US ex-VP Harris campaigns for leftist El-Sayed in key race for Michigan Senate seat

WASHINGTON — Former US vice president Kamala Harris returned to the campaign trail Tuesday alongside a leftist Michigan Senate candidate, seeking to help Democrats hold a crucial battleground seat as speculation persists over another White House run in 2028.

Harris appeared with Abdul El-Sayed at a Detroit-area roundtable on Black maternal health and was scheduled to join other events aimed at mobilizing voters in a state central to Democratic hopes of winning control of the Senate in November.

El-Sayed, who would be the first Muslim member of the US Senate, faces Republican former congressman Mike Rogers for the seat being vacated by a retiring Democrat.

A Republican victory would make an already challenging Democratic path to a Senate majority considerably steeper.

“The Senate should be a stopgap on the abuses of this administration, and I would suggest to you that the fellow sitting to my right would be one of them when elected,” Harris said at the roundtable as she introduced the candidate to the cameras.

The epidemiologist has run in part on his experience in health administration, and he described maternal care as “personal” for him, revealing that two of his father’s siblings died before turning five.

“Babies shouldn’t die, full stop. And a measure of a society is… the choices we make about the services we provide, about the resources we offer, about the voices we listen to, about the perspective we share or don’t share,” said El-Sayed.

“Those are the markers of a society, and we have an opportunity in this race to decide that we are going to invest in health care.”

The visit put Harris back in the spotlight in Michigan, where Donald Trump narrowly defeated her in the 2024 presidential election and which is set to vote early in the Democratic presidential nominating calendar in 2028.

Harris has said she is “thinking about” another presidential bid but has given no timeline for a decision.

Her Michigan appearance kicks off a broader burst of midterm campaigning, with stops also planned in Nevada and Georgia.

Tuesday’s joint appearance was significant for El-Sayed as he seeks to unite Democrats after defeating establishment-backed Representative Haley Stevens in a bruising primary.

El-Sayed drew strong support from the left but performed less strongly among Black voters, a key Democratic constituency in Detroit that Harris’s visit could help him reach.

The two Democrats have also occupied different ground over Israel.

El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel and US arms sales to the country, initially backed the “Uncommitted” protest movement against then-president Joe Biden during the 2024 Democratic primary.

El-Sayed has sought to mend relations with Jewish voters in the state in recent months, though his opposition to a two-state solution in Israel, along with past controversies involving far-left anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker and his response to the attack on the Detroit-area Temple Israel, have rendered his candidacy polarizing to the community. Recently, El-Sayed held an unpublicized meeting with rabbis at Temple Israel, weeks after apologizing for his earlier remarks in which he appeared to equivocate about condemning the March attack, according to a report in Jewish Insider.

Last week, more than 600 Michigan Jews signed an open letter pledging to vote for El-Sayed, though it noted: “Some of us have reservations.”

Harris, as Biden’s vice president, faced anger from Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan over the administration’s support for Israel during the Gaza war.

She was also due Tuesday to meet Detroit faith leaders and attend a voter-turnout event involving the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.