MORNING GLORY: Rogers versus El-Sayed is a referendum on the future of America

Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Senate Democratic primary Tuesday over Congresswoman Haley Stevens. El-Sayed had a 1% win in a race that featured a third candidate, Mallory McMorrow, who had dropped out but who nevertheless polled around 4% of the total vote.

Mike Rogers is the GOP nominee in the fall against El-Sayed. In 2024, Rogers — a very respected, former seven-term Congressman from Michigan who served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — tallied 2,693,680 votes, or 48.30% of the total electorate in the state in a Senate race he lost to Elissa Slotkin. Republicans need only turn out the same electorate as voted in 2024 and Rogers will win the 2026 race.

That sort of turnout is usually, however, a big lift in a non-presidential year, because statewide elections are not as exciting to the average American as presidential contests.

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But Michigan in 2026 may prove to be the exception to the "exciting race" rule because El-Sayed is a radical leftist, an Islamist-supporting extremist whose far-from-the-mainstream positions may energize an off-year electorate the way a presidential campaign charges turnout every four years. El-Sayed is so extreme that he held back from commenting on Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei’s elimination on the first day of the U.S.-Iran battle for fear of upsetting whatever small number of Michiganders who were sad that the American-killing fanatic who ordered the murder of tens of thousands of Iranians in January had himself died on February 28.

That El-Sayed hates the state of Israel is not open for debate. He does. He also routinely attacks Americans who support the state of Israel by repeatedly attacking the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is primarily, though not exclusively, made up of American Jews. El-Sayed, himself a Muslim, will probably energize the estimated quarter of a million Muslims in the Wolverine State as well as the Jewish population of approximately 120,000 people (about 1.2% of Michigan’s population). Most Jews and many non-Jews believe that El-Sayed is simply antisemitic, and certainly the most extreme mainstream party candidate to ever run for, much less serve in, the United States Senate.

El-Sayed will energize all sorts of demographics within the electorate, but given the polarization that follows in his wake, count on the national media camping across the state from now until November and covering every twist and turn in this campaign.

Count on Republicans across the country, as well as supporters of Israel who are not Republicans from all across the country, helping Rogers raise funds for his campaign. His campaign website began to cook even before the El-Sayed primary victory was certain.

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Rogers versus El-Sayed is almost certainly the highest-profile race of 2026, and President Trump, Vice President Vance and every other GOP surrogate will be stumping for Rogers — just as will AOC, Bernie Sanders and every other Democratic Socialist of America extremist be campaigning aside El-Sayed, as will notorious Twitch streamer Hasan Piker whose Tuesday night profanity-laden tirade against Democrats urging El-Sayed to moderate has gone viral thanks to opponents of El-Sayed who want to staple Piker to the candidate and merge the two into one being.

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So a 12-week free for all in Michigan is ahead, one that will tell us much more than who controls the United States Senate for the next two years. The result of Rogers versus El-Sayed will tell us which way the country is headed, to the far left or back to the traditional center-right after a year of Mamdanism running the Democrats.

Much as Buckeyes like me love to give folks from "The State Up North" a hard time, even Ohioans, when pressed, will admit it is as nice and normal a place as every other venue in the Midwest. It’s not full of coastal elites and "one-percenters."

Michigan’s collective common sense will be tested over the next three months: Will they vote for an experienced, responsible, serious legislator who understands the world and America’s role in it and who can fight for the average Michigander, or a radical who cares more for "from the River to the Sea" chants than he does the national security of the United States.

Bet on Rogers. Folks from Michigan lose their minds on the approach of "The Game" every Saturday after Thanksgiving, when the biggest contest in college football happens, but are otherwise pretty normal Americans. Like Mike Rogers.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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