Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has a problem with a large slice of the states Black electorate.
It doesnt like him.
That matters in a state where the voting population is 14% Black. (About 2% of Michigan voters are of Arab descent. 1.4% are Jewish.)
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In the most recent Washington PostâSchar School poll, Sept. 10â14, only 67% of likely Black Michigan voters supported El-Sayed. A Fox News poll from a month earlier, taken Aug. 6â10, found that 75% of Black Michigan voters said they would vote for El-Sayed. That is a trend in the wrong direction for El-Sayed.
Two years ago, then Vice President Kamala Harris carried the Black vote in Michigan with 87%. So El-Sayed is significantly underperforming the most recent Democratic nominee for president.
The question is why is El-Sayed so weak with this particular demographic?
El-Sayed has addressed this question very directly, including acknowledging that there is mistrust between parts of Detroits Black and Arab communities.
El-Sayed may already have given up on Michigans significant Jewish vote coming around, but on Tuesday he campaigned with former Vice President Kamala Harris at an event aimed directly at Black women. It was an awkward “roundtable” that seemed to have been so narrowcasted at Black women as to have returned right out of peak Woke 1.0, which Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez assured us recently is an era behind us. Harris did not get that memo as her remarks Tuesday indicated.
“The attack on DEI is an attack on maternal care,” Harris opined as an uncomfortable-looking El-Sayed looked on, “including the need to protect Black women in connection with their pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care.” The word salad chef of 2024 was back.Â
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Whether or not the days appearance by the former VP helped El-Sayed at all with Black voters wont be known for some time, but given the numbers in the public polling, El-Sayed had to try something to get Michigans crucial voting block at least start thinking about going to the polls in November even if that something was Harris who has been notably absent from the critical Senate races until this week.
There is little reason to believe that Harris is the answer to El-Sayeds core problem.
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In an August 2026 interview with The Grio, El-Sayed was blunt about the Black-Arab-American divide in and around Detroit:
 “I think a lot of the mistrust among Black folk in Metro Detroit is well-founded,
