Michigan · Senate
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · margins and probabilities are for Abdul El-Sayed
Who is running?
Abdul El-Sayed (Democratic), Mike Rogers (Republican), Douglas P. Marsh (Green), Lydia Christensen (Libertarian), Tim Long (Constitution), Walter P. Kristy (no party recorded). The margin below is Abdul El-Sayed minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.
The race, in brief
Michigan elects a U.S. senator on November 3, 2026, for the seat Democrat Gary Peters is leaving after two terms; he won with 54.6% in 2014 and 49.9% in 2020. The state backed Biden by 2.8% in 2020 and Trump by 1.4% in 2024. The text notes that Republicans have not won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994 and that this is the only open Democratic-held seat in a state Trump won in 2024. The state profile gives a median age of 40.1 and a college share of 0.3.
The Democratic nominee is Abdul El-Sayed, former Wayne County health director, who won the August 4 primary with 48.45% to Representative Haley Stevens's 47.55%, after Mallory McMorrow withdrew in July. The text says about $62 million was spent on Stevens's behalf, nearly $30 million of it by AIPAC. The Republican nominee is former congressman Mike Rogers, the 2024 nominee, endorsed by Donald Trump and unopposed after Bernadette Smith was disqualified. As of July 15, 2026 El-Sayed had raised $14,514,335 with $2,552,762 on hand, Rogers $10,898,177 with $4,473,237.
The raters split: CBS News, the Cook Political Report (September 23, 2026), Fox News, Inside Elections and RealClearPolitics list a Tossup; Decision Desk HQ, The Economist, FiftyPlusOne, Sabato's Crystal Ball (September 22, 2026), Silver Bulletin and Split Ticket list D. The text's polling average is El-Sayed 47.2%, Rogers 44.1%. Recent polls include Marist (September 24–27, 2026) at El-Sayed 51%, Rogers 44%; co/efficient (R) (September 21–23, 2026) tied at 45%; and NYT/Siena (September 15–22, 2026) at 49% to 44%.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Democratic incumbent Gary Peters is not seeking a third term.
Democratic former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed and Republican former congressman Mike Rogers are the nominees for their respective parties.
Rogers, the Republican nominee in 2024, was the only candidate to qualify for his party's primary ballot.
Abdul El-Sayed, former Wayne County health director (2023–2025) and candidate for governor in 2018
Mike Rogers, former U.S. representative from 8 (2001–2015) and nominee for U.S. Senate in 2024
Most recently in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, it backed Joe Biden by 2.8% and Donald Trump by 1.4%, respectively.
Gary Peters was first elected with 54.6% of the vote in 2014 and re-elected with 49.9% in 2020.
After McMorrow withdrew in July, El-Sayed and Stevens remained in a tight race, which El-Sayed won on August 4 with 48.5% of the vote.
The Cook Political Report Tossup September 23, 2026 Decision Desk HQ D September 25, 2026
|Abdul El-Sayed (D) $14,514,335 $11,961,573 $2,552,762 |Mike Rogers (R) $10,898,177 $6,680,643 $4,473,237
New York Times/Siena University September 15–22, 2026 605 (LV) ±4.9% |49% 44%
AIPAC has spent nearly $30 million supporting Stevens, surpassing all of their prior investments made for a candidate in a particular race.
September 15, 2026 Fox 2 Detroit Michigan Debate Commission Roop Raj YouTube P A
This is the only open Democratic-held Senate seat up for election in a state won by Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Douglas P. Marsh, journalist and Green nominee for U.S. Senate in 2024
Not in the source: facts.forecast carries no basis field.; The Republican primary results table in the text is garbled; no vote total for Rogers is given.; The text gives no result for Rogers's 2024 Senate race.; No general-election finance report after July 15, 2026.; Endorsement sections are empty in the text.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 436abd5f1c79; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Gary C. Peters (Democrat), in this chamber since 2015, 2 terms, class 2 (term ends 2027). Committees: Senate Committee on Appropriations; Senate Committee on Armed Services; Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (Ranking Member).
