El-Sayed

MARQUETTE — While the 2026 Michigan senatorial race isn’t Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s first time running for office, he’s re-entering the race with renewed vigor and commitment to Michiganders.

Dr. El-Sayed is a physician by training, well-known for helping rebuild the city of Detroit’s Health Department and leading Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services – the largest municipal health department in Michigan. He led efforts to eliminate approximately $700 million in medical debt, built a state-of-the-art air quality monitoring system and organized programs to help supply free Narcan in vending machines in nearly 100 different locations. Dr. El-Sayed was elected to serve on former President Biden’s Unity Task Force for Healthcare in 2020 and authored the book “Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide” alongside Dr. Micah Johnson. When deciding to run for Senate, El-Sayed says that thinking about how the patients he serves would be affected by federal funding freezes is what inspired him to act.

“I am never going to forget the day they froze federal funds. I’m looking at all the line items that are federally funded in our department budget, and I’m thinking, ‘My goodness, this is going to have such massive implications (for) the people that I serve and the ways that I serve them.’ I was literally reviewing that budget when I got a push notification on my phone that Gary Peters was not going to be running for reelection. I had to ask myself, ‘Where does the fight for public health or the kind of politics that puts people and their well-being first (go)? Where does that fight go?’ And I realized that it had to go to the U.S. Senate, considering all that’s happening at the federal level to decimate the kind of work that I’ve been leading in our communities for most of my career. That really was that spark moment,” said El-Sayed. “I ran for governor back in 2018 when Donald Trump got elected, and I said this thing that folks weren’t quite ready to hear, which is that Donald Trump himself is not the disease of our politics. He’s just the worst symptom of the disease of our politics. The real disease is the system that allows corporations and billionaires and would-be oligarchs to buy access to politicians and to rig the system for their benefit. If we don’t take that system on, I worry that we will be stuck in the kind of politics that either supports a Donald Trump or creates space for the kind of politician like Donald Trump to come to power. So for all those reasons, I decided to jump in.”

El-Sayed says that his work, from the day he graduated medical school, focuses on answering the question, “How do we build an America where everybody gets access to their longest, healthiest, most dignified life?” His campaign strategy this time around reflects asking this same question to acquire straightforward solutions with the help of people who are actively facing these problems.

“We go everywhere and talk to everybody. If you think about what medicine is about, you ask two questions: what’s wrong and how can I help? Those are the two central questions of our politics too: what’s wrong and how can I help? We’ve been asking that question now around 50 different cities, 67 town halls and another 40-plus roundtables and other kinds of events on top of that. We go everywhere, we talk to everybody, we ask those questions, and we speak about the kinds of opportunities we have to actually solve what stands in the way of folks having that access to a long healthy life that every single person in this country should know they have access to. In some respects, I do what I was trying to do, which is to ask those questions and answer them. I’m a scientist by training as well, and so we’re asking, ‘How do we understand the system, and what breaks it, and how do we understand how to rebuild it?’ By asking very smart, thoughtful, technical questions that people are asking, and then proposing solutions to those problems that would actually help to solve the problem,” El-Sayed explained. “For a lot of people, it’s not that straightforward, because they’re more interested in what a large corporate donor cares about. I’m not. I’m the only candidate in this race, Democrat or Republican, who’s never touched a corporate PAC check. That’s not because I haven’t run before. It’s because philosophically, I think that’s what’s wrong with our system. There are other people who think, ‘Well, it seems like the political winds are shifting on this, so I should shift with them.’ I don’t shift with political winds. I just think what is right is right and what is not right is not right. I’ve tried to live my life and conduct our campaigns that way. What you get out of me is somebody who’s been consistent for the past 10 years since I jumped into public service. So for me, it really is that simple. I think for a lot of people, they’re trying to put their finger in the wind and figure out where the political pulse is headed, so it gets a lot more complicated for them. I just think we shouldn’t make simple things complicated.”

If elected to serve as a Senator for Michigan, El-Sayed plans to deliver on his campaign promise of Medicare for All, as well as keeping money in the hands of the American people and leaving it outside of politics.

“Number one, I plan to go out and do the things I’m campaigning on. I want to get money out of politics. I want to put money in people’s pockets, and I want to pass Medicare for All. How do you do that? You pass legislation that takes on the disastrous Citizens United regime that tells us that the 14th Amendment means that corporations are people and that money is speech. You pass a law making that illegal to spend corporate money to influence our politics. You strengthen critical law enforcement agencies like the Federal Trade Commission to make sure that corporations can’t buy each other up and use their power to flex on the American public. You make it easier to build and scale a small business. You make it easier to join or form a union, and then you work to pass Medicare for All. Those are the things that people can count on for me,” El-Sayed said. “Beyond that, I come from a constituent services background. I ran two health departments, and one of the key things that people want from their senators (is) to make sure that you’re a gateway to being able to manage some really hard bureaucratic processes in D.C. I’m hoping to be able to build the best constituent services unit that the state has ever seen. Whether you voted for me or you didn’t, I’m looking forward to serving you and people can count on that. The last thing is I’m not going to be quiet, and people are electing me to go and have a broader conversation about what America ought to look like. I’m not going to sit back on my laurels as a U.S. Senator and sort of put my head down. My goal is to go out and have a nice, kind, thoughtful, engaged, honest conversation with the American public about what are the kinds of things that we could do to actually return our government to the ideals of a government of the people by the people and for the people. That’s the work that I’m focused on doing.”

For those who may be familiar with Dr. El-Sayed or his platform, he says that there are three key messages about him that he wants voters to be aware of: taking money out of politics, passing Medicare for All, and keeping money in the hands of the people who are earning it.

“Three things: we want to take money out of politics, we want to put money back in people’s pockets, and we want to pass Medicare for All. A bonus fourth (is) maybe, just maybe, in an era where our kids’ schools are crumbling, we should not be sending foreign militaries blank checks to drop bombs on other kids in their schools. Maybe we should be keeping that money here at home. What you’re going to get out of me is somebody who is going to always be focused on those basic principles that apply everywhere, and somebody who’s willing to show up in your community and talk to everybody. I’ve been to the Upper Peninsula. We were in Marquette, we were in Escanaba, we were in Sault Ste. Marie (and) we’re going to be coming back. We put our money where our mouth is…For me, it’s not just talking about it, it’s about being about it. I’m hoping that as folks engage (with) our campaign, they’re going to see a campaign that is talking and acting and being and going with the same principle and the same perspective, and the same focus, no matter where we go, and how we show up,” said El-Sayed. “I’ve been all over the state. No matter where I go, people tell me the same thing: it just should not be this hard. It shouldn’t be this hard to afford groceries, it shouldn’t be this hard to work the same job tomorrow that you worked yesterday. It shouldn’t be this hard to go to the doctor and not fall into medical debt. You could close your eyes, and whether you’re in a town hall in Escanaba, or a church in Redford, Detroit, people are saying the same things. I think we have to have the courage to reach beyond the divides, the geographic or racial or ethnic or faith or sexual orientation identity divides that people tell us that we can’t breach to build something that’s greater than some of the parts. That’s what this campaign is doing. That’s what we’re about. I’m inviting anybody and everybody who believes in those ideals to join us.”

More information about Abdul’s senatorial campaign can be found on his website at abdulforsenate.com.