Abdul El-Sayed is certain he’ll win Michigan’s Senate race. Some key Democrats quietly aren’t so sure

Abdul El-Sayed predicts that he will win the Michigan Senate race by 7 points.

That attitude, as he expressed to CNN last Friday, and the approach stemming from it is why leading state Democrats privately worry he won’t win at all.

“Michiganders understand the stakes of this election,” said one prominent state Democrat who’s been trying to help. “They want to vote for Democrats and just need to be given a reason to — and not a reason not to.”

Ahead of Thursday night’s sole debate, the Michigan Senate race has remained a nail-biter even as President Donald Trump is deeply unpopular due to the war in Iran and the impact of his tariffs in this northern border state. That’s even as Democrats are threatening to flip Senate seats in far more conservative states like Kansas, Iowa and Texas.

El-Sayed’s defiant approach amid a barrage of outside spending and national party doubts helped him defeat Rep. Haley Stevens – albeit by 1 point and not the double-digit margin he had predicted to CNN beforehand. But in conversations with El-Sayed, Republican nominee Mike Rogers, and party leaders across the state, it’s clear that some people in key Democratic constituencies that sided with Stevens are still not bought into El-Sayed’s campaign with one month to go.

Black and Jewish leaders are warning that they and many in their communities need more outreach. Multiple people relayed to CNN conversations they’ve had with El-Sayed in which he’s asked for their support but also noted that he can make up the votes he loses in their communities elsewhere.

“This election is not over until Election Day,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, who stayed neutral in the primary but has been a prime El-Sayed booster since he won and whom his campaign pointed to as a key supporter. “We’ve got to work every single demographic and not take anything for granted.”

Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

One Black leader in Detroit who asked not to be named told CNN about a conversation with El-Sayed which left a feeling, in his words, of “they believe they don’t necessarily need to work as hard to get the Black vote.” He never received an invitation he was promised by El-Sayed to join a roundtable with the candidate.

That was enough for the leader to take a meeting with aides to Rogers – but not without some guilt.

“I felt so bad, I texted him,” the leader said of El-Sayed. “But I didn’t hear back. So, f**k him.”

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor supported Stevens in the primary. Schor says his Jewish heritage also leaves him uncomfortable with some of what he’s heard from El-Sayed, a longtime critic of Israel who has referred to its war in Gaza as a genocide and declined to say the country should exist as a Jewish state.

Schor said he won’t vote for Rogers but also won’t back El-Sayed – at least until they have a conversation. He hasn’t heard from El-Sayed yet.

“If he doesn’t need me, he doesn’t need me,” Schor said. “And that’s their strategic decision.”

El-Sayed’s campaign didn’t respond when asked about the roundtable invitation or scheduling the meeting with Schor. But speaking to CNN, he defended his outreach to groups that still have questions about him.

“Every community that I’ve met with, I’ve said, ‘Leading for and with your community is a concern and a key consideration for me,’” he said. “I could spend all of my time with any one community and it probably wouldn’t be enough. And that’s perfectly fair. People deserve a US senator who’s going to show up and listen, but I’ve showed up and listened.”

El-Sayed arrived for lunch at the Detroit 75 Kitchen food truck, ordering a spicy chicken shawarma, double meat. He exchanged bro hugs with all of the men and took photos. He asked the name of the man taking his order – Musa – and noted that he had a nephew with the same name.

Excited employees sent over a free order of cheesesteak egg rolls, then a large container of garlic-cilantro fries. Musa came over for a photo. Then one of his co-workers followed.

El-Sayed has captured national attention with his appeals to enact Medicare for All and target money in politics. His criticisms of Israel are in line with an increasingly anti-Israel party base. On Monday, he was in New York City for a fundraiser with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, hours after announcing Barack Obama would campaign with him in Michigan later in October.

“I’m not the Democrat the Democrats want, but I am the Democrat that Democrats have. And I am decidedly not a Republican. But this is what I’ll tell you: I am a Democrat that Michiganders want,” El-Sayed told CNN outside the food truck.

