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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
Michigan Democratic Senate Primary Too Early to Call. Aired 1- 2a ET
Aired August 05, 2026 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:00:43]
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed speaking right now in Detroit. Let's listen.
ABDUL EL-SAYED, (D) MICHIGAN CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE: Right now we are on track, vastly out vogue the historical numbers that we should have expected. And that tells you about the kind of movement that we were able to inspire. Movement that kicked off 15 months ago, traveling this day up and down, spending time in churches in Detroit and living rooms and Lansing, VFW halls in Escanaba, backyards in Grand Rapids, sometimes in rooms of two or three, sometimes in rooms of two or 3,000.
And I will tell you this, I want you just to reflect on what that means. Right now we are on track to vastly outvote the historical numbers that we should have expected. And that tells you about the kind of movement that we were able to inspire, a movement that kicked off 15 months ago, traveling this state up and down, spending time in churches in Detroit and living rooms and Lansing VFW halls in Escanaba, backyards in Grand Rapids, sometimes in rooms of two or three, sometimes in rooms of two or 3,000. And across that movement that we built, there was an inspiration in the idea that we could take our government back.
Government of the people, by the people and for the people, instead of government of the corporations, by the special interests and for the billionaires. And because you had the audacity to believe in that, you know, that the billionaires, the corporations and the special interests, they weren't going to give up lightly. We all knew they were going to spend their money. We didn't know they were going to spend $70 million of their money. We didn't know that they were going to outspend us $11 to $1.
And yet we're still standing. They want to tell us that here in Michigan we're a purple state, that somehow everybody walks around wondering. I wonder where I stand on a left right spectrum. When really up and down the state, what you hear is I wonder how I can afford my rent. I wonder how I can afford my groceries.
I don't know what will happen if I get sick because I can't afford my deductible. We are not a purple state. We are a state in need of a movement to take our politics back. And despite their spending, despite their lies told in ad after ad after ad after ad on T.V., we're walking into the rest of this evening with a three point lead.
And so as folks ask, if and when we win this race, how are you going to beat Mike Rogers and their money? I want you to remind them that if we come through this, when we come through this, inshaallah, that will have taken $70 million on the chin and kept fighting back. But I also want to speak to this moment. We've got 13 weeks to defeat Mike Rogers.
[01:05:04]
And however we might feel about the campaign we've just come through, I want you to understand that it pales in comparison to the cynicism, in comparison to the corporatism, in comparison to the lies that Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are going to tell. There is so much more that unites us. However much we might disagree with our Democratic opponent, there is so much more that unites us than divides us.
And so to all -- and so to all of our supporters here tonight, watching on T.V., tomorrow we begin to mend fences. Whatever happens tonight, we have a responsibility to assure that we unite to make sure that Mike Rogers never sees the inside of the U.S. Senate.
And I'm going to ask --
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: (CHANTING) Abdul, Abdul, Abdul.
EL-SAYED: Thank you. Thank you.
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: (CHANTING) Abdul, Abdul, Abdul.
El-SAYED: Thank you.
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: (CHANTING) Abdul, Abdul, Abdul.
EL-SAYED: Thank you. And I'm going to ask all of us, as we think about where we go from here always magnanimity in victory. So if your instinct is to be like, I told you, nope. Let's come together to build a movement that's even bigger, that's even stronger, that's even more powerful, that reaches into the very depths of this state that reminds us the best of who we are and who we can be. That is the commitment I want all of us to be making as we leave here tonight.
And so, Mike, and I know you're listening, Mike, we are coming for you. I got to tell you, I was in -- I was in med school while Mike Rogers was in Congress. This is a guy who's never seen a check from a pharmaceutical lobbyist he didn't want to cash. He sent our campaign a cease and desist for calling him a pharma lobbyist. But I don't know if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck.
How am I supposed to know it's a goose? So, look, forgive me, Mike. I just know that you spend so much time with pharma lobbyists, I just thought you were one. You've taken so much money for them to raise our prescription drug prices, I just thought that you just got in the business. After all, you haven't really explained how you made $14 million golfing in Florida unless it was trading on all the government relationships you built when you were in Congress.
So I don't know, maybe 14 million wasn't enough. You got to come back, get some more relationships and trade on them, too. This is a guy who has never seen a check from a corporation he did not want to corrupt himself with.
And here's the thing about it. He can't decide which era of Republican he wants to be from. On the one hand, he was from the neocon era that had us fighting unnecessary wars in Iraq, swore up and down he could never support Donald Trump, then went to Mar-a-Lago when he decided to run for Senate the first time, and licked all the boots until he finally got that Trump endorsement.
