El-Sayed Lagging Far Behind Democratic Candidate for Michigan Governor, Poll Shows

The Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, is trailing far behind the Democratic nominee for governor, secretary of state Jocelyn Benson, a new poll shows. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s GOP opponent has been trying to make inroads with more moderate Democrats, including older Black voters and Jewish voters. The poll from Michigan State University shows Ms. Benson — who has held statewide elected office for nearly eight years — leading the Republican nominee for governor, Congressman John James, by a whopping 11.8 points. Dr. El-Sayed, meanwhile, leads the Republican candidate for Senate, Mike Rogers, by a mere 3.5 points, an underperformance of more than eight points. That margin is among likely voters, and the poll has a margin of error of 4.4 percent for that cohort, meaning Mr. Rogers and Dr. El-Sayed are in a statistical tie. “Benson now outperforms El-Sayed, especially among independents, Wayne County residents, Catholics, Black voters, and ideological moderates,” pollsters write in an analysis of their findings. “Voters under 30 are the exception: El-Sayed runs ahead of Benson among them.”“The gap between the governor and Senate races has grown, with centrist voters more likely to support Benson than El-Sayed,” said Matt Grossmann, the director of the institute that conducted the poll. The Michigan State survey is largely in line with findings from other polls. According to an average of polling aggregators, Dr. El-Sayed leads Mr. Rogers only 2.8 points. Ms. Benson leads Mr. James by an average of seven points, according to an average of those same polling aggregates. Every major firm of political analysts who predict races by qualitative or quantitative measures — or both — has Ms. Benson’s race in either the “tilt,” “lean,” or “likely” Democratic column. Several of those same firms and outlets have the Senate race in the “tossup” column, including the Cook Political Report, Fox News, RealClearPolitics, and MS NOW. Mr. Rogers’ campaign and the outside groups supporting him have spent tens of millions of dollars going negative against Dr. El-Sayed, highlighting his ties to Twitch streamer Hasan Piker who said America “deserved 9/11,” and to Dr. El-Sayed’s half-sister who once wrote on the site then-known as Twitter that their shared mother had been active in the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s. Dr. El-Sayed has also been pressed about a 2012 letter he signed urging the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, which was swept into office after the Arab Spring, to crack down on those who had been loyal to the previous authoritarian Mubarak regime. Mr. Rogers has also tried to make inroads with the Black community, especially at Wayne County, home to Detroit. Dr. El-Sayed lost Wayne County to Congresswoman Haley Stevens, his opponent in the Democratic primary over the summer. On Sunday, Ms. Stevens offered praised to Mr. Rogers for showing up at Detroit to meet voters, something Republicans do not often do. Ms. Stevens’ comments on CNN’s “State of the Union” were subsequently shared by the Rogers campaign on its Instagram page. “To be fair, Mike Rogers is also campaigning rigorously in Detroit. I mean, every time you turn around, the guy is in Detroit,” Ms. Stevens said, arguing that Dr. El-Sayed has not done enough to reach out to the Black community.

El-Sayed Lagging Far Behind Democratic Candidate for Michigan Governor, Poll Shows

El-Sayed Lagging Far Behind Democratic Candidate for Michigan Governor, Poll Shows

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