“As I’ve spoken to Michiganders, one thing’s become clear: It’s just too hard to get by,” El-Sayed said. “But it doesn’t have to be. And to fix it, we need to break the chokehold that billionaires and oligarchs that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have on our politics and economy. It’s not just about what we’re fighting against — it’s about what we fight for. Michiganders deserve an economy that works for them, guaranteed healthcare, clean air, and water.” 

El-Sayed entered the race, which is expected to be one of the most hotly contested in the 2026 midterm elections, after Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow became the first Democrat to announce her candidacy to replace Peters earlier this month. 

During the 2024 elections, El-Sayed opposed former President Joe Biden’s stance on the Israeli-Gaza conflict. This led him to join over 100,000 voters in casting an “uncommitted” protest vote against Biden in Michigan’s Democratic primary last February. 

El-Sayed built a profile in the state during his 2018 gubernatorial bid. At the time, he challenged Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) for the Democratic nomination, winning the endorsements of fellow progressives Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Despite losing the gubernatorial race, El-Sayed rose to director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services, and served in the position from 2023 to 2025. 

After he announced his Senate run, El-Sayed refused to blacklist Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) despite his antiestablishment rhetoric. This set El-Sayed apart from McMorrow, who vowed to back another candidate for Schumer’s leadership position if she wins. McMorrow said the Democrats need fresh leadership to breathe new life into the party.

“Anybody who tells you that they’re going to unilaterally oppose one potential candidate without knowing who the alternative is, is either unnuanced or unsophisticated,” El-Sayed told Politico. “So I want to know who is available … who is actively seeking the leadership. I’ll make a decision from there.”

During an interview in which he outlined his goals for a possible Senate term, El-Sayed called on Democrats to take a “direct” approach in talking to voters, urging them to move away from the “mush”-based rhetoric that soothes donors.

“I think it’s time for a politics that is unafraid to take issues head on to say the honest truth out loud and to articulate what we can do to solve it,” he told the Detroit Free Press. 

“Too often, and I hate to say it, what happens is you’ve got donors who sit on the wrong side of a lot of these problems, and so politicians get themselves hamstrung because they don’t want to bother their donors,” El-Sayed continued. “They want to say something that seems relevant, and you end up with gobbledygook. It’s mush. I don’t do mush. I do direct. I say what I mean and I mean what I say.”

El-Sayed has also focused on his opposition to President Donald Trump and his senior adviser, Elon Musk, who runs the Department of Government Efficiency. He accused the two men of ripping federal funding for health services in Detroit 

“Anybody who has ever worked in a health department knows that so much of what you can do is a function of federal policy,” El-Sayed said. “Literally on the same day Trump and Musk froze our federal funding to the (Wayne County) department, Sen. Peters announced after a long and storied career, he was resigning. So I had to ask myself: Where is the fight for all the work that I care about?”

HOW REPUBLICANS TOOK BACK THE SENATE AFTER STINGING 2022 SETBACK

So far, only one Republican has entered the race to replace Peters. 

Mike Rogers, a former congressman who lost his Michigan Senate bid against Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) during the 2024 election, announced earlier this week that he will run again in 2026.