El-Sayed says he’s been pressured to modulate his positions since he beat the more moderate Stevens in the August primary, though he insists he will not. But he talks less about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent $33 million through its super PAC trying to defeat him, and sticks more to frustration over high prices for ground beef, gas and healthcare.

El-Sayed has quietly made one concession: He distanced himself from Hasan Piker after campaigning through the end of the primary with the streamer, who’s said that Jews who keep supporting Israel should worry about their safety and that America is “pound for pound” worse than Al-Qaeda. El-Sayed recently called Piker and warned his rhetoric was costing El-Sayed votes, asking him to stop, according to two people El-Sayed told about the conversation. Piker did not respond to requests for comment.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

As El-Sayed left lunch, he posed for more photos and chatted with a Black man in his 40s who asked whether some of what he’d been seeing in ads is true: that El-Sayed had some connection to ISIS or that he wasn’t born in Michigan.

The man told CNN afterward that he wasn’t comfortable with his name being public, but that El-Sayed’s answers satisfied him.

Asked if that was enough to earn his vote on the ballot sitting on his desk back home, the man said he still had other claims about El-Sayed to sort through.

Sitting in his office at the Shaarey Zedek synagogue in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Rabbi Aaron Starr said that while he was proud to host 3,000 people in the concrete and stained-glass ziggurat of a sanctuary for a special service right after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, it’s the threat to Jews’ safety that has him concerned.

Starr is a grandchild of Holocaust survivors and the president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis. After three years of counseling college students who felt threatened by anti-Israel campus protests, he wouldn’t say who he’s voting for in November.

“I can’t vote for a candidate who won’t affirm my most basic core needs and values,” Starr said. Reminded that the seat could end up determining control of the Senate, he added, “No matter what, we’re all going to have to do our very best to make America a safer and freer country for every American. I can only do that, my community can only participate in those efforts, if we feel safe.”

El-Sayed apologized after the primary for saying that “hurt people hurt people” after the antisemitic attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. He has won the support of some prominent Jewish leaders like state Attorney General Dana Nessel.

“It’s not the choice we wanted. But it’s the choice in front of us,” Nessel told CNN this week.

Nessel knows her argument — that from the environment to civil rights to public health to ICE raids, there are many major issues she wants a senator who would be a check on Trump — has been so controversial that she didn’t attend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services last month to avoid confrontations.

She also skipped the state Democratic convention after the primary because she was concerned about her own safety. Nessel was booed the previous year following her decision to charge pro-Palestinian protesters who participated in an encampment at the University of Michigan, cases she later dismissed.

“There’s all these other things that make me feel unsafe, not just as a Jew, but as an American, as a human,” Nessel told CNN. “The one thing I can say about Abdul I know for sure is that he’s going to stand up to Donald Trump every single time,” she said.

Nessel reached out to El-Sayed as soon as the primary finished, and she said to his credit, he has largely stopped attacking AIPAC, as she urged him to do. She is disturbed by what having him in the Senate may mean for support for Israel and would have liked him to do more outreach, both substantive and symbolic, but that’s not enough to make her consider Rogers.

“There are misses by his team, but for me, I have to live with this decision,” she said.

A speech addressing Jewish concerns El-Sayed floated delivering in a previously unreported meeting with top Jewish political leaders a week after the primary has not yet been planned, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

El-Sayed’s campaign has put out support letters signed by hundreds of Jewish Michiganders, and he told CNN that he continues to tell Jews he meets with, “I am committed to Jewish safety. I am, 100%. I know what it’s like to be discriminated against and targeted for what I believe.”

“We’re not going to agree on Israel,” El-Sayed said. “We’re going to vehemently disagree, but we can disagree agreeably.”

On Saturday morning in Grand Rapids, Mike Rogers marched a mile in the Pulaski Days parade in his standard sleeveless fleece vest with an outline of the state map embroidered as the ‘O’ in his name. An accordion player was two steps behind, squeezing out “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.”