So he's both the worst of the neocon era and the worst of the MAGA era. And I just think that's the worst of all. Because at least you should know who you are. But I promise you, Mike, by the time we are done with you, all of Michigan is going to know who you are.
You are a corporate sellout who's not a pharma lobbyist, but really, really might want to be one someday. Who voted to raise our prescription drug prices, who supported wars we don't need to fight, who tried to shut down our bridges, who wants to stand in the way of our unions, who should never see the inside of the U.S. Senate.
[01:10:21]
So, friends, we're going to have to wait a little longer to see the outcome of this race. But as I look in front of me, I already see the outcome of this campaign. A community of people who came together around a set of ideals built on the foundation of what this government was supposed to be in the first place, government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
And as I think about where we sit in the long arc of our history. It's hard not to reflect on the fact that we just commemorated 250 years. And we all know those 250 years weren't perfect. We all know that a lot of that history was built on a set of foundational errors.
And at the same time, I can't help but appreciate the fact that I know what America gave me. America is an incredible place. I used to live the contrapositive of the life I was supposed to live when I spend summers in Egypt. I crossed 15 hours and 10 years difference in life expectancy. But for the accident of being born here, I got the opportunity to get vaccinated against diseases that killed two of my aunts and uncles I otherwise never met.
I got to go to amazing public schools. I got to go to an incredible public university. I got my medical education paid for by the NIH. And at the same time, growing up just 15 minutes away from me, children whose families had been here far longer than mine, who never got those same opportunities.
America can do glorious things, but to love America isn't just to dress up in some colors and pretend that everything's fine. To love America is to will America to do the hard work of being better. If you love America, you want America to be America for all of her kids. And as I think about those past 250 years, those errors, slavery, Jim Crow, the fact this country was built without giving women equal access to citizenship for years, continued discrimination against people. The thing our country has always done better than anyone else is that we've been able to look those failures in the eye and correct them. It's not because we ignore our challenges, the greatness of America is the ability to see those challenges and fix them. And 250 years on, as we think about where we go from here, it is that ability to correct that we together have embraced in this movement.
We live in an era of historical inequality, in an era where union participation is near an all-time low, but the number of billionaires has never been higher. An era where schools continue to carry the consequences of historical segregation. An era where we continue to see a few very small people try to define America as being as small as they are.
We can't control the past 250 years. What we can do is build the next few 250. And to do that, it's going to mean movements like this one of the people, by the people and for the people, with a distinct purpose of taking on the challenges that we face. Those movements have never been more important than they are right now.
I look in front of me and I see all kinds of colors, all kinds of stories coming together around the idea that we can have nice things, we just can't do it alone. That to have them, we're going to need to reach across the divides they tell us we can't breach. Divides of race, of faith, of geography, of sexual orientation, gender identity to build together what we want to hand off to our kids and our grandkids.
[01:15:11]
And for the past 15 months, I've had the privilege of being a part of that movement with all of you. And so as we continue forward for the next 13 weeks, I am asking you to put your shoulder in the work to make sure that we defeat Mike Rogers, we defeat and send a blow to Trumpism, and we do the work of building that next 250 years that all of us deserve. Because at some point, whether you know them or you don't, the future will ask you, what did you do in this moment? For me, it looks like two little girls, ethnically half Indian like their mom, ethnically half Egyptian like me, 100 percent American.
And I want to tell them when they ask that I got to work with so many incredible people who believed in the best of America so that we could hand it off to them and all of their kids and grandkids. Ask yourself what we could be if we treated all our kids like they were all our kids. Ask yourself what it would mean when it comes to where we spend our tax dollars about the schools we build, the health care we provide, the opportunities we would want. And for the next 13 weeks and the next six years after that, I'm asking you to join me in helping to build that America.
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: (CHANTING) Abdul, Abdul, abdul, Abdul.
EL-SAYED: So with that, we should know who the victor will be tomorrow and the work starts anew. And so for one last time for this primary, money out of?
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: Politics.
EL-SAYED: Money in your?
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: Pockets.
EL-SAYED: Medicare for?
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: All.
EL-SAYED: Let's go win. Thank you so much.
MICHAELSON: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed speaking there in Detroit. His speech almost 17 minutes long, much different than when we heard from Haley Stevens, who was about five minutes long. Arlette Saenz is in the room.
Arlette, what was your big takeaway from what we just heard?
