Will Democrats Hold Michigan's U.S. Senate Seat Next Year?

Gary Peters is Retiring, and Everyone Wants His Job

DETROIT – There are reasons to believe next year’s race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat should be a fairly easy romp for the Democrats. One former congressman told me that after two more years of chaos, Democrats should be able to win with “a warm body.”

But will they?

If we’ve learned anything, it’s that you can never count on “politics as usual” anymore. Yet when it comes to the Senate seat, which became open when two-term U.S. Senator Gary Peters unexpectedly decided to retire, Democrats have a lot going for them … on paper, anyway.

The party that doesn’t hold the presidency almost always makes gains in midterm elections, and as of now, President Trump’s ratings are at near-historic lows. Then, too, Michigan Republicans have a stunning record of failure in U.S. Senate elections. They’ve only won once in 53 years, and haven’t won a race in this century.

Though the primary election is still more than a year away, Democrats already have three strong candidates. So far, the only Republican officially in the race is Mike Rogers, a somewhat shopworn 62-year-old former congressman who last year moved back from Florida to take on Democrat Elissa Slotkin.

He lost by the tiniest of margins – only 19,000 votes. But he ran behind Mr. Trump, who carried the state, and some Republicans are grumbling that if he couldn’t win then, why should they think he could next year? The three Democratic candidates are all much younger, but fairly well known. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow is 38; Abdul El-Sayed is 40, and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, 42.

Each has a considerable record of accomplishment. McMorrow, whose long flaming red hair makes her instantly recognizable, theatrically slammed Project 2025 at last year’s Democratic National Convention. El-Sayed is a public health expert with a doctorate from Oxford who lost the Democratic primary for governor to Gretchen Whitmer when he was just 33.

Haley Stevens became chief of staff for the task force President Obama appointed to supervise the rescue of Chrysler and General Motors when she was only 25 years old. She then became one of the few Democrats to make manufacturing her main cause, won a previously GOP seat in Congress, and is now in her fourth term.

None of the three has been tainted by scandal, yet there is one issue that has the potential to deeply divide Democrats: Israel and the war in Gaza. Since the current war began when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there’s been a deep divide among Democrats between their “progressive” wing who see the Palestinians as the main victims in this tragedy, and those who are strong supporters of Israel.

Haley Stevens is not Jewish herself, but is a strong backer of Israel, and has been heavily funded by AIPAC, (American-Israel Public Relations Committee) the main pro-Israeli lobby in the United States. They helped her considerably when, after redistricting, she was thrown into a Democratic primary in 2022 against a Jewish congressman with a less pro-Israeli view, Andy Levin.

Thanks in part to AIPAC, she defeated him easily.

McMorrow, whose husband is Jewish, is attempting to stake out a middle ground. “There is a lane for common sense and getting out of rhetoric and talking about peace,” she said on a recent podcast. While denouncing the October 7 attack as “the most horrific on Jews that we have seen since the Holocaust,” she is calling for “a strong Israeli state and a strong Palestinian state,” and said the United States’ role should be “to get to peace.”

That may sound sensible, but it seems unlikely that her views will be popular with either side.

El-Sayed is a Muslim whose parents emigrated from Egypt. He has called what Israel has done in Gaza genocide, and urged Democrats to vote uncommitted in the 2024 presidential primary to protest then-President Biden’s support for Israel against Hamas.

Were the two women to divide the vote and El-Sayed win the primary, it would present enormous problems for the Democrats. Most Jewish voters are Democrats: 71 percent backed Kamala Harris last November, and in most elections, Jews have been some of the most generous donors to Democratic candidates.

That support would almost certainly vanish if El-Sayed is the Democratic candidate. None of this is certain, of course. On the Republican side, U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga is considering a Senate run. Many MAGA supporters are suspicious Mike Rogers may not be truly loyal to President Trump, and one of them could join the race.

On the Democratic side, term-limited Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is both Jewish and progressive may get in.

We cannot yet know. But while the slogan used to be “all politics is local,” it seems clear that these days, local politics are increasingly being nationalized.

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