Policy / Student Nation / January 23, 2026
As the Democratic Party debates its identity, this progressive primary candidate and doctor is poised for a defining moment in the race for Michigan’s Senate seat.
Abdul El-Sayed at a town hall during his campaign for the Michigan Senate primary.(Abdul for US Senate) Abdul El-Sayed was just 32 when he first ran for office in 2018, taking on Gretchen Whitmer and Shri Thanedar in the race for Michigan governor. Having trained as a public health official, he was relatively unknown to most voters. But by the time of the primary election, El-Sayed had surged in the polls, winning just under a third of the vote.
His candidacy was defined by a progressive vision of America, centered on health care, public education and the fight against poverty, and buoyed by the support of Senator Bernie Sanders. Now, eight years later, El-Sayed will be on the ballot again in 2026 for the primary for Michigan’s Senate seat.
As in 2018, El-Sayed is one of several Democratic candidates, alongside Rep. Haley Stevens and Sen. Mallory McMorrow, vying to represent the party in the November general election. Stevens, who has received support from the party establishment, is by far the most conservative, and McMorrow, whose policies fall somewhere between Stevens and El-Sayed, is a rising star herself. Even if poll numbers give Stevens the edge, anything could happen with much of the race ahead.
The election comes at a time when the Democratic Party is debating its identity, and El-Sayed is poised for a breakout moment. Unapologetic about his stance on Palestine, ICE, Medicare for All and getting corporate money out of politics, he has energized a younger voter base in Michigan. After all, these questions are what made him so compelling to voters last time.
“It’s the most people-oriented and the least business-oriented,” said Elisabeth Beer, a senior at the University of Michigan. Beer learned about El-Sayed through a friend and has since been collecting signatures for the candidate. Like many of the students I spoke to, she was drawn to his support for Medicare for All.
“He called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide early on and has been part of the pro-Palestinian cause for decades now. A lot of people are reacting very positively to that,” said Bill Lewis, a University of Michigan student and campaign fellow.
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I spoke with El-Sayed about his Senate run, Trump’s attack on higher education, and how he’s speaking to young voters this time around. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
—Heather Chen
Heather Chen: Since 2018, the country has changed in many ways. We withstood the Covid-19 pandemic, faced the reckoning of the Black Lives Matter movement and experienced four years of Joe Biden’s presidency before re-electing Donald Trump. How do you think the needs and priorities of young voters have changed since you last ran for office?
Abdoul El-Sayed: They have become even more urgent. When I showed up last time, I said something that people weren’t quite ready to hear at the time, which was that Donald Trump himself is not the disease of our politics. It’s just the worst symptom of the disease. And the disease is the system that allows big corporations, billionaires and would-be oligarchs to buy and sell politicians to do what they want for them. And this system has been perpetuated.
For four years we dealt with the symptoms, but we never really dealt with the illness, and we find that life is becoming less and less affordable, especially for young people. If you’re currently in college, you’re taking on a record level of student debt to graduate in an economy where big tech is poised to automate the work you otherwise would have taken on. You can’t dream of owning a home, and too often the social circumstances of your life are dominated by algorithms that divert your attention through your eyes and eardrums.
I think all of this has left people lonelier, more deprived, more frustrated and deprived of the life that, in the American dream, we should be able to offer to any young person thinking about their future life.
CH: You have organized 10 student town halls in 2025 on campuses across the state. Where did the idea for these events come from? And what did you learn from them?
AES: They are essential to the way we do politics. It was really essential for us, as we built our campaign, to first listen to young people, engage them on the issues that are most important in their lives and make sure they understood that we were there to listen, learn and share what we could build together.
I will never forget a conversation I had with Bernie Sanders when I was running in 2018. I was 32, mind you. I asked him for advice and he replied: “Abdul, never lose contact with young people. » It was funny, because I said to myself: “I am the young people. ” But it reminds you why he’s been so relevant for so long, because he never really lost touch with young people. And so, for me, I see young people as a fundamental driving force of this movement. So it made sense to start contacting them.
CH: Are there any particular conversations that stand out when you reflect on these town halls?
AES: We always had people arriving a little late and sitting in the back. You could tell they were curious, and they weren’t entirely convinced. And most of the time, I try to make an effort to contact some of these people right after the town hall to ask them why they came. Most of the time the answer is “I don’t really believe that a politician does what he says he’s going to do, or that he has any solutions for me. But I was curious, my friends were excited about you, so I decided to come.” And I’ve had a few iterations of this conversation in three or four different places.
There is an overwhelming sense of nihilism that has taken hold in many of our communities, particularly among young people. One of the points I often try to make to people is that we may not solve every problem, but the question of our life is whether or not we tried. We’re trying to build something here that people feel like is a fair opportunity to try.
CH: You were previously a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health in Columbia. Last year, the Trump administration cut funding to the university by hundreds of millions of dollars, decimating many medical research laboratories. Given your experience as a healthcare professional and professor, what role should research universities play in our country?
AES: We assume, because of our size and power, that we will always be at the forefront of science, technology and thought. And I think we take that for granted.
I think of my father, who came to this country to pursue a doctorate at Wayne State University. As a child growing up in a family of eight in a one-bedroom apartment, his ticket out was his ability to study and learn. He knew he wanted to become an automotive engineer, and Michigan made Detroit the best place to do it. He had the opportunity to come here and study for a doctorate in Detroit, and went on to have an illustrious career as an automotive engineer, and now a professor. And it’s a choice he made because of the investment and the choice that America made to be a leader.
We are seeing the Trump administration set us back in ways that will only truly manifest in the decades to come. It’s quite scary, you know, to think about what my father’s decision would have been if he had thought about 2026 instead of 1978.
CH: What should our senators or congressmen do to defend our universities?
