Abdul El-Sayed on US Senate run: ‘If you want a fighter, I’ve got receipts’

• Abdul El-Sayed, a 2018 Democratic candidate for governor, is running in Michigan’s 2026 open US Senate seat
• A former county and local health official, El-Sayed says he’s focused on issues relating to health care, housing and the economy 
• He’s the second Democrat to jump into the race after US Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, announced his retirement in January

LANSING — Abdul El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health official and runner-up in Michigan’s 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary, is running for the state’s open US Senate seat. 

“If you want a fighter, I’ve got my receipts,” he told Bridge Michigan. 

El-Sayed, who is officially launching his campaign on Thursday, is a political progressive seeking to fill a hole left by US Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, who announced in January he does not plan to seek reelection.

In an interview with Bridge this week, the 40-year-old El-Sayed said he felt compelled to step back into state-level politics because of how expensive it’s become simply to exist in the United States.

Coupled with what he sees as an aggressive overreach of power by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Tesla founder turned political adviser, El-Sayed said he wants to stop the pair from “absolutely decimating the best aspects of our government.”

“It shouldn’t be this hard to get by in the richest, most powerful country in the world,” said El-Sayed, who lives in Ann Arbor, pointing to rising health care costs, the effects of inflation and a lack of affordable housing. 

“In the eight years since I kicked off my last campaign, it’s just gotten harder.”

El-Sayed, who lost the 2018 gubernatorial primary to now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by 246,257 votes, has stayed politically active. He’s hosted a health and politics podcast since 2019 and in 2020 served on the Joe Biden–Bernie Sanders “unity task force” on health care. 

Sanders, a US Senator from Vermont who has twice sought the Democratic nomination for president, immediately endorsed El-Sayed in the Michigan race on Thursday, saying he “will take on powerful special interests and create a government and economy that work for all of us, not just the few" if elected.

El-Sayed joins a 2026 Democratic primary for US Senate that already includes state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and could include other big names, including US Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham.

On the Republican side, former US Rep. Mike Rogers this week became the first high-profile candidate to join the race, but US Rep. Bill Huizenga of Holland, 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell are also reportedly considering runs. 

Related:

• Mike Rogers runs again for US Senate in Michigan, vowing to ‘stand with’ Trump
• Who's running for Michigan governor: Former AG Mike Cox makes it official
• Mallory McMorrow on Michigan US Senate run: ‘New leaders’ need to fix ‘mess’

El-Sayed served as executive director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human and Veteran Services from 2023 to 2025 before resigning this month as he geared up for another run for higher office. He’s also the founder of Southpaw Michigan, a political action committee focusing on electing other progressive candidates in Michigan.

If elected to the US Senate, El-Sayed said his focus will come from the core of his medical training, which starts with a simple question: “How can I help?” 

“Your job as a politician is to go out, talk to the people in your community, ask what they need, and then do your best to deliver it,” he said. “We get caught up in this horse race question of who’s on what side and what labels do they wear … I don’t think that conversation is valuable.”

What is valuable, he added, is working to address issues like the cost of child care, “breaking the corporate chokehold on our economy” and standing up for civil rights as the federal government is attempting mass deportations of immigrants, including one man wrongly sent to an El Salvador prison.

While those are difficult conversations to have, and even harder issues to solve, El-Sayed says he’s the right person for the job because “I’m not afraid to articulate exactly what I think we need to do. And I’m not afraid of what some donor here or there thinks about my plans.”

“I think the place to be leading that fight has to be in the US Senate,” he said, “building the kind of legislation that allows us to build the kind of America people need and deserve.”

Previously, El-Sayed served as an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He also served as executive director of the Detroit Health Department and Health Officer for the city from 2015 to 2017, when he resigned to run in Michigan’s 2018 gubernatorial election.

It’s that experience, he said — rebuilding the city’s health department post-bankruptcy to a point where it’s forgiving millions in medical debt — that has prepared him for what he sees as a job all about “making government work.”