DETROIT—With early voting starting in the final 10 days before polls close on Nov. 3, former President Barack Obama visited the Motor City to boost progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in his fight to become the state’s next U.S. senator.
Obama took the stage Saturday evening at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, urging voters to mobilize in the final days of the race