Fact-checking Abdul El-Sayed, Haley Stevens in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary
Michigan Democrats will pick their nominee for the U.S. Senate on Aug. 4 in a battle dominated by views on U.S.-Israel relations and the Democratic Party’s future.
The race between Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official, and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens has exposed intra-party rifts about whether Democrats should move further to the left in a battleground state Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024. Criticizing U.S. aid to Israel, as El-Sayed has done, has become increasingly common in the Democratic base, and, in July, nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid. (The vote failed because of Republican opposition.)
El-Sayed is running as an outsider with the backing of liberal lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. He calls himself a progressive and said that he is not a socialist.
Stevens, a center-left Democrat, has the support of outgoing Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
The contest is one of the most closely watched 2026 Senate races as Democrats seek to flip the chamber. For Democrats to win a majority, holding their Michigan seat is practically a requirement.
More than 1 million voters in Michigan cast a ballot before the Aug. 4 primary, mostly by mail.
Here’s a look at our fact-checks from debates and campaign messaging on topics such as polling, fundraising and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, the expected Republican nominee who lost his 2024 Senate bid to Democrat Elissa Slotkin.
El-Sayed: A poll that showed Stevens with a slight lead in early July “seems to be funded by AIPAC.”
The Democratic polling firm Tavern Research said it funded a poll that found Stevens slightly ahead of El-Sayed. No public records or reporting exist connecting AIPAC to the poll.
Tavern Research said the poll was independently funded and conducted. El-Sayed’s campaign provided no information to back up his statement.
AIPAC has become a polarizing force in the primary. The committee and its affiliated groups have spent close to $30 million in pro-Stevens and anti-El-Sayed advertising so far, The Associated Press reported, calling it the largest AIPAC investment ever in a single race.
El-Sayed is critical of Israel’s government and military actions, describing the Gaza war as a “genocide” and calling for the U.S. to cut off Israel military aid. Stevens has said she supports Israel’s right to exist and called for a two-state solution, while criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
We rated this statement False.
Stevens: “No,” she hasn’t taken donations from two major Michigan utility companies for her U.S. Senate campaign.
In March 2025, Stevens’ House campaign committee received donations from corporate political action committees affiliated with DTE Energy and Consumers Energy. A month later, she launched her Senate campaign and in 2025 she transferred those donations to her Senate campaign.
We rated this statement Mostly False.
El-Sayed: Rogers “took a $14 million payout as a pharma lobbyist.”
Federal and Michigan records do not show Rogers ever working as a registered lobbyist for any company, including pharmaceuticals. We found no record that he worked in the pharmaceutical industry after leaving Congress.
Rogers did paid consulting work for technology companies after leaving Congress. His net worth may have increased by more than $14 million since then, but no single reported payment or group of payments match that amount. El-Sayed offered no evidence to support his attack
We rated this statement Pants on Fire!
Stevens: El-Sayed “has a super PAC that is run by his father-in-law that has spent millions of dollars on his behalf.”
El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, a Michigan nephrologist, is a major donor to Fighting for Michigan PAC, a super PAC founded to support El-Sayed’s campaign. But the group says it is run by political strategists.
Tayeb gave $300,000 to the PAC in donations through June, which ties him for the PAC’s top donor.
El-Sayed: “Big AI has huge super PACs. Huge super PACs that guess who they’re funding, not me, the other person on this stage.”
There are two major artificial intelligence industry super PACs involved in the 2026 midterms: Leading the Future and Public Action First. Neither group has been involved with any Michigan Senate race spending, nor have any other significant AI-industry super PACs. The most dominant PACs’ June FEC filings — and multiple sites tracking AI industry super PACs — show no major AI-promoting super PACs have been spending in the Michigan Senate primaries, so far.
Stevens has received corporate PAC donations from Microsoft and Google, totaling $7,500, according to FEC data. A corporate PAC donation is different from a super PAC spending on behalf of a candidate. Corporate PACs are established and administered by corporations using voluntary funds from a restricted class of employees (executives, administrators, stockholders, and families). They are allowed to donate directly to campaigns, but only up to $5,000 per primary election.
United Democracy Project, a pro-Stevens PAC: “With our democracy on the line against Donald Trump in 2024, El-Sayed told Democrats to vote uncommitted — even after Gov. (Gretchen) Whitmer warned those efforts would help elect Donald Trump.”
This isn’t telling the whole story. After Whitmer warned Michigan’s uncommitted voter movement could benefit Trump, El-Sayed posted on Facebook that he was voting uncommitted in the state’s February 2024 primary in an effort to send a message about the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
But after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July, El-Sayed endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination and for president.
We rate this statement Half True.
Stevens: “The GOP is spending thousands of dollars to prop up (El-Sayed’s) campaign because they think they will make it easier for Mike Rogers to win if you are the nominee.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched an anti-El-Sayed ad June 25 spotlighting his position on abolishing ICE and adopting Medicare for All. (It is unclear how much the committee spent on the ad.)
Jessica Taylor, a Cook Political Report editor, told PolitiFact that the ad looks like a standard general election attack, but its primary-timed release reveals the real intentions: Republicans would prefer El-Sayed to Stevens against Rogers in the general election.
Even if the preferred opponent doesn’t win the primary, the ads allow the GOP to get a head start on attacking that candidate early in case they do emerge as the nominee
Republican and Democratic meddling in primaries is not new.
Michigan is one of several states where PolitiFact is fact-checking midterm races. Spot a claim we should fact-check? Email truthometer@politifact.com.
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