El-Sayed minimizes Haley Stevens' support for Mike Rogers and focuses on cost of living in the final stretch in Michigan
Democratic Senate candidate says he doesn't think about his former rival, blames the war in Iran for gasoline and food prices and returns to defending Medicare for all.
BY THE X-TRADER NEWS NEWSROOM · REPORTING FROM FOX BUSINESS · 3 MIN
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed declined to comment directly on his former primary opponent Haley Stevens' support for Republican Mike Rogers. At a press conference on the Sunday before Tuesday's election, he said he "really doesn't think about Haley Stevens" and tried to shift the debate to cost of living, health care and education, according to the Fox Business broadcast.
The channel describes the event as a demonstration of division in the Democratic Party. When asked if Stevens had betrayed the party, El-Sayed responded that he no longer knows what this party is. He then stated that he was "less interested in politics and more interested in public policy". He even reprimanded journalists, saying that questions about the episode "don't matter" given the families' problems.
War, gasoline and food
The central theme of the speech was the cost of living. El-Sayed and the Maryland senator who accompanied him blamed the Donald Trump administration for the rise in gasoline and supermarket prices. According to them, the cause would be a war in Iran "that should not be fought" and from which the president "doesn't know how to get out." The senator cited around US$50 billion sent to finance the conflict, without authorization from Congress, in her words.
El-Sayed also criticized the tariff war against Canada and the law he called the "big ugly bill", which, in his assessment, represents the largest transfer of income from the poor to the rich in American history. This is the candidate's position, not data verified by the report.
Spending schedule and message to investors
On the platform, El-Sayed defended Medicare for all, the removal of private money from politics and more federal funds for schools, infrastructure and health. In the speech shown by Fox Business, there was no cost estimate for these programs or indication of a source of financing, a relevant point for those who follow the debate on American public accounts.
The candidate contrasted his proposals with those of Rogers, whom he accused of voting 19 times to keep drug prices high, receiving resources from the pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies and prioritizing tax cuts for billionaires. It also claimed that Rogers was the architect of a 1999 law that removed local control from Detroit public schools. The transcript does not provide a response from the Republican.
Trajectory and mobilization
El-Sayed recalled that he launched the campaign in April 2025, after the federal funds were frozen, and that the current senator announced that same day that he would not seek re-election. He said he won the primary even though $70 million was spent against him, leaving him outnumbered 11 to 1, and he claimed to have held 700 public events in 120 cities.
Sunday was the last day of early voting in Michigan. The candidate participated in an event with religious leaders to mobilize voters and said that the State has 10 million inhabitants, of which "9,999,998" are not interested in the dispute between him and Stevens.
For the market, the episode does not bring new economic data. According to the participants' own assessment, Tuesday's result will depend on pressure on fuel and food prices and the debate on war, tariffs and federal spending, topics that usually influence interest rates, the dollar and stock markets.
Automatically translated from Portuguese.