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Abdul El-Sayed really used his speech tonight as an attempt to thank and talk about the movement within the progressive part of the Democratic Party that has helped fueled his campaign. But he also made a very critical plea to the Democratic Party to unite after what has been an incredibly divisive contest. Abdul El-Sayed acknowledged that it might still be many hours until this race is called. But he said that no matter who wins tonight, that Democrats need to get behind their chosen nominee.
It comes as we've really seen a very personal and bruising battle play out between Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive in this contest who is running against the more moderate candidate, Congressman -- woman Haley Stevens. She also, in her remarks a bit earlier, they were much shorter than El-Sayed, but she did acknowledge that whoever wins will be ready to take on Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, in November. So now there's going to be a lot of questions going forward. One, we need to learn who will emerge as the winner from this Democratic primary. But then there are very real questions about the work ahead to ensure that Democrats can unite if they want to have a chance of beating Rogers in this critical midterm contest.
El-Sayed also devoted a large portion of his speech to go after Rogers, perhaps signaling that that might have been something he would have talked about if he was able to declare victory this evening. He really talked about that, the way that they want to paint Rogers in this campaign, arguing that he would be a stamp for President Donald Trump and his policies in Washington. I also thought it was notable that El-Sayed that he doesn't think that Michigan is a purple state. Michigan has swung between parties in the past few presidential elections. Trump won in 2024, Biden in 2020, Trump in 2016. So this very much still is a swing state.
But what El-Sayed is trying to argue is that voters in this state aren't thinking about ideology. They're thinking about how to solve some of the issues, like pocketbook issues, affordability issues that they are confronting in this campaign. So that could be a way that he tries to frame this if he does continue on to the general election, where he would need to appeal to a wider swath of voters. But Elex, campaign officials from both teams certainly will continue to watch this data --
[01:20:10]
MICHAELSON: Yes.
SAENZ: -- as it comes in overnight, hoping that their candidate will emerge as the victor. But Democrats here in the state will have to wait just a little bit longer to learn who that will be.
MICHAELSON: Well, Arlette, as you stay with us, I want to bring up some of that data. And as El-Sayed was speaking, the race kept getting closer. The longer his speech went, the worse the numbers went for him. We're now at 48.9 for El-Sayed, 47.1 for Stevens. This race still too early to call.
There is definitely a path for Stevens.
And this is interesting, Arlette, because at -- in the last few days, some polls, including some that frankly aren't that reliable, had shown perhaps a double digit victory for El-Sayed. That was the way a lot of people were coming into today. What are you hearing from the supporters there? Are they surprised at how close this thing is? Was there an expectation walking in to this event that this thing would already be over a few hours ago?
SAENZ: Well, El-Sayed supporters had been hoping that this race would have been called much earlier than it's actually going to be. One thing that his campaign had acknowledged heading into tonight is that Wayne County, as we know, is very slow to count votes. So they had always included that potential caveat that maybe this could drag out a bit longer. But there had really been a major sense of enthusiasm within El-Sayed campaign in recent days and weeks and they thought that this might be being called a bit earlier than it will be. So we will see exactly how that shakes out.
But one thing that we've seen in some of the data coming in for Haley Stevens is that she has been doing quite well with the mail in vote. The absentee voting ran for quite an extended period of time here in Michigan. And so El-Sayed was really hoping to drive up especially the numbers in turnout on Election Day. But we'll see how this all begins to shake out its potential.
It could tighten, it could expand. There's a lot of votes still to be counted here in the critical battleground in Michigan.
MICHAELSON: Arlette, thank you.
Our colleague Harry Enten is breaking all those numbers down at the Magic Wall. He joins us next when we come back. And a little later we rejoin our panel. A lot to break down in what we just heard, but new numbers when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [01:26:52]
MICHAELSON: Welcome back to The Story Is, our special coverage of election night in America. We've got new numbers coming in by the minute out of Michigan.
CNN's Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten with us live right now. As you see where we're at, Abdul El-Sayed at 48.9, Haley Stevens not far behind at 47.1. Since we spoke to you, Harry, about an hour ago, she is closing the gap.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I got the vapors. I got the vapors in here, my dear friend, Elex. I mean, this race is closer, I mean, it is closer than two cars together during rush hour traffic in either Los Angeles or New York City or perhaps outside of Detroit if we're talking about Michigan here.
You know this is the name of the game, right? You were talking about it when -- Abdul El-Sayed started his speech, he was leading by three. Now the lead is under two points. He's only ahead. I know the number is small on the screen right here by a little bit less than 33,000 the last time -- 23,000, excuse me, the last time we spoke, that number was 37,000.
