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ESCANABA, Mich. — Abdul El-Sayed and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are already thinking beyond 2026, even though he’s not a senator yet.
During three different stops Thursday on his Senate campaign’s bus tour through redder, rural areas of this swing state, El-Sayed and Ocasio-Cortez drew crowds that showed notable star power. While Republicans see Michigan as their strongest chance to pick up a Senate seat, the progressive pair are casting themselves as heirs to the broader movement that Bernie Sanders has commanded for a decade — a push they plan to expand beyond this state.
“Once you elect one person like that, people will then catch on,” Ocasio-Cortez declared of El-Sayed in this paper-producing town, whose county last went Democratic in 2008. “And we will start electing more people like that.”
In a region walloped by the sort of deindustrialization that President Donald Trump had returned to office pledging to reverse, El-Sayed drew loud applause for vowing to move beyond him: “Donald Trump is just the worst symptom of the disease of our politics — the disease of the system of allowing billionaires, corporations, special interest, the bought and sold politicians, the way that the money brings the system against us.”
While Ocasio-Cortez has yet to make her decision on a 2028 presidential primary that she’d enter as an automatic contender, her Michigan tour amounted to calling her shot. She’s betting on El-Sayed as proof of concept for her brand of populism, embracing his play for the left in a tight Senate race even as the strategy sparks internal Democratic worries about a possible drift of Black and Jewish voters towards Republicans.
If he defeats GOP nominee Mike Rogers in a remarkably anti-Trump cycle to become the first Muslim senator in US history, El-Sayed could spark his own presidential boomlet. But for the moment, in a state that’s now among the Democratic nominating calendar’s earliest to vote, his campaign served as a vehicle for Ocasio-Cortez to spell out more ambitious policy than a single candidate’s platform.
When one attendee in Escanaba asked the duo about eliminating interest on student loans. El-Sayed said “you shouldn’t have to go into debt to get a higher education” and that Democrats should find creative ways around the Supreme Court’s rejection of a Biden-era student loan forgiveness program.
Then Ocasio-Cortez went a step further, saying that student loans should be interest-free, public colleges should be tuition-free, and “we have to really be asking ourselves what is the utility of putting people in indentured servitude their entire lives for seeking an education.”
The crowd cheered.
(At another point, the New Yorker laughed off cries from supporters asking her to run for president.)
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Although Democrats have often fallen short in this part of Michigan come November, it’s been favorable territory for progressives during primaries. In this year’s Senate primary, El-Sayed carried the three counties where he held events Thursday, as did Sanders during the Vermont independent’s 2016 Democratic presidential bid.
“I just want to have a conversation about gas, groceries, the ability to see a doctor. Want money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all?” El-Sayed told reporters. “I think that’s what Yoopers want, too.”
He knocked Rogers, who generally avoids the large gatherings favored by the El-Sayed campaign, for not appearing in the Upper Peninsula this fall.
“So when’s the last time he was in Iron Mountain? When’s the last time he was in Escanaba? When’s the last time he was in Marquette? I don’t know. At least I show up,” said El-Sayed.
A Rogers spokesperson pointed to previous stops by his campaign in the Upper Peninsula towns over the last year, including in Marquette in June.
“AOC is the latest trick up the Democrats’ sleeve, but Michiganders know better than to fall for it,” said the Rogers spokesperson. “While Abdul El-Sayed tries to run from his own progressive policies, AOC’s visit reminds voters exactly who he is — a radical leftist who wants to defund the police, force EV mandates on Michiganders, and jack up our utility prices even higher.”
Rogers is keeping the race close in most polls, while undeniably benefiting from the tension that has persisted among Michigan Democrats after El-Sayed’s acrimonious primary against Rep. Haley Stevens. Among the Democratic nominee’s detractors are a sitting congresswoman, Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich., who has withheld her support for him.
Stevens’ likely House successor, state Sen. Jeremy Moss, has also held back on endorsing El-Sayed after entertaining early talks on the topic, as Semafor first reported.
Moss isn’t the only Jewish Democrat who remains skeptical of El-Sayed’s harsh criticism of Israel and, as a result, hasn’t backed him. Stevens, in an interview, acknowledged “some shifting dynamics” among Democrats.
“Republicans have not held a Senate seat in Michigan for 32 years, and it’s hard to believe that this would really be the year that they’d be able to make a comeback,” she said. “But they’re sure as heck trying.”
She also hinted she was focused more on campaigning for House candidates and other Democrats in Michigan than on the Senate race; she’s holding a political event this weekend with House candidate Christina Hines to showcase outreach to Black voters.
“I want to see Hakeem Jeffries become the speaker of the House [on the strength of] a place called Michigan,” she said.
The View From Voters
Attendees at El-Sayed and Ocasio-Cortez’s stop at Northern Michigan University in Marquette contextualized their own excitement around a broader concern that Michigan voters outside the room would view the two as too far left.
“Most of my friends would think AOC is too liberal,” said Phil DeGabriele, a 70-year-old retiree from Negaunee.
Younger voters were more easily energized by the progressives. Arthur Pichette, a 20-year-old junior at Northern Michigan University, said El-Sayed was “like a breath of fresh air” and that it was “nice” to have El-Sayed and Ocasio-Cortez plainly laying out their views.
Nicholas’s view
It’s striking to see how boldly El-Sayed and Ocasio-Cortez are already trying to build out a progressive coalition — before he learns whether he needs the fraying parts of the existing Democratic base to beat Rogers.
But one thing we’ve known about El-Sayed since the start of his primary race: He’s confident. Talking up a seven-point win isn’t something I see a lot of swing-state candidates do.
So if El-Sayed wins, he should be ready for an immediate question about who he plans to wield his new influence for in 2028. It could be his ally Ocasio-Cortez; it could be himself.