This was a rarer sight than it tends to be, as one man noted sarcastically when he mocked Rogers for having “the balls to show up.”

“Where are your manners, my friend?” Rogers replied.

El-Sayed regularly mocks Rogers for not campaigning in public much. But in an anti-Trump environment, this is a deliberate strategy to be a mostly nondescript alternative to moderates and disaffected Democrats. Rogers ducked CNN questions about if he’d vote to end the war in Iran or to confirm a potential future Trump nominee to the Supreme Court.

Rogers rattles off endorsements from police, firefighters, farmers and other groups he says are the product of the years he spent building relationships in the state. He argues El-Sayed’s alliances with prominent democratic socialists allow his campaign to paint the Democrat as extreme. And his campaign and allies have run ads suggesting El-Sayed, who would be the first Muslim senator if he wins, is soft on terrorism and national security.

Blake Fagan/AFP/Getty Images

Of El-Sayed, Rogers said, “He thinks going on national TV, he thinks by having a televised event, he’s done some work. The real work happens out in the community.”

Rogers said he feels like he’s consolidated state Republicans, but with the state GOP in a years-long tailspin, he is relying on huge spending on his behalf from outside groups already swamping television ads and mailboxes. Before hitting the parade, he was at the one-story brick building that Americans for Prosperity Action is using as its local base.

Billie Rajzer, an adviser to the group, told CNN that compared to the 2024 effort for Rogers, this year they’re much more focused on swing voters, with $20 million helping with an effort to knock on 1 million doors by Election Day, trying to counter the state Democratic Party’s own extensive efforts.

“Once they hear about what we want to accomplish, that’s how we’re getting them to stick with us,” Rogers told CNN. “We just can’t let a guy that’s this extreme, who’s marrying democratic socialist ideas in his campaign. That’s why we’re getting so many Democrats.”

That will include, Rogers predicted, up to 50 percent of the state’s Jewish voters.

Trump’s tax cuts and his “no tax on tips” proposal are popular, Rogers said, as angry as people are about costs at the grocery store and the pump, or the tariffs and the war in Iran. Whether it’s his call for a temporary export ban on diesel or other ideas, Rogers called the relationship he’d have with Trump a selling point.

“Yes, gas prices are high,” Rogers said. “They know I’m doing something about it. They know that I’m going to work with the president to do something about it. And they know I am the only guy that can actually get a meeting to get it fixed.”

Rogers spoke at last month’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas, and he said he’d gladly say yes if the president offered to headline a rally in Michigan — a state Trump carried in two out of his last three very close elections.

“I think the president is really, really popular with a segment of our base here. And so he can come and get those folks whipped up and out to vote, we’d be OK with that,” Rogers said.

On this, Rogers and El-Sayed agree.

“I hope he’ll come here and remind people who he is and what he wants and what he’s done to their lives,” El-Sayed said.

Even all the people Rogers waved to along the parade route in their folding chairs are fewer than El-Sayed tends to draw in a day — sometimes just at a single event.

Saturday afternoon, El-Sayed drew over 400 people who started cheering as soon as he popped his face into the room at a carpenters’ union hall for his first-ever event with Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who herself beat Rogers by just 19,000 votes two years ago.

They were in Macomb County, home of the Reagan Democrats and the Trump Democrats, and where, in Slotkin’s telling, she beat Rogers because “we did only a couple of clicks better here” and in other parts of the state.

After mocking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for chafing from working out in jeans to digging deep on accusing Trump of corruption, El-Sayed left the crowd with a plea to get past the fighting and help him appeal to people who supported the president.

“They want to tell us that Macomb County is red,” El-Sayed said. “I don’t see any red folk here. Frankly, I don’t see any blue folk either.”

“I see folk who are sick and tired of watching the president make light of our plights. I see folks who are sick and tired of having to worry about how they’re going to afford next month’s rent. I see people who are tired of wondering when their union will be dignified. I see some folks who need access to a doctor.”

