Ocasio-Cortez endorses Abdul El-Sayed in crucial Michigan Senate race

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the nation’s most prominent progressives, is endorsing Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for Senate in Michigan, wading into her first contested Senate primary of 2026 in one of the nation’s top battlegrounds.

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Her endorsement, which she made in an interview with The New York Times, represents one of Ocasio-Cortez’s most assertive moves so far this year to build up the left flank of the Democratic Party. And it puts the representative from New York in direct conflict with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the minority leader who has backed a more moderate candidate, Rep. Haley Stevens, who he argues is more electable.

Ocasio-Cortez said she holds the opposite view. She made the case that it is El-Sayed who has energized voters and built the kind of campaign and coalition to deliver the crucial state for Democrats.

“Despite our ideological differences and whatever disagreements there are in the party, every single one of us sees this moment as existential,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I think many people are willing to put aside differences in order to give us the best chance at winning. And I think that Abdul gives us that right now.”

Her intervention could energize progressive activists, who see a potential champion in El-Sayed. It could also enrage establishment-minded Democrats who are fearful that the party will fumble away a crucial Senate seat in a year that favors Democrats by veering left in a battleground state that voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.

Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement follows a series of left-wing victories in competitive House primaries in deep-blue districts in Colorado and New York. Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse in those races. But the results have emboldened many on the left to believe that 2026 is the year to take power, not just from Republicans, but inside the Democratic Party itself.

The Michigan primary, scheduled for Aug. 4, is widely seen as the most consequential Democratic nominating contest left on the calendar this year.

The race pits El-Sayed, an outspoken progressive proponent of “Medicare for All,” against the moderate Stevens, who has been boosted by more than $16 million in super political action committee spending, including millions from pro-Israel groups. Mallory McMorrow, a state senator who has built a national following of her own, has run as a progressive and tried to occupy an ideological middle ground between the other two.

El-Sayed, who would be the nation’s first Muslim senator, has emerged as the front-runner in recent public and private polls.

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Ocasio-Cortez was careful not to directly criticize Stevens, who serves in the House with her. But she effusively praised El-Sayed’s communications skills, which she said are as essential to modern campaigning as anything else.

“Just like it’s extremely challenging to run candidates that can’t raise money, it’s also just as challenging to run a candidate that can’t message online,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who for years has been one of party’s magnets for attention on social media. “I think we’ve now kind of crossed this Rubicon where online and digital messaging is no longer a niche. It is a core competency, just like any other.”

Other Democrats fear that El-Sayed, who earned an endorsement last year from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and who pushed to “abolish ICE” in a recent ad, is too liberal for a state with a history of embracing centrist Democrats.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will face Mike Rogers, a Republican former member of Congress who lost in 2024 to Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, by fewer than 20,000 votes.

In a separate interview Wednesday, El-Sayed said he was thrilled to receive “the AOC seal of approval,” her first Senate endorsement of the cycle in a contested primary. He also recently won the backing of the United Auto Workers union, which has a storied history in the state.

“I’m honored for what her support says about what this campaign is building and what we’re fighting for,” he said. He also waved off fears about his electability.

“I think too many establishment Democrats are more afraid that I will win,” he said. “That’s really what they’re trying to avoid.”

He called out Schumer in particular.

“He doesn’t want to see me on the inside of the U.S. Senate,” El-Sayed said, adding that he would call out “the kind of politics where we take money from corporations and AIPAC to run milquetoast campaigns and don’t say anything about the problems that everyday people are facing.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.