Backed by 80% of Voters Under Age 45, El-Sayed Up by Double Digits in Michigan Poll

In the Democratic US Senate primary race in Michigan, a big swing—particularly among voters aged 18-44—toward former public health official and Medicare for All advocate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed was found Tuesday in the latest poll by a research firm that six months ago had seen the progressive candidate in distant third place.

Twenty-eight percent of primary voters said they were supporting El-Sayed in a poll released by Mitchell Research and Communications, while 18% said they were backing US Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who has the support of Democratic leaders and the powerful pro-Israel lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Seventeen percent of voters said they were supporting state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8).

The poll showed an inversion of the result found by Mitchell in November, when El-Sayed was trailing his two opponents by eight points and Stevens and McMorrow were separated by just three points.

Mitchell polled 405 likely primary voters between May 1-7, around the time that El-Sayed appeared with US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at a rally as part of the senator's Fighting Oligarchy Tour. He drew loud applause for condemning AIPAC for its persistent conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel, and spoke about his strong support for expanding the Medicare system to everyone in the US.

The poll also came after a weekslong controversy that was promoted by centrist think tank Third Way, with the support of both Stevens and McMorrow, targeting El-Sayed for campaigning with Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer and commentator who's been outspoken in his condemnation of Israel.

With the controversy largely in the rearview mirror despite some lawmakers' continued fixation on Piker, the new poll suggests the criticism of El-Sayed didn't land in Michigan—particularly among voters in younger demographics arguably more likely to have heard of Piker, who gained notoriety by sharing political commentary while playing video games online.

Among voters under the age of 45, El-Sayed had 80% of the support in the poll released Tuesday.

The other two candidates in the race barely registered among voters in the demographic, with 4% supporting Stevens and 3% backing McMorrow. The primary race has been called a "millennial showdown" by local media, with the three candidates ranging in age from 39-42.

The poll comes after numerous surveys have found that Israel—the issue that Third Way attempted to center in the election—has plummeting support among voters, following its yearslong assault on Gaza. Last October, nearly half of Democratic voters in swing districts, including in Michigan, said in a poll that they would vote against a candidate funded by AIPAC.

Meanwhile, Medicare for All—the proposal that's a key focus of El-Sayed's platform—was supported by 78% of Democratic voters, along with 71% of Independents and 49% of Republicans in a survey by Data for Progress late last year.

Rotimi Adeoye, a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, said the poll suggested that Third Way had "jumped into this race and leaned into identity politics in a way that just polarized the electorate further in El-Sayed’s favor, given he’s solely focused on healthcare."

"If you are spending any time as a candidate not talking about housing, healthcare, the economy, groceries, and dedicating a second or a millisecond talking about Hasan Piker or the identity politics topic of the day on Twitter, you're losing," said Adeoye.

Jon Favreau, co-host of Pod Save America and a former speechwriter under the Obama administration, summed up the poll results succinctly.

The survey, he said, showed a "Third Way bump" for El-Sayed.