El-Sayed zeroes in on Rogers after Michigan Senate primary win

Progressive Abdul El-Sayed immediately zeroed in on his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, by calling the former House lawmaker a carpetbagger and “corporate sellout” after clinching the Democratic primary nod in the Michigan Senate race.

“Mike’s a guy who spent 14 years in Congress with one goal: to figure out how to cash out the day he left,” El-Sayed told supporters Wednesday in his first remarks following the election. “And guess what he did? As soon as he left Congress, after having taken corporate check after corporate check after corporate check to empower the corporations to pick your pockets, he went and he cashed out.” 

“Mike, if you want to be a Florida man, go be a Florida man,” the former Wayne County health director said, taking aim at Rogers for moving to the Sunshine State after leaving the House.

El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic primary for retiring Sen. Gary Peters’s (D-Mich.) seat on Wednesday, defeating center-left Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in a hard-fought contest. 

The progressive defeated Haley by about 1 percentage point, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), with more than 95 percent of the vote reported as of Wednesday afternoon.

Democrats quickly coalesced around El-Sayed, keenly aware that a divided primary electorate could squander their chances to keep the battleground seat in November. Stevens congratulated El-Sayed in a statement and endorsed him in the race. 

El-Sayed’s victory is welcome news for Republicans, who see him as the weaker candidate........

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