Elissa Slotkin (Democrat), in this chamber since 2025, 1 term, class 1 (term ends 2031). Committees: Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Senate Committee on Armed Services; Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| El-Sayed, Abdul (DEM) open seat | $14,514,336 | $2,552,763 | 0% | 0% | $2,771,560 | $20,590,767 |
| Stevens, Haley (DEM) open seat · not on our roster | $11,884,632 | $2,793,294 | 6% | 0% | $28,856,270 | $937,187 |
| Mcmorrow, Mallory (DEM) open seat · not on our roster | $11,386,720 | $1,867,631 | 1% | 0% | $20,353 | $0 |
| Rogers, Michael J (REP) open seat | $10,898,177 | $4,473,237 | 7% | 0% | $13,677,358 | $5,748,741 |
| Peters, Gary (DEM) incumbent · not on our roster | $248,405 | $6,546,332 | 4% | 0% | $100 | $7,351 |
| Tate, Joseph Allen (DEM) open seat · not on our roster | $243,636 | $0 | 3% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Scott, Genevieve (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $83,079 | $2,539 | 0% | 59% | $0 | $0 |
| Smith, Bernadette (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $77,240 | $4,067 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Howard, Rachel Elizabeth (DEM) open seat · not on our roster | $10,937 | $4,766 | 0% | 30% | $0 | $0 |
| Heurtebise, Frederick (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $10,059 | $0 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Stephens, Thomas Wayne (NPA) open seat · not on our roster | $1,000 | $780 | 0% | 50% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through July 15, 2026; $72,609,687 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+0.2 | D+2.8 | R+1.4 |
A shift of 1.2 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 31.8% | 34.0% | -2.2 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 73.0% | 66.3% | +6.7 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 13.2% | 10.1% | +3.1 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 5.7% | 12.9% | -7.1 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 3.3% | 4.4% | -1.1 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 7.0% | 9.6% | -2.6 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 40.1 | 39.1 | +1.02 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $71,149 | $77,633 | $-6,484 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $217,600 | $314,132 | $-96,532 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 72.9% | 67.4% | +5.6 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 5.8% | 4.8% | +1.0 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 1.6% | 3.0% | -1.4 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 12.0% | 12.3% | -0.3 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 13.1% | 11.1% | +2.0 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 34.7% | 32.1% | +2.6 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 2.8% | 2.6% | +0.2 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 1.4% | 2.9% | -1.4 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.46 | 0.47 | -0.00 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 5.4% | 4.0% | +1.4 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | -0.4 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.2 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | -0.4 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.3 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $63,690 | $70,662 | $-6,972 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 31.1% | 32.4% | -1.3 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 21.8% | 19.4% | +2.4 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 7.6% | 6.1% | +1.5 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 5.2% | 4.4% | +0.9 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 3.7% | 3.8% | -0.1 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.8% | 0.6% | +0.2 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.3% | 0.3% | +0.0 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.9% | -0.2 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.9% | 1.5% | -0.6 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.3% | 1.2% | -0.9 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.
How likely is each to win?
Monte Carlo error is ±0.2 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.
How wide is the range?
Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -8.4 and +9.4 points. Election day: -10.0 to +11.8. The election-day interval is 4.0 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.
What is the uncertainty made of?
Total sd 6.98 points, made of race-specific polling error 51%, drift to election day 33%, correlated polling error 12%, latent opinion 4%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
What evidence is this built on?
37 polls, most recent 2026-09-30. 21% verified against a primary source.
What changed since the last run?
Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Douglas P. Marsh. Over 18 stored forecasts the central estimate moved -0.9 points. There were 7 specification changes (marked on the axis) and 3 new polls arrived over this window — so the movement mixes new evidence with changes to the model.
Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls.
Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.
How has this model done before?
Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.
Where did every number come from?
Nowcast run 08fa5515-8732-4bfc-8499-29237e41e26b and election-day run 163d87e0-baea-4788-94ed-c43c5d7dc19c, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.