Incoming White House press secretary Katie Zacharia called Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed “a radical” as a new statewide poll put him six points ahead of Republican former Representative Mike Rogers in the state’s midterm Senate race. Zacharia delivered the attack during an interview with Fox News anchor Jesse Watters, arguing that El-Sayed had avoided answering a question about whether Israel or Iran posed the greater threat to the United States. She claimed his positions reflected the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) rather than Michigan’s economic needs and asserted that he had “come out against the auto industry.” “He wants to institute all these DSA policies, Medicare for all,” Zacharia said.
Zacharia’s Fox News diatribe sharpens the stakes in an open-seat contest that RealClearPolitics rates a toss-up with Election Day approaching on November 3. Republicans are seeking to turn El-Sayed’s progressive platform into a liability, while Democrats enter the closing stretch with an advantage across several recent surveys. Zacharia’s interview coincided with a Wedgewood Polls survey showing El-Sayed at 53 percent and Rogers at 47 percent.
The online panel questioned 607 likely Michigan voters from October 8 to 9 and carried a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. Although the six-point difference exceeds that stated margin, polling uncertainty means the race may be closer than six points. Other methodological factors, including turnout assumptions and weighting choices, can also affect findings.
The Wedgewood poll also shows the different voter groups each campaign is relying on. El-Sayed received 90 percent among Black respondents, 62 percent among voters ages 18 to 29, and 61 percent among college graduates. Rogers took 54 percent among white respondents and 52 percent among those without a four-year degree.
Subgroups contain fewer respondents than the full sample, giving those figures greater uncertainty. Those divisions make the contest tangible for families across Michigan. Younger and college-educated voters provide the Democrats’ strongest opportunities, while the Republicans’ route depends more heavily on older, white and noncollege constituencies.
The RealClearPolitics average for surveys conducted from September 15 through October 6 placed El-Sayed at 48.1 percent and Rogers at 44.9 percent, a 3.2-point Democratic edge. Taken together, the data give El-Sayed a modest advantage while leaving Rogers close enough for late movement, turnout differences or ordinary polling error to change the outcome. Zacharia said her first White House working day would be Monday, adding that Trump was “full of surprises.” Her new platform gives Republicans a prominent messenger for their closing argument, but Michigan voters will determine whether describing El-Sayed as ideologically extreme can erase his current polling edge.
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