Sen. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Abdul El-Sayed, who leads the field in polls ahead of Michigan’s Aug. 4 Democratic Senate primary, according to a Wall Street Journal Politics newsletter published Monday.
The Aug. 4 primary will determine the Democratic nominee to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters. El-Sayed faces U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow in a three-way race that the Journal’s Politics newsletter framed as testing whether “a widening group of voters are buying what this new brand of Democrats are selling.”
Polls cited by the Journal show El-Sayed ahead of his two Democratic rivals. The Journal reported that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) recently endorsed El-Sayed. Sanders has campaigned alongside El-Sayed in the state.
El-Sayed, 43 years younger than Sanders, served as a public health official in Wayne County and shares Sanders’s progressive politics, according to the Journal. If he secures the nomination, he would face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, whom the Journal described as a well-known figure in Michigan politics, in what the publication called a “very tight race.”
The Journal’s Politics newsletter, written by Washington coverage chief Damian Paletta, contextualized the Michigan contest alongside other recent primary contests. “Being an older Democratic politician is falling out of style, fast,” the newsletter stated, noting that President Joe Biden, 83, is largely out of the conversation, and Reps. Nancy Pelosi, 86, and Steny Hoyer, 87, are retiring this Congress.
In contrast, the Journal argued that Sanders “looks to have more influence over the party than he ever has before.” The newsletter pointed to the emergence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom it described as a Sanders-style candidate, as further evidence. “Sanders has shown more of a knack for building a bench in the Democratic Party than anyone else,” the Journal wrote.