And more than that, Haley Stevens absolutely has a path to victory because what are we talking about? What is the name of the game? We spoke about it last hour. It's Wayne County, it's Detroit. And if we go down there to Detroit, what you can see right now, two key nuggets to keep in mind.
Number one, Haley Stevens is ahead in Wayne County 52 percent to a little bit less than 45 percent, 69 percent of the estimated vote in. Ergo, there's still 31 percent of the estimated vote still out. Detroit, where Haley Stevens is doing particularly well with in Wayne County, also still has vote out plenty of it. She's doing very well downtown Detroit, doing very well with African-American voters.
Now, if we were to go one county north, this is another county we've been keeping our eyes out on, right, Macomb County. The last time we spoke, this was your lighter Columbia shade of blue because Abdul El- Sayed was ahead. Now it is in fact a dark navy blue. Why is that? Because Haley Stevens is now out ahead in Macomb County.
Still got 25 percent of the vote there. More than that as we zoom out on your map here, and again, you see the bottom line here, two little things I want to know -- or three little things. Number one, still 17 percent of the vote still out. We have only 83 percent of the vote in.
Number two, you pointed it out last hour, the candidate not here is the candidate that dropped out of the race but still on the ballot, McMorrow. She's getting 4 percent of the vote. The margin right now significantly less than that. Quite the story that will be if this holds.
The last thing I will note is that if I hit my do dad pretty well here, here's what I want to know. All night long this is tracking the vote all night long. What has been going on? Well, Abdul El-Sayed has pretty much been ahead all night long. But you can see, Elex, almost like a shark.
What you see is Haley Stevens getting closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and now less than two points. Will she actually close in and get her fish? We'll have to wait and see.
MICHAELSON: Oh, man. We need the "Jaws" theme to be your backing music. Harry Enten --
ENTEN: Done it.
MICHAELSON: -- there we go. Don't get it -- don't too much because we can't afford the music rights.
ENTEN: I know. Just a little bit.
[01:29:41]
MICHAELSON: Just a little.
Harry Enten hanging out with us late into the night. You -- we just can't wait to see what he's going to do next as we continue to follow those numbers throughout the evening.
Up next, our panel is back after the break to talk about everything we just witnessed. They have very strong reactions to very different speeches from el-Sayed and Stevens, and what both of their speeches say about them and what they might be like in the Senate.
We continue to watch that number get closer and closer.
[01:30:35]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAELSON: We continue to follow breaking news out of Michigan. Hotly-contested Democratic Senate primary there. It keeps getting closer.
Progressive candidate Abdul el-Sayed barely ahead right now of Haley Stevens. The race is still too early to call.
Our panel is back.
It was interesting. We just heard speeches from both of them -- very different speeches. One was over 16 minutes, the other one was five minutes. The visuals were very different.
Here's part of what Haley Stevens had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HALEY STEVENS, MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE: They want to keep the Senate red so Mike Rogers can ban abortion, gut health care and roll back workers' rights and voting rights. Friends, we are not going to let that happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: That's her take on Mike Rogers. Here's some of what Abdul el-Sayed said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABDUL EL-SAYED, MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE: Let's come together to build a movement that's even bigger, that's even stronger, that's even more powerful, that reaches into the very depths of this state, that reminds us the best of who we are and who we can be.
That is the commitment I want all of us to be making as we leave here tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Congresswoman, as the only person on this panel that's actually given one of these speeches, your thoughts on clearly very different approaches.
KATIE PORTER, FORMER HOUSE DEMOCRAT: Yes. I mean, I think Stevens was talking to Democratic voters. Voters who know where they are on things like abortion, on things like voters rights.
I think the strongest part of el-Sayed's speech was when he was talking to the purple voter. The voter who might be considering Mike Rogers, and he's saying, listen, Mike Rogers, the rent is too high. Mike Rogers, we can't afford to put food on the table for your kids. Mike Rogers, not a brighter future for America.
So I think that opening part of el-Sayed speech, where he's talking to purple voters and really trying to say to people who might be considering Mike Rogers, come on in.
And in a way, what Stevens was just saying is, listen, if you -- if you're basically ok with core Democratic stuff, voting rights, for example, things some Republicans used to even support, you know, abortion rights, come on in and vote for us.
So I think they were talking to different people.
MICHAELSON: From a strategy perspective. Matt, which one made more sense?
MATT: Clearly, the first speaker. She was --
MICHAELSON: Haley Stevens.