Afterward, Warren city council vice chair Melody Magee chatted with several other Black women all taking home El-Sayed signs. She supported Stevens in the primary but says her brother-in-law is the only person left she knows who is not on board with the Democratic nominee.

“That’s about the only person I know that’s on the fence,” Magee said.

As he finished lunch at the food truck in Detroit the day before, El-Sayed acknowledged that his confident prediction of a primary blowout hadn’t come through — but that he made it through anyway.

“I didn’t run to be the main character of the midterms,” he said. “I ran to render service for my state. The thing about Donald Trump, though, is he doesn’t understand the source of his power. I do. He was really good at getting attention, and he’s been really good in giving it to me. Keep talking about me, Donald. Please. I hope you will.”

阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德预测他将在密歇根州参议员竞选中以7个百分点的优势获胜。

正如他上周五向 CNN 表达的那样，这种态度以及由此产生的做法，正是该州民主党领导人私下担心他根本无法获胜的原因。

一位一直努力提供帮助的知名州民主党人士表示：“密歇根州民众明白这次选举的重要性。他们想投票给民主党，他们只是需要得到一个理由——而不是一个不投票的理由。”

在周四晚唯一一场辩论之前，密歇根州参议员竞选依然胶着，尽管由于伊朗战争及其关税政策对这个北部边境州的影响，特朗普总统的支持率极低。与此同时，民主党人正威胁要在堪萨斯州、爱荷华州和德克萨斯州等更为保守的州夺回参议院席位。

面对铺天盖地的外部资金投入和党内全国的质疑，埃尔-赛义德采取的强硬策略最终帮助他击败了众议员海莉·史蒂文斯——尽管仅以1个百分点的微弱优势获胜，而非他此前向CNN预测的两位数领先优势。但与埃尔-赛义德、共和党候选人迈克·罗杰斯以及全州各地的党内领导人交谈后，可以明显感受到，在距离大选仅剩一个月之际，一些支持史蒂文斯的关键民主党选民仍然对埃尔-赛义德的竞选活动持怀疑态度。

黑人和犹太裔领袖警告说，他们以及他们社区中的许多人需要更多宣传。多位人士向CNN透露了他们与埃尔-赛义德的对话，埃尔-赛义德在对话中请求他们的支持，但也指出他可以在其他地方弥补他在他们的社区失去的选票。

“不到选举日，这场选举就还没有结束，”众议员黛比·丁格尔说道。她在初选中保持中立，但自从埃尔-赛义德胜选以来，她一直是他的坚定支持者，埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队也称她为关键支持者。“我们必须争取每一个选民群体，不能掉以轻心。”

Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

一位不愿透露姓名的底特律黑人领袖告诉CNN，他与埃尔-赛义德的一次谈话让他感觉，“他们认为自己不必那么努力就能赢得黑人选票”。埃尔-赛义德曾承诺邀请他参加与这位候选人的圆桌会议，但他从未收到邀请。

这足以让这位领导人带着助手们去见罗杰斯——但并非毫无愧疚之感。

“我当时感觉很糟糕，就给他发了短信，”这位领导人谈到埃尔-赛义德时说。“但他没有回复。所以，去他的。”

兰辛市市长安迪·肖尔在初选中支持史蒂文斯。肖尔表示，他的犹太血统也让他对埃尔-赛义德的一些言论感到不安。埃尔-赛义德长期以来一直批评以色列，他曾将以色列在加沙的战争称为种族灭绝，并且拒绝明确表示以色列应该作为一个犹太国家存在。

肖尔表示他不会投票给罗杰斯，但也不会支持埃尔-赛义德——至少在他们进行对话之前不会。他目前还没有收到埃尔-赛义德的任何消息。

“如果他不需要我，那就不需要我，”肖尔说。“这是他们的战略决策。”

当被问及圆桌会议邀请或安排与舒尔会面时，埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队没有回应。但他在接受CNN采访时为自己与那些仍对他抱有疑问的团体进行沟通辩护。

