Graham Platner spent months as the Democrat Party's great left-wing hope – right up until his own allies called him a predator.
Now the same machine that built Platner just picked its next star.
And what this candidate said on camera – then deleted – is going to make Michigan Republicans very happy.
Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Defund Police Record Exposed
Abdul El-Sayed is a 41-year-old former Wayne County health director running for Michigan's open Senate seat – and he is the Democratic Socialists of America's biggest bet of the 2026 cycle.
Michigan's August 4 Democrat primary has become the highest-stakes proxy war between the Democratic Socialist of America insurgency and the Democrat establishment. El-Sayed has Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the United Auto Workers. Rep. Haley Stevens has Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the party apparatus that needs a candidate who can survive a general election in a swing state.
DSA-backed candidates swept primaries in deep-blue New York and Denver this summer – safe seats where the radical label costs nothing come November. Michigan is different. Nominating El-Sayed hands Republican Mike Rogers a Senate seat on a silver platter, and the establishment knows it.
El-Sayed isn't a moderate who drifted Left. He built his career there.
In 2020, on Detroit Public Radio, he said it out loud: "I believe that we do need to defund the police."
He said it again in tweets. Dozens of them – tweets describing police departments as "standing armies" and calling for deep cuts to law enforcement budgets.
Then he decided to run for Senate and deleted all of it.
When CNN's Kasie Hunt pressed him on the record last week, El-Sayed claimed he "never, never called for defunding" the police.
The Washington Free Beacon then reported that El-Sayed sat on the board of a far-left organization that lobbied to "defund and abolish the police" and described cops as "fascist pigs" – during the same period he organized a Detroit protest that devolved into a riot.
On ICE, he hasn't even tried to hide it.
"I'm the only person on this stage who has said and had the courage to say that we oughta abolish ICE," El-Sayed declared at a Detroit rally, with Sanders' "Fight Oligarchy" logo on the podium in front of him.
Michigan Senate Primary 2026 Puts Democrat Senate Majority on the Line
Democrats need a net four-seat Senate gain to win the majority. The Michigan seat – held for two terms by retiring Sen. Gary Peters – is essential to that math.
If El-Sayed wins August 4 and loses to Mike Rogers in November, Democrats watch their Senate majority dream collapse with it.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee isn't even waiting. They're already running digital ads calling El-Sayed "too radical for Michigan" – during the Democrat primary – because they want him to win it.
That is the situation Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are parachuting later this month to campaign for El-Sayed.
AOC 2028 Presidential Run Takes Shape Inside a Michigan Senate Rally
AOC’s trip to Michigan has an added benefit as rumors swirl about a potential 2028 Presidential campaign.
Michigan votes early in the Democrat presidential primary – and AOC is getting her name in front of exactly the voters she'll need in 2028.
This is Sanders country. He beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Michigan presidential primary – a result that shocked the political world and proved the state's Democrat electorate has a powerful anti-establishment streak.
Sanders has spent a decade building loyalty here. AOC is now inheriting that infrastructure and those voters.
Her rallies with Sanders drew 30,000 to 40,000 people on their "Fighting Oligarchy" tour in 2025. She backed El-Sayed on July 2 – her first endorsement in a competitive Senate race this cycle. Every stop in Detroit and Grand Rapids doubles as an audition for a presidential campaign.
The NRSC's Bernadette Breslin was direct: "El-Sayed now owns the political liabilities that come with AOC's endorsement and her socialist spending spree. Together in Congress, they would saddle Michiganders with crippling tax hikes and dismantle the law enforcement agencies that keep their communities safe."
El-Sayed spent last week defending a campaign fundraising email timed to the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre – one that ignored the attack entirely and blamed Israel for the resulting ground war in Gaza. His campaign called it an error. He called it accurate.
Trump has called communism the greatest threat America has faced in generations – and Michigan is where that fight lands next.
The DSA is riding high after a summer of primary wins in cities that were never going to vote Republican anyway. El-Sayed is their first real test in a state that actually matters in November.
The question is whether Michigan Democrats figure that out before August 4. Republicans are betting they won't.
Sources:
- Geoff Earle, "AOC heads to battleground Michigan to boost left wing candidate – and herself," New York Post, July 11, 2026.
- "Sanders, AOC to stump for Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan Senate primary," Washington Examiner, July 11, 2026.
- "Bernie and AOC Focus on Pushing Radical Leftist in Vital Swing State," Daily Wire, July 8, 2026.
- "NRSC Slams Abdul El-Sayed in New Ad Ahead of Rally Swing," NRSC Press Release, June 25, 2026.
- "Defund the Police Scandal Now Rocking Michigan Democrat's Senate Campaign," RedState, July 7, 2026.
- "Abdul El-Sayed Was Just Busted Lying About His Views on Defunding the Police," Townhall, July 8, 2026.
- "Fascist Pigs: Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Served on Board of Far-Left Group," Washington Free Beacon, December 4, 2025.
- "Socialist Surge: Far-left Democrats Test National Playbook After Blue-City Primary Shocks," Fox News, July 7, 2026.