Exclusive / Republicans sense advantage in ‘target-rich’ Michigan

Senate Republicans needed good news. They think they got it in Michigan.

The party sees its chances of keeping Senate control brightening after Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination to take on Mike Rogers, who came close to winning Michigan’s Senate race in 2024. Democrats are quickly coalescing around El-Sayed, but the wounds of his ugly primary battle against Rep. Haley Stevens will likely take some time to fully heal.

That tension makes Michigan the curveball that Republicans needed. If Democrats lose the seat of retiring Sen. Gary Peters, they’d need to net five seats elsewhere to take back the majority — a steep climb.

“This is clearly our best pickup opportunity,” a national Republican strategist working on Senate races told Semafor.

Republicans have a huge financial advantage in Michigan. And even with President Donald Trump’s plunging popularity, they also view the progressive El-Sayed as an opponent they can pick apart on the airwaves over his comments about immigration enforcement, the police, and “Medicare for All.”

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, twice condemned El-Sayed’s partnership with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker in an interview with Semafor.

Scott said the campaign against El-Sayed will involve using his own words against him: “There are some things that he has said that are indefensible, and frankly, using his words is the best approach going forward.

“When he says he is ‘dangerous.’ … What he meant was what he said,” Scott added. “What we have is a target-rich environment.”

Republicans haven’t won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994, though they’ve come close recently against Peters and Elissa Slotkin, both battle-tested former House members who enjoyed broad support from the Democratic Party. Now El-Sayed has upset Democratic leaders’ pick.

The task ahead for him is massive: To become the first Muslim senator in US history, he will have to both unite his own party and overcome his shortfall with rural and working-class voters. A Wednesday memo from El-Sayed’s campaign declared, “There’s no Republican playbook to defeat a candidate like Abdul El-Sayed because they have never faced a candidate like Abdul.”

The Republican super PAC Senate Leadership Fund already has $45 million reserved in the state. Its Democratic rival, Senate Majority PAC, has reserved $20 million in television reservations in the state and a “substantial digital buy” in the state, according to spokesperson Lauren French. She said the GOP’s pickup opportunities are shrinking, “so it’s not surprising they are now desperately looking to make Michigan happen. … Republicans will not be able to just buy their way out of a sinking economy, an unpopular president, and a lackluster nominee.”

SLF is likely to increase its investment in the state now because it sees El-Sayed as “uniquely vulnerable,” said Alex Latcham, the executive director of SLF, which launched its first ad quoting El-Sayed’s own words on Wednesday morning.

“We have a resource advantage in terms of the dollars at the NRSC, RNC, and other outside groups. SLF was heavily invested in Michigan even before the outcome of the primary,” Latcham told Semafor. “I would expect that we and others will double down our investments in Michigan, because this guy is uniquely unqualified and objectionable.”

Scott said that Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Georgia are still also potential pickup opportunities for the GOP. Even with their fortunes brightening in Michigan, Republicans are clear-eyed about the headwinds this year.

“We are not taking this race for granted. This is still Michigan during a midterm cycle where history typically does not favor the party in power,” Latcham said. “Somebody who is as extreme and unfit for office as Abdul El-Sayed just raises the stakes for an organization like SLF.”

Democrats are working to quickly put the primary behind them, launching ads attacking Rogers and rallying around their nominee. Stevens and Mallory McMorrow quickly backed El-Sayed, as did several of Stevens’ endorsers in the Senate, like Peters and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. — who didn’t support the scandal-plagued but similarly anti-establishment Maine candidate Graham Platner — told Semafor he’s supporting El-Sayed.

But the primary has drained El-Sayed. Rogers’ super PAC has more money than one supporting the Democratic nominee, according to recent FEC reports, and Rogers himself has more cash on hand on a candidate level — not to mention that AIPAC is almost certainly to continue its scorched-earth campaign against El-Sayed.

“You don’t need to beat all these super PACs and Republican efforts, but you need to have the resources to be competitive. I’m confident he will,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a former campaign arm chair who backed El-Sayed. “It will be very important that the caucus step up.”