他说：“我与每个社区会面时都说过，‘为你们的社区服务、与你们的社区携手共进是我关心和重点考虑的因素。’我可以把所有时间都花在任何一个社区，但可能仍然不够。这完全可以理解。人们理应拥有一位能够真正倾听民意的美国参议员，而我做到了。”

埃尔-赛义德来到底特律75厨房餐车吃午饭，点了一份双份辣味鸡肉沙瓦玛。他跟所有男服务员都热情拥抱，还拍了照片。他问了给他点餐的服务员叫什么名字——穆萨——并说他有个侄子也叫穆萨。

兴奋的员工们送来了一份免费的芝士牛排蛋卷，随后又送来一大盒蒜香香菜薯条。穆萨过来拍了张照片，之后他的一位同事也跟了过来。

埃尔-赛义德呼吁推行全民医保并限制政治资金的使用，因此引起了全国的关注。他对以色列的批评与日益增长的反以色列党派立场相符。周一，他与众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯在纽约市共同出席了一场筹款活动。就在几个小时前，他刚刚宣布巴拉克·奥巴马将于10月下旬在密歇根州与他一同竞选。

“我不是民主党人想要的那种民主党人，但我是民主党人拥有的那种民主党人。而且我绝对不是共和党人。但我可以告诉你的是：我是密歇根州人民想要的那种民主党人，”埃尔-赛义德在餐车外告诉CNN。

埃尔-赛义德表示，自从他在8月份的初选中击败立场较为温和的史蒂文斯以来，他就一直面临着调整立场的压力，但他坚称自己不会这样做。不过，他很少谈及美国以色列公共事务委员会（AIPAC），该委员会曾通过其超级政治行动委员会花费3300万美元试图击败他，而更多地表达了对牛肉、汽油和医疗保健价格高企的不满。

埃尔-赛义德悄悄做出了一项让步：在初选结束前一直与哈桑·皮克尔并肩作战后，他与皮克尔保持了距离。皮克尔曾发表言论，称继续支持以色列的犹太人应该担心自身安全，并声称美国“按比例来说”比基地组织更糟糕。据埃尔-赛义德透露，他最近致电皮克尔，警告他这种言论正在让他失去选票，并要求他停止这种行为。皮克尔没有回应置评请求。

朱莉娅·德马雷·尼金森/美联社

午餐结束后，埃尔-赛义德又摆姿势拍了几张照片，并与一位 40 多岁的黑人男子聊天。这位男子问他，他在广告中看到的一些内容是否属实：比如埃尔-赛义德与 ISIS 有关联，或者他并非出生在密歇根州。

该男子事后告诉 CNN，他不希望自己的姓名被公开，但他对埃尔-赛义德的回答感到满意。

当被问及这是否足以让他把票投给埃尔-赛义德时，这名男子表示，他还有其他关于埃尔-赛义德的指控需要核实。

拉比亚伦·斯塔尔坐在底特律郊区南菲尔德的沙雷·泽德克犹太教堂的办公室里说，虽然他很自豪能在哈马斯 10 月 7 日发动袭击后，立即在圣殿的混凝土和彩色玻璃塔中接待 3000 人参加特别仪式，但他担心的是犹太人的安全受到威胁。

斯塔尔是纳粹大屠杀幸存者的孙辈，也是密歇根州拉比委员会主席。在为那些因校园反以色列抗议活动而感到威胁的大学生们提供咨询三年后，他拒绝透露自己将在11月投票给谁。

“我不能投票给一个不认同我最基本需求和价值观的候选人，”斯塔尔说道。当被问及这个席位最终可能决定参议院的控制权时，他补充道：“无论如何，我们都必须竭尽全力，让美国成为一个对每个美国人来说都更安全、更自由的国家。只有当我们感到安全时，我才能做到这一点，我的社区才能参与到这些努力中来。”

在西布卢姆菲尔德以色列圣殿发生反犹袭击事件后，埃尔-赛义德发表了“受伤的人会伤害别人”的言论，并在初选后为此道歉。他赢得了包括州检察长达娜·内塞尔在内的一些知名犹太领袖的支持。

