Former Representative Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed meet Wednesday night in Detroit for their second and final debate in Michigan's open Senate race. El-Sayed goes in up about 2.6 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
The week is packed. Rogers sat for a Fox News town hall on Monday, early in-person voting opens on Saturday, and both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump are due in the state by Sunday. The winner takes the seat retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters is giving up, in one of a handful of races that could decide control of the Senate next year.
Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed Prepare for Second Debate Tonight
Coverage starts at 7 p.m. ET on WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, which is carrying the debate live and statewide from its Broadcast House studios in Detroit.
Their first meeting, on October 8 in Grand Rapids, went badly off script. For an hour the two men talked over each other and swapped personal shots, and they were still going when the station cut to a commercial. Moderator Rick Albin said he had not seen that in 30 years of debates.
Rogers went after El-Sayed's title. "And the doctor—well, he's not really a doctor," he said. El-Sayed has a medical degree from Columbia University and a doctorate in public health from Oxford University, and he has faced criticism for describing himself as a physician when he does not practice medicine.
Things got uglier on surveillance cameras. Rogers credited the technology with catching terrorism suspects, then implied El-Sayed might object because someone in his family could be on a watch list. He also repeated his claim that El-Sayed and his family are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.
El-Sayed has denied that he or his family has ties to the organization.
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El-Sayed kept steering back to Trump, calling Rogers "weak and cowardly" for standing with the president. He also hit Rogers on money: the campaign donations, the investments and, once more, the two yachts El-Sayed says Rogers owns.
On a couple of issues, Rogers edged away from the White House. He said he had phoned the administration to press for a deal on the Canada tariff dispute, and told reporters afterward his message was "time to wrap it up." Minnesota's immigration crackdown, he said, was "not appropriate." The two did agree on ending the war with Iran.
Rogers had been talking up the rematch since September, when he posted on X that "Michiganders will learn just how much of a Conman you really are."
Mike Rogers vs. Abdul El-Sayed: Latest Polls
Nearly every recent poll has El-Sayed ahead, though rarely by much.
The latest public numbers come from Rasmussen Reports, a pollster often counted as Republican-leaning: El-Sayed 46 percent, Rogers 44 percent, among 798 likely voters surveyed October 12 to 14, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. Five percent were undecided. Libertarian Lydia Christensen and Tim Long of the U.S. Taxpayers Party drew 2 percent each, and Green Party nominee Douglas P. Marsh got 1.
InsiderAdvantage found almost the same gap, 48 percent to 46 percent, in its October 9 to 10 survey of 1,200 likely voters.
The one recent poll with Rogers in front was paid for by his allies. The Tyson Group, surveying for Alliance for a Better Future, had him up 46 percent to 44 percent among 600 likely voters from October 6 to 8.
Two early-October polls showed a one-point race. Quantus Insights put El-Sayed at 48 percent and Rogers at 47 percent among 744 likely voters on October 5 to 6, while YouGov's far larger sample of 3,947 likely voters, collected September 22 to October 4, came out 49 percent to 48 percent.
"The race could tighten, perhaps dramatically," Mitchell Research & Communications warned when it released an early-October poll showing El-Sayed up about 4 points. The firm pointed to past Michigan Senate contests in which Republicans closed late.
Prediction markets are less hedged. On October 17, Polymarket priced El-Sayed's chances at 71 percent and Kalshi at 68 percent.
Latest Developments in the Michigan Senate Race Between Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed
Rogers and El-Sayed were in the same room Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club, though not on stage together. Each took the same set of questions for roughly 25 minutes.
Rogers made his access to the administration the centerpiece. "Send somebody back that can actually go and get a meeting and fix it," he told the crowd, before warning that democratic socialism was on the ballot, a nod to El-Sayed backers such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
El-Sayed opened by calling himself a capitalist. His quarrel, he said, is with a few giant corporations that dominate the economy. He wants monopolies regulated, unions strengthened and health coverage guaranteed for everyone.
The night before, Rogers sat down with Sean Hannity for a Fox News town hall and argued that El-Sayed is vulnerable with Black and Jewish voters.
Trump has got personal. Mocking El-Sayed's name at an October 16 rally in Dalton, Georgia, he told the crowd: "I'm the president. I can call you whatever the hell I want, Muhammad." He also called El-Sayed a radical with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which El-Sayed denies.
In Monroe last week, Vice President JD Vance called Michigan's the most important race in the country.
The weekend brings both parties' heaviest hitters. Obama rallies with El-Sayed and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson in Detroit at 5 p.m. Saturday, October 24, the first day of early in-person voting. Trump follows on Sunday with a rally at McMorran Place in Port Huron, where he is scheduled to speak at 3 p.m.
Why Is the Michigan Senate Race Important in the 2026 Midterms?
Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, so Democrats need a net gain of four to take control. Holding Peters' seat is the starting point for any Democratic path to a majority.
Michigan is one of only two states Trump carried in 2024 where Democrats are defending a Senate seat this year, which puts it near the top of the GOP target list. Republicans have not won a Senate race there since 1994, though.
Recent margins have been thin. Trump won the state by about 1.5 points in 2024, and that same year Democrat Elissa Slotkin beat Rogers by roughly a third of a point.
Both Sabato's Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report rate the contest a toss-up.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jenna deJong and Emma Lee-Sang