 22%.
Trump's Port Huron Visit and a Combative Debate
Trump himself was also crisscrossing the state. He rallied in Port Huron in support of Michigan's Republican candidates, including Rogers, with NBC News reporting that the president embraced Islamophobic rhetoric during that appearance. The dueling rallies followed an already combative stretch of the campaign; El-Sayed and Rogers clashed in a Grand Rapids debate over the war in Iran, gas prices and tariffs, according to NBC News.
Money has poured into the race alongside the rhetoric. United Democracy Project, a super PAC tied to AIPAC, reported spending $95,000 on mailers opposing El-Sayed, NBC News reported — a relatively modest figure next to the $33 million the group spent opposing him and backing Rep. Haley Stevens during the Democratic primary. The New York Times has reported that Sanders transferred $1 million to El-Sayed's campaign after learning AIPAC-aligned groups were preparing to spend as much as $9 million to defeat him, a move that underscored how high Sanders sees the stakes in Grand Rapids and beyond.
With Election Day on Nov. 3 fast approaching, both parties are betting heavily on star power to move undecided voters in a race that polling shows remains genuinely close. For El-Sayed and Sanders, Sunday's full house in Grand Rapids was meant to be a show of momentum heading into the campaign's final days.