“这不是我们想要的选择，但这是我们摆在面前的选择，”内塞尔本周告诉CNN。

内塞尔知道她的论点——从环境到公民权利，从公共卫生到移民执法局突袭，她希望参议员能够制衡特朗普，这在许多重大问题上都至关重要——极具争议性，以至于她上个月没有参加犹太新年和赎罪日的仪式，以避免冲突。

初选结束后，她也因为担心自身安全而缺席了州民主党代表大会。此前一年，内塞尔曾因起诉参与密歇根大学营地活动的亲巴勒斯坦抗议者而遭到嘘声，但她后来撤销了这些指控。

内塞尔告诉CNN：“还有很多其他事情让我感到不安全，不仅作为一名犹太人，也作为一名美国人，作为一个人。”她还说：“关于阿卜杜勒，我可以肯定的一点是，他每次都会挺身对抗唐纳德·特朗普。”

初选结束后，内塞尔立即联系了埃尔-赛义德。她说，值得称赞的是，他基本上停止了攻击美国以色列公共事务委员会（AIPAC），正如她敦促他做的那样。她担心埃尔-赛义德进入参议院可能会对以色列的支持产生不利影响，并希望他能采取更多实质性和象征性的对外沟通措施，但这不足以让她考虑罗杰斯。

“他的团队确实犯了一些错误，但对我来说，我必须接受这个决定，”她说。

据一位知情人士透露，埃尔-赛义德曾提议在初选一周后与犹太政治领袖举行一次此前未公开的会议，就犹太人的关切发表讲话，但该讲话的安排尚未确定。

埃尔-赛义德的竞选活动发布了数百名密歇根州犹太人签名的支持信​​。他告诉CNN，他会继续告诉与他会面的犹太人：“我致力于保障犹太人的安全。我百分之百致力于此。我知道因为自己的信仰而遭受歧视和攻击是什么滋味。”

“我们在以色列问题上不会达成一致，”埃尔-赛义德说。“我们会强烈反对，但我们可以友好地表达不同意见。”

周六上午，在格兰德拉皮兹，迈克·罗杰斯穿着他标志性的无袖抓绒背心，参加了普拉斯基节游行，背心上的“O”字母绣着州地图的轮廓。一位手风琴手跟在他身后两步，吹奏着“万岁，万岁，我们全员到齐”。

这比通常情况下要罕见得多，正如一位男士讽刺地指出，他嘲笑罗杰斯“有胆量出现”。

“朋友，你的礼貌呢？”罗杰斯回答道。

埃尔-赛义德经常嘲笑罗杰斯很少公开露面竞选。但在反特朗普的氛围下，这是一种刻意的策略，旨在让自己成为一个不引人注目、难以被温和派和不满的民主党人接受的替代人选。罗杰斯回避了CNN关于他是否会投票结束伊朗战争或确认特朗普未来可能提名的最高法院大法官人选的问题。

罗杰斯列举了来自警察、消防员、农民和其他团体的支持，称这些支持是他多年来在该州建立人脉关系的成果。他辩称，埃尔-赛义德与一些知名民主社会主义者的联盟，使得他的竞选团队得以将这位民主党人描绘成极端分子。他的竞选团队及其盟友还投放广告，暗示埃尔-赛义德（如果他当选，将成为该州首位穆斯林参议员）在反恐和国家安全问题上态度软弱。

Blake Fagan/AFP/Getty Images

罗杰斯谈到埃尔-赛义德时说：“他以为上了全国电视台，以为通过电视直播就做了些工作。但真正的工作是在社区里进行的。”

罗杰斯说他感觉自己已经团结了州内的共和党人，但由于州共和党多年来一直处于低迷状态，他只能依靠外部团体的大量资金支持，这些团体已经在电视广告和邮件中铺天盖地地投放广告。在参加游行之前，他去了“美国繁荣行动”组织用作当地总部的那栋单层砖房。

该组织的顾问比莉·拉杰泽告诉 CNN，与 2024 年为罗杰斯所做的努力相比，今年他们更加注重摇摆选民，投入了 2000 万美元，计划在选举日之前敲响 100 万户人家的门，试图抵消州民主党自身的大规模努力。

罗杰斯告诉CNN：“一旦他们了解了我们想要达成的目标，我们就能让他们继续支持我们。我们不能让一个如此极端的人，一个把民主社会主义思想融入竞选的人支持我们。这就是为什么我们能争取到这么多民主党人的原因。”

罗杰斯预测，这将包括该州多达 50% 的犹太选民。

罗杰斯表示，特朗普的减税政策和“小费免税”提议很受欢迎，人们对超市和加油站的价格上涨、关税以及伊朗战争等问题同样感到愤怒。罗杰斯认为，无论是他呼吁暂时禁止柴油出口，还是其他想法，他与特朗普的关系都是一大卖点。

“没错，汽油价格确实很高，”罗杰斯说。“他们知道我正在努力解决这个问题。他们知道我会和总统合作，共同解决这个问题。他们也知道，我是唯一一个能够真正促成会面，把这个问题解决的人。”

罗杰斯上个月在达拉斯举行的共和党中期选举大会上发表了讲话，他说如果总统邀请他到密歇根州（特朗普在最近三次势均力敌的选举中赢得了两次）举行集会，他将欣然同意。

罗杰斯说：“我认为总统在我们这里的部分支持者中非常受欢迎。所以如果他能来动员这些人出来投票，我们很乐意看到这种情况发生。”

对此，罗杰斯和埃尔-赛义德表示赞同。

“我希望他能来到这里，提醒人们他是谁，他想要什么，以及他给他们的生活带来了什么，”埃尔-赛义德说。

即使是罗杰斯在游行路线上向坐在折叠椅上的人们挥手致意，也比不上埃尔-赛义德一天吸引的人数——有时甚至只在一个活动中就能吸引到这么多人。

周六下午，埃尔-赛义德在木匠工会大厅首次与参议员埃丽莎·斯洛特金一同亮相，吸引了 400 多人到场，他一露面就受到了热烈的欢呼。两年前，斯洛特金本人仅以 19000 票的微弱优势击败了罗杰斯。

他们当时在马科姆县，这里是里根民主党人和特朗普民主党人的故乡。据斯洛特金所说，她之所以能击败罗杰斯，是因为“我们在这里和其他州的选票只比他们多几张”。

在嘲讽卫生与公众服务部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪穿着牛仔裤锻炼，却又深入指控特朗普腐败之后，埃尔-赛义德向人群发出呼吁，希望大家放下争斗，帮助他争取那些支持总统的人的支持。

“他们想告诉我们马科姆县是共和党的地盘，”埃尔-赛义德说。“我在这里没看到任何共和党人。坦白说，我也没看到任何民主党人。”

“我看到人们厌倦了看着总统轻视我们的困境。我看到人们厌倦了为下个月的房租发愁。我看到人们厌倦了苦苦思索他们的工会何时才能恢复尊严。我看到有些人需要看医生。”

之后，沃伦市议会副主席梅洛迪·麦基与其他几位黑人女性交谈，她们都带走了埃尔-赛义德的竞选标语。她在初选中支持史蒂文斯，但她说，在她认识的人当中，只有她的姐夫不支持这位民主党候选人。

“据我所知，他是唯一一个还在犹豫不决的人，”马吉说。

前一天，埃尔-赛义德在底特律的餐车吃完午饭时承认，他自信地预测初选会大获全胜，但结果并没有实现——不过他还是挺过来了。

“我参选不是为了成为中期选举的主角，”他说。“我参选是为了服务我的州。但唐纳德·特朗普的问题在于，他不明白自己权力的来源。我明白。他很擅长博取关注，也确实很擅长把关注带给我。唐纳德，请继续谈论我。拜托了。我希望你能这么做。”