AES: Well, it starts with having people who understand how they work. I would be the first Democratic physician elected since 1969. And as someone who began my career at a university and understands how universities work, there is much we can do both to restore what has been broken, but more importantly, to anticipate what remains to be done.
There have been a number of inefficiencies that have set up around agencies like the NIH and what they fund, or the NSF and what they fund, and universities and what they prioritize. In some ways, they have failed to ensure that they can deliver a great research and education product that everyone can access. The mistake would therefore be to try to reconstruct this system exactly as it was. The positive side is that although I really would have liked to reform, we now have the opportunity to rebuild.
So what are we trying to rebuild? That every young person, wherever they are in this country, can have access and afford these incredible institutions, that they actually build the jobs and opportunities that we will have tomorrow, and that they are at the forefront of big ideas, research and development.
CH: Although the majority of high school students cannot vote, many of these students across the country and also in Michigan are vocal and politically active. This week, for example, your campaign announced its high school leadership program. How did you get involved in politics when you were in high school, and what was that political journey like for you?
AES: You know, to be honest, when I was in high school, I thought about sports, and then, reluctantly, about math and science, only because my parents told me that if my grades weren’t good enough, I wasn’t going to play. I got into politics somewhat by chance because of September 11. All of a sudden, I went from being a dark-skinned child with a funny name to a very particular type of dark-skinned child with a very particular and funny name.
I was in high school when 9/11 happened, and I became much more involved in college in defending democracy, resisting the senseless wars that broke out when I was in high school, and advocating for free speech. And then I remember being in medical school when President Obama was elected and being so proud that I was able to vote for someone else with a funny name whose family came from Africa.
I never really wanted to be a politician. This was not part of what I saw myself doing. I wanted to become a surgeon and work between urban communities in America and sub-Saharan Africa. Obviously, I failed miserably at this task. But, at some point, we become curious to know why People get sick, which led me to take this path in public health and ultimately run for office.
CH: Young people came out in droves – over the summer and into November – to help elect Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York. Some people, on social networks and in the press, have compared you to Mamdani. What do you think of this comparison?
AES: I wonder why they would compare us?[[Laughter]Look, the movement that was built in New York was impressive and, even more impressive, they were able to get young people to vote in higher proportions than their elders. This is not something that most political movements are capable of doing, and we are aiming for exactly the same thing. I want to fundamentally rebuild the electorate, so young people come out and take part in the future they want for themselves – a future they see in this movement.
CH: You have also appeared on podcasts or with political influencers like Hasan Piker, popular with many young people. What can the Democratic Party learn from him and other party outsiders?
AES: Last winter, as we moved from 2024 to 2025, there was this big debate among Democrats about why we don’t have a left-wing Joe Rogan. And it’s funny because we, on the left, are so censored of ideas according to which we would stifle the Joe Rogan of the left before the Joe Rogan of the left appears.
I think the reason people like Hasan resonate with young people is because he openly rejects this censorship. He knows that some of the things he says may not hold true in the future, but if you want to have an open dialogue about ideas, I think young people are tired of being put into boxes or being told that certain ideas aren’t worth discussing. That’s probably why it resonates.
You will never agree with anyone on everything. I’ve been married for 20 years and my wife is the love of my life, but we don’t agree on everything. This notion that somehow if someone says something that you don’t agree with, that you can’t listen to what they have to say, or appear with them, is part and parcel of the kind of ideology that people are so sick of among Democrats.
I don’t have to agree with someone on everything to be able to connect with them or have a conversation with their audience. And I think if Democrats did more of that, having conversations anywhere, reaching out to people who feel excluded from our politics, who can be engaged on different platforms, I think they would have a lot more success.
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CH: Voters tend to expect a sort of prevarication from politicians when it comes to divisive issues, but, on the other hand, you used the word “genocide» to describe what is happening in Palestine and Gaza. And, more recently, you have stood by your previous statements calling for the abolition of ICE. To what extent is this linguistic choice intentional? And in your opinion, what is the point of adopting an unambiguous position?
AES: You know, the framework of the question you ask implies that I am making political calculations. And that’s just it, I’m not. I try to call things as I see them, predict how they will end, and call for the type of intervention that prevents the worst from happening or creates the opportunity for the best to happen.
I called it genocide because that word has a meaning and the circumstances fit that meaning. And I called for the abolition of ICE because already in 2018 you could see where this was going. When you create an agency and allow it to flout the fundamental principles of our democratic republic and our Constitution, and you use it as a weapon against a very particular type of people, where do you think that’s going to lead?
It’s interesting because people say, “Well, you must not believe in the need to have a safe and secure border.” » But yes, I do. If you have a house full of black mold, you don’t say you want to become homeless; you just don’t want a house with black mold. ICE has been corrupt since the first Donald Trump administration. And what we’ve experienced now, what we’ve seen now, the shooting of a mother in the face by ICE, I hate to say it, but it’s a logical consequence of the trends that we’ve been seeing for eight years. We should have done something about it, and we still should.
I know there will be many wavering politicians – who care more about their political future than being morally correct – who will rush to this position now. But ultimately, for me, the value of running for office or holding office is making what’s right popular, not waiting for what’s right to be popular.
CH: You are currently participating in this competitive Democratic primary where the other candidates are the same age as you, and you are all more than two decades younger than the median age of a U.S. senator. What do you think sets you apart from the rest of the industry when it comes to meeting young voters where they are?
AES: Moral clarity. I am not taking my measures to be able to be elected. I hope to be elected so that I can deliver fair blows.
Heather Chen Heather Chen is a student and writer at Columbia University. She is a former editor-in-chief of Columbia’s university newspaper, the Colombia Daily Spectatorand former editorial intern at Defector.