El-Sayed outperformed 2024 Democrats across Metro Detroit
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A "Detroit vs Mike Rogers" sign at a Majestic Theatre campaign event Monday. Photo: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Metro Detroit helped power Abdul El-Sayed's historic U.S. Senate victory over Republican Mike Rogers on Tuesday, outperforming Democrats' 2024 showing across the region.
The big picture: The results reveal a striking turnaround from two years ago, when Kamala Harris lost ground throughout southeast Michigan.
Zoom in: El-Sayed won a larger share of the vote in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties than both Harris and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who narrowly defeated Rogers in the 2024 Senate race.
- Macomb County: Rogers still won this Republican stronghold, but by a much slimmer margin — less than 2 percentage points, down from nearly 10 in 2024. That's an almost 8-point shift toward Democrats.
- Oakland County: El-Sayed captured 56% of the vote, modestly outperforming Harris and Slotkin in a suburban county that has increasingly favored Democrats.
Between the lines: A big shift came in Dearborn, a majority-Arab American city, where anger over the Biden administration's support for Israel during the war in Gaza helped undermine Harris in 2024.
- El-Sayed captured 82% of Dearborn's vote Tuesday, compared with just 36% for Harris two years earlier.
Detroit rebuff: Despite an aggressive effort to court Black voters, including opening a campaign office in the city, Rogers notched just 5.4% of Detroit's vote — down from 7.4% in 2024.
The bottom line: El-Sayed's victory wasn't just about running up the score in Democratic strongholds. He also made gains in more competitive territory.