MATT KLINK, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: -- Haley Stevens was excellent. I think that was -- well, one, she was short. I think that she was very focused. She created a nice contrast.
You know, Mike Rogers equals Donald Trump equals my opponent. The second speaker, dr. El-Sayed. I mean, look, the guy loves to hear
himself talk. He's a dynamic speaker, but I don't know if the purple voter, and certainly no Republican voter, is going to talk about a movement.
(CROSSTALKING)
KLINK: I mean, he is catering to the extreme left of the Democratic Party.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANLAYST: You know, and look, it's a different vision. I mean, he's very much in that Bernie Sanders constellation kind of vision of politics that you're going to inspire this movement to transform the country, transform the electorate.
Implicit in that is that there's this vast pool of nonvoters that you're going to inspire. I mean, that has really proved very difficult to do -- very hard to do, very hard to do.
And I thought that she was just basically, were going to win this election.
KLINK: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: We're not going to transform the country. We're like, we're going to -- we're going to get more votes than Mike Rogers in November, and we're going to have one less vote for Republicans. And therefore, we can restore the ACA subsidies.
KLINK: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: it's just kind of like there's a grandiosity in the, in the -- in the -- in the presentation of kind of the el-Sayed and many of the Bernie style candidates.
And look, that's what they think they can do.
MICHAELSON: Well, as you were speaking, we got even more new numbers and it got even closer. So Haley Stevens continues to make up that margin.
And one thing you pointed out, Congresswoman, as we were watching that, that was interesting was that during el-Sayed's speech, we kept seeing his presumably his digital director --
PORTER: 100 percent --
MICHAELSON: -- standing in the camera shot, getting great hero shots of him from behind. Now, the old school way of doing this, you're more focused on the TV cameras in front because that's the audience, how they get information so you would never do that. Youd be fired for doing something like that.
For his campaign, it's a plus.
PORTER: Yes. Well, I mean, he was up there alone, which also put the focus squarely on him.
And she did the kind of more traditional thing of surrounding herself with two, you know, two currently elected Debbie Stabenow, right, former senator.
[01:39:45]
PORTER: With Hilary Shelton sitting congresswoman. She grabbed Shelton's kids and is like, look, I care about the future. It just was, I think, very, very different style.
KLINK: Content creation is key. I mean, the guys behind the camera moves a little bit. It's very edgy. There are going to be quick clips that are going to highlight certain key phrases. That's the new way.
(CROSSTALKING)
BROWNSTEIN: And there are benefits to it, right? I mean, he excites a lot of young people.
KLINK: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: Look at Ann Arbor. I mean, that county, how big. But you know, there are a lot of in all of these states, these are older states. They're heavily non-college states. There are not a lot of people who are watching edgy videos.
And ultimately, you've got to -- you may not have to win non-college whites to win Michigan as a Democrat anymore, but you got to stay competitive.
MICHAELSON: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: And that's going to be a big challenge for him if he ultimately is the nominee.
MICHAELSON: Older people vote.
PORTER: Well, and I will say though.
MICHAELSON: Real quick, please.
PORTER: The electorate is younger in the general and it's bigger in the general. So I will say, I think, you know, to your point, el-Sayed was talking to an electorate that I'm not sure is tuning in on Democratic primary night.
MICHAELSON: Yes, but they might be watching his social media tomorrow.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
PORTER: That's right.
MICHAELSON: All right. More with you guys and more from Michigan when we come back. Our special coverage election night in America continues. And it seems like every other minute we're getting new numbers. So stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:44:50]
MICHAELSON: I promise that were getting new numbers every other minute. We just got new numbers within the last minute or so.
Actually good numbers for Abdul el-Sayed. First time that we've seen that in a while to help expand his lead. Right now, you see, he is ahead by over 21,000 votes.
PORTER: People always focus on that 1 percent difference and they get really excited. They say they're 1 percent away. But 23,000 -- you know, 21,000 votes is a lot of humans that you've got a lot of votes you got to find.
MICHAELSON: Yes, indeed.
We want to go to Michigan right now. Chad Livengood is the politics editor and columnist for "The Detroit News". He joins us now to dive deeper into all of this.
You know this state so well. In terms of the vote, that's outstanding and your -- the makeup of it, do you see a path for Stevens? Do you think there are enough votes out there for her to get there?
CHAD LIVENGOOD, POLITICS EDITOR AND COLUMNIST, "THE DETROIT NEWS": It does look like there is a path still. There's about 27 percent of the vote -- of votes have not been counted yet in Wayne County, particularly in Detroit and some of the first-ring suburbs.
Dearborn is a big key area as well, key for Abdul el-Sayed. But Wayne County and Detroit in particular are always going to be favored to Haley Stevens, even though Abdul was most recently the Wayne County public health director. He was once Detroit's public health director. He's got a lot of connections from his 2018 campaign for governor in the city.
So he -- you know, I wouldn't count him out here. But, you know, right now, she's got about a comfortable six-point lead in Wayne County. And if that -- if that gets, you know, much -- much more wider, it's not -- it's going to be, you know, pretty close and maybe leaning towards her favor.
There are a couple other key areas around the state that are still -- votes have not been come in yet. Calhoun County around Battle Creek, home of Kellogg's cereal that is still not -- still just 41 percent of the vote there. And there's a few other just sporadic areas that we're waiting to see what the results are. Genesee County, Flint Area still a little under 80 percent of the vote counted there.
Haley Stevens has a lead there, but it's not -- it's not firm. And, you know, again, we're kind of waiting to see what the -- what the last precincts out of Flint look like, because el-Sayed was just recently just in Flint over the weekend and last weekend and trying to really make some inroads there, so.
MICHAELSON: You've been out talking to voters, getting a sense of what was driving them. What stood out to you in terms of actually hearing from voters?
LIVENGOOD: There is a lot of distrust in institutions right now from government to our utility companies. and in particularly DTE energy, the electric company in Detroit, has had a spotty record as of late when it comes to every time the wind blows in the state, seems like a lot of people's power goes out.
Abdul el-Sayed has just been railing on this company and use this against Haley Stevens because she's taken thousands of dollars of DTE corporate PAC money over the years and really kind of tried to basically energize a lot of people on this subject.
Not a lot of subjects get, you know, as much as he focused on AIPAC, he kind of at the end here, he came in on DTE. And coming in on DTE, you know, resonates a lot better with people who aren't necessarily already in his corner.
And so, you know, that was one that and data centers, there's been a big upheaval on data centers.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
LIVENGOOD: Lots of moratoriums, recall efforts and such. And so -- and DTE is linked directly to the hip of the data center hyperscalers (ph). And so Abdul and some of the other progressive candidates on the ballot in the 13th congressional, 7th congressional, they have been really honed in on data centers.
MICHAELSON: It's interesting because, of course, the national media is spending so much time talking about issues like Israel, but for voters, when it comes to making their mind up, the local power company could be the thing that makes their mind up one way or another.
So thank you for giving us that perspective from the ground. I know you're probably not sleeping. So we appreciate you staying up late with us on a very exciting night in the history of Michigan politics.
Stay with us. As we mentioned, we're getting all sorts of new numbers every single minute, it seems. We'll hopefully have more when we come back, including more from our panel.
[01:49:47]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAELSON: All right. I promised new numbers from Michigan. And we got them.
The latest numbers are good for Abdul el-Sayed. He is now up about 25,000 but it is still too early to call this race.
As we prepare to wrap up this hour and head into the next hour, Matt Klink, the biggest thing you're looking forward in the hour or two ahead.
KLINK: It's just where those votes are in Wayne County. It says -- I mean, the number is important, but it's where the votes are because if it's inner-city Detroit, Haley Stevens has got to be very, very happy. But if it's in other places, she's probably not going to be happy.
[01:54:46]
MICHAELSON: Congresswoman.
PORTER: I'm looking at how many votes are left, just the raw number of votes left. We're up to 89 percent of the vote counted. You know, right now 25,000-lead. There's probably, what, maybe 100,000 votes out there. You got to really have a big gap for Stevens to get there.
MICHAELSON: Ron.
BROWNSTEIN: You know, I'm just kind of wondering how they put the party back together after an election that has divided it so cleanly and so consistently across the state.
But I will note that, you know, Donald Trump's disapproval is such that either of these candidates can win in Michigan in the end.
MICHAELSON: Yes. And so we will talk in the next hour about both of their strategies for bringing the party together, which both seem a little bit different as well.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
MICHAELSON: Plus, as we see, we keep getting more and more numbers and we'll see if it's possible in the next hour that maybe we have a call, depending on how quickly those Michigan -- those Wayne County votes come in.
If we get a big slash of those, we may have a better sense in terms of picking a winner in this race.
So we are doing overtime of THE STORY IS. Usually this is when I say good night. But now it's I say, see it when we come back for more of ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA.
[01:55:58]
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