El-Sayed’s Senate campaign stops in UP

Joined by AOC

IRON MT -- In a Michigan Senate campaign marked by negative advertising, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed visited Iron Mountain on Thursday to say “my name is not the reason” for the nation’s problems.

His emphasis throughout the rally was that Americans shouldn’t struggle to afford groceries, housing and healthcare.

El-Sayed’s “It Shouldn’t Be This Hard” Upper Peninsula bus tour included a special guest, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Dozens of protesters lined the road entering the Pine Mountain Resort rally site, holding signs warning against socialism. At the rally, meanwhile, there were calls for a particular unity.

“It’s not the left and the right that divides us,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s the top versus the bottom.”

Attendance in a crowded meeting room at the lodge was announced at 451 -- more than one-third of El-Sayed’s Dickinson County vote total in the August primary election.

El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, carried Dickinson County by more than 5,000 votes and by a margin of better than 2 to 1 in his failed 2024 bid for the U.S. Senate. Rogers lost statewide to Democrat Elissa Slotkin by just under 20,000 votes two years ago, which seemingly makes every corner of the state important in this year’s race, rated a “toss-up” by Cook Political Report.

El-Sayed’s main shot against Rogers was comparing him to a “non-playing character” in a video game. Rogers, he said, exists politically “only to do what a big corporation wants him to do.” Michigan, he said, needs a senator who’s committed to the needs of the working class.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money is going to be spent on you and your kids, instead of dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids,” he said.

El-Sayed is a strong proponent of Medicare for All, guaranteeing comprehensive health coverage for every American from birth to death via a single Medicare card.

During a recent debate, Rogers said Medicare for All would force people off private insurance they might prefer while causing taxes to rise.

El-Sayed maintains Medicare for All would not outlaw supplemental private insurance, although private coverage may become unnecessary. He pointed Thursday to a healthcare system that is “more often interested in billing than in healing.” A universal system, he said, could stabilize health care prices, stopping the trend of ever-rising premiums and deductibles.

Ocasio-Cortez said El-Sayed will join a coalition in Congress that recognizes “healthcare as a human right.” It has now “become a luxury to get healthcare,” she said.

El-Sayed earned a medical degree from Columbia University and was executive director of the Detroit Health Department from 2015 to 2017. From 2023 to 2025, he served as director of the Wayne County Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services. He ran unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan in 2018.

Rogers has characterized El-Sayed as “most extreme, dangerous candidate to ever run for the United States Senate in the history of our country.”

Supporters at Thursday’s rally said they were impressed nonetheless.

“He came across as being honest,” said George Wiedenhoeft of Breitung Township. “He spoke to the people. He spoke to what we need.”

“Abdul has been my choice right along from the very beginning,” said Sheryl Baciak of Norway. “He’s someone who cares about people.”

The U.P. tour also included stops in Escanaba and Marquette.