With just two weeks to go before Election Day, final pitches are being made by the candidates for public office across the country in hopes of winning over wavering or undecided voters.
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In the Michigan Senate race, which could ultimately decide which party controls the upper chamber, GOP nominee Mike Rogers’ closing argument is simple: Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat nominee, is a dangerous conman whose allegiances are with America’s enemies and not the people of Michigan. The Great Lakes State, he notes, is on its way to being made great again under President Trump’s leadership, but El-Sayed will try to undo all that if elected.
El-Sayed’s closing argument has basically been to prove Rogers right.
Since the August 4 Michigan primary, this race has been close in terms of polling, with El-Sayed’s “leads” mostly being within the margin of error, as Rogers has steadily worked to win over disaffected Democrat voters, some of whom have appeared with him at campaign stops and in TV ads.
As we also reported, there’s even been a concerted effort among some prominent Democrats down the homestretch to get the party members who can’t bring themselves to vote for Rogers despite their dislike for El-Sayed to simply leave the circle next to the DSA-backed candidate’s name blank.
But for pro-El-Sayed Democrats, the talk from respected pollsters and data analysts about how the polls might yet again be underestimating Republicans has got to be concerning in light of not only how close this race is but also how they overestimated support for El-Sayed during the primary to a significant extent.
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I mean, pretty much every poll in July showed him handily beating his opponent, Democrat Rep. Haley Stevens (MI-11), by comfortable margins. Instead, he barely squeaked by in what turned out to be a nail-biter. Out of over 1.5 million votes cast in the Democrat Senate primary, he won by less than 13,000.
With all of that in mind, we turn to comments made on Monday by New York Times national reporter Jeremy Peters, who, as a Michigan native, has been following this race closely. On the Morning Joe program of all places, he, too, pointed to the real possibility that El-Sayed’s support may be overstated and Rogers’ support underestimated based on what he’s seen and heard in Michigan:
“One of the factors that is really worth paying closer attention to are the number of Democrats, lifelong Jewish Democrats, especially in the Detroit suburbs, who are saying for the first time in their lives they’re voting Republican,” Peters said. “That’s a big deal.”
[…]
On Monday, Peters reported the polls may be overestimating El-Sayed’s odds of winning by oversampling college-educated voters. The Michigan native added he has heard people are reluctant to tell pollsters they’re going to be voting for a Republican for the first time in their lives.
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That somewhat matches up with what we’ve heard about in previous Trump-era election cycles where Republican voters were either reluctant to tell a pollster they supported Donald Trump or just flat out declined to take part in the poll at all. Except in this case, you’ve got Democrats who are undoubtedly conflicted over the choice they have to make in this particular race and who may want to admit only to themselves and no one else that they will support Rogers.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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