With the Senate race entering its final stretch, Abdul El-Sayed spent Monday flanked by Detroit elected officials, labor leaders and community activists as he worked to lock down support of Black voters — a key constituency for his path to victory.
Mr. El-Sayed is trying to move beyond questions about his standing with Black voters that surfaced during the Democratic primary, when Rep. Haley Stevens ran ahead of him in Detroit and Flint. Former Rep. Mike Rogers, his Republican opponent, has sought to capitalize on those concerns in a contest that will help determine control of the Senate.
The event Monday was a show of force from Black political and community leaders who said Mr. El-Sayed earned Detroit’s trust through his work as the city’s health director and by advocating for issues that matter most to residents, from public health and education to voting rights and economic opportunity.
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For his part, Mr. El-Sayed vowed to be a champion for a city he said has too often been shortchanged by state and federal leaders. Too often, policymakers act as though “because it’s the city of Detroit, it just deserves less,” he said.
“Actually no, it actually deserves more,” Mr. El-Sayed said, pledging to fight for better schools, affordable housing, clean air and water, and greater economic opportunity if elected.
Mr. El-Sayed and Mr. Rogers are locked in a tight race that is testing the Democrat’s liberal vision, including his support for Medicare for All and a reshaped U.S.-Israel relationship, in a purple state that President Trump carried two years ago.
Detroit Federation of Teachers President LaKeisha Wilson-Lumpkins pointed to Mr. El-Sayed’s record in city government, crediting him with expanding access to vision care for students.
Detroit City Council President James Tate said his endorsement was based on firsthand experience, not campaign advertisements.
“I didn’t learn about Dr. El Sayed from a television commercial,” Mr. Tate said, recalling their time working together in city government. After presenting Mr. El-Sayed with a list of Detroit priorities, including housing, infrastructure and voting rights, Mr. Tate said, “He didn’t just listen with an empathetic ear; he created an entire agenda.”
Mr. El-Sayed’s focus on the Black vote has intensified. He campaigned over the weekend with former President Barack Obama in Detroit, and also appeared in the city last week with Sen. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the pulpit once held by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Monday’s event came a day after Mr. Trump campaigned on behalf of Mr. Rogers in Port Huron, Michigan, and escalated his attacks on the Democrat, saying, “If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadis to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.”
Mr. Trump and Mr. Rogers have made Mr. El-Sayed’s faith and background an issue, questioning his loyalty to the U.S. and portraying him as sympathetic to extremists with alleged family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a nearly 100-year-old Islamist organization that seeks to establish sharia law and has spawned several terrorist groups.
“He’s a Democrat-Socialist-of-America-aligned candidate who has these pretty radical support groups that don’t like America,” Mr. Rogers said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Mr. El-Sayed said the Republican wants to distract voters from the issues affecting their daily lives and avoid defending the Trump administration’s record, including the conflict with Iran and trade policies that have pushed up prices.
“When you don’t want to talk about gas and groceries and seeing a doctor, you just start making deflections and deceptions based on no evidence,” Mr. El-Sayed said Monday. “They’re not talking about your gas or your groceries. They’re not talking about your ability to send your kid to a good school. … They’re not talking about any of the things that government’s actually supposed to solve.”
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