By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2026-07-28 01:02:50 | Updated at 2026-07-28 01:45:14
1 hour ago
Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed rolled out endorsements from a former New York congressman and a sitting New Jersey Democrat this week as polling shows him trailing Rep. Haley Stevens badly among black voters ahead of the August 4 primary.
El-Sayed promoted the backing of former Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Sunday and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) on Monday, both prominent black Democrats, in a race where surveys show him well behind within that bloc.
Bowman aimed his post directly at the four-term congresswoman.
“Haley Stevens is playing politricks, pandering, and tokenizing Black voters,” Bowman wrote on X, urging Michigan Democrats to back El-Sayed.
The House censured Bowman in 2023 after he had pulled a fire alarm in a congressional office building during a government funding vote. Bowman lost his primary the next year and left Congress. He claimed El-Sayed holds “deep respect for Barack & Michelle Obama.” Obama has not endorsed in the Michigan race.
The charge repeated a line El-Sayed’s own campaign has used, accusing rivals of “trying to tokenize Black voters or worse, lie to them.”
El-Sayed also reposted a video Monday from Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat with no district in Michigan, urging voters to back him.
“He has the moral clarity to call for the abolition of ICE,” Watson Coleman said. “He is running to pass Medicare for all.”
The endorsements come as El-Sayed sits far behind Stevens with black voters, who make up about a fifth of the state’s Democratic primary voters. Stevens leads him by 46 points with that group, while El-Sayed’s edge is with white voters, where he leads by 12 points. Stevens has the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, and Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed her last week.
El-Sayed argued the gap is manufactured. He blamed outside spending from an AIPAC-linked super PAC targeting black voters. “The conversations that we’re having are rooted in the work that I’ve done with and alongside Black leadership here in Detroit, in Wayne County, and in Flint,” he claimed.
The endorsement push comes as El-Sayed answers for the optics of a recent Detroit rally. The event featured Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It drew an overwhelmingly white crowd in a majority-black city.
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who backs Stevens, said a photo from that rally settled the question for him.
“I saw the rally. I didn’t see a single person that looks like me,” Clyburn said. “That tells me all I need to know.”
