A Marist poll conducted October 15-18 shows Democrat Abdul El-Sayed leading Republican Mike Rogers 50% to 48% among likely voters in Michigan’s open U.S. Senate race, a margin inside the survey’s 4.3-point error range. The race, for the seat long held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters, has drawn national attention as one of the few Senate contests where Republicans see a genuine pickup opportunity in a state Democrats have carried in six of the last eight presidential elections.
El-Sayed’s Path From Health Director to Senate Nominee
El-Sayed, a physician who previously served as Michigan’s state health director and ran an unsuccessful 2018 campaign for governor, built his Senate bid around a populist message on prescription drug prices and health care access, issues he has framed through his own background overseeing the state’s pandemic response. He emerged from a competitive Democratic primary by consolidating support from the party’s progressive wing while also courting labor unions concentrated in Michigan’s auto manufacturing counties.
Rogers’s Second Attempt at the Seat
Rogers, a former FBI agent and ten-term congressman who chaired the House Intelligence Committee before retiring from Congress in 2015, is making his second consecutive bid for a Michigan Senate seat after narrowly losing to Elissa Slotkin in 2024 by fewer than 20,000 votes. That near-miss convinced national Republicans to back him again, betting his law enforcement background and relative moderation would finally break through in a state where the GOP has not won a Senate race since 1994.
Why Pollsters Disagree on the Margin
Other recent surveys have shown a wider range of outcomes than the Marist poll’s two-point gap: an InsiderAdvantage poll released October 11 had El-Sayed up 48% to 46%, while a CBS Detroit/Mitchell Research survey from early October showed a larger five-point lead, 46% to 41%. The variation largely traces to how each pollster models turnout among independents, a group Marist found breaking for El-Sayed by six points, 50% to 44%, a margin Republican pollsters consider too generous to Democrats given Michigan’s recent trend toward narrower statewide margins.
The Issues Driving the Race
Rogers has centered his campaign on public safety and border security, arguing his FBI background gives him credibility Democrats cannot match, while attacking El-Sayed’s record on state health policy during the pandemic. El-Sayed has countered by tying Rogers to unpopular national Republican positions on abortion access and health care, an argument Democrats have used effectively in Michigan since the 2022 referendum that enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution.
Michigan’s Broader Ballot
The Senate race shares the ballot with a more lopsided governor’s contest, where Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson leads Republican John James 51% to 45% in the same Marist survey, a gap that could help down-ballot Democrats if it holds. Strategists in both parties say turnout in Detroit’s suburbs and the Grand Rapids media market will likely decide both races, given how closely they track each other in recent Michigan elections.
What’s Next
With Michigan’s absentee ballots already being returned at a pace ahead of the 2022 midterm, both campaigns are concentrating their final advertising spending on Wayne, Oakland and Kent counties. National Republican groups have signaled they will keep investing in the race through Election Day, viewing it as their clearest remaining pickup chance even as polling continues to show El-Sayed with a narrow, persistent edge.
Photo: whockman / PIXABAY via Pixabay
