Haley Stevens

With less than a week left until the primary election, a new poll shows Abdul El-Sayed leading Congresswoman Haley Stevens by 10 percentage points in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

A poll of 914 likely primary voters conducted by Tavern Research found that 46% said they would vote for El-Sayed, a progressive firebrand who once led the Detroit and Wayne County health departments, if the election were held today, compared to 36% who said they would vote for Stevens, a moderate Oakland County congresswoman now in her fourth term.

Another 4% of respondents said they would vote for state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is no longer running though her name will still appear on the ballot, and 14% were undecided.

“We’re backed by a movement of 10,000 volunteers and hundreds of thousands of Michiganders who are ready for change,” said El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner. “We’re confident that this movement will deliver victories on August 4th and again on November 3rd.”

But the results of the Tavern Research poll stand in marked contrast to a Glengariff Group poll released in mid-July, which found that Stevens was leading El-Sayed by 7 percentage points, though it also found that the candidates were neck-and-neck among voters who said they were certain of who they were voting for.

Stevens has spent the last day or two trumpeting the results of a July 25 poll commissioned by the Michigan Education Association and Business Leaders for Michigan and released earlier this week, which found she was slightly ahead of likely Republican nominee Mike Rogers and that El-Sayed was 7 percentage points behind him.

“Slogans don’t win elections, real work and a strong record do,” Stevens tweeted along with an image of those poll results. “I’m the only candidate in this race that can keep Michigan blue and help flip the Senate for Democrats.”

Michigan has one of the few competitive Senate races in the country this year, and Stevens and many of the state’s most prominent Democrats have been promoting the idea that she has the best chance to hold the seat, which the Democrats will need to do if they hope to retake control of the Senate.

But Richard Czuba, whose Glengariff Group conducted the MEA and Business Leaders for Michigan poll, said those numbers would almost certainly shift if El-Sayed were to win the primary.

“Polls are a snapshot in time, and in this case, we have to understand what’s happening during that snapshot,” Czuba said, noting that Rogers had been reaching out to independent voters and that Stevens had been the beneficiary of massive television advertising campaigns that independents can’t help but see, while El-Sayed was still focused on the Democratic primary.

But if El-Sayed wins the primary, Czuba said, “his numbers will come back with those independents because he will be seen as the option to Mike Rogers, who is endorsed by Trump.”

“He’s already got a pretty effective message he can tailor to those independents, and that is the message of ending politics as we know it, [not taking] corporate contributions. I see he’s talking increasingly about data centers,” Czuba added. “Those are messages that really appeal to the center.”

The race is widely seen as a contest between progressive and moderate visions of the Democratic Party’s future.

In the final debate between the two candidates before the Aug. 4 primary, Stevens sought to portray El-Sayed as a “celebrity” politician, more flash than substance.

El-Sayed pointed out that Stevens has been the beneficiary of close to $60 million in outside spending.

“When you’re bought off by DTE and Blue Cross and Big Pharma and Big Tech and AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), don’t be surprised that there’s a pro quo that comes with that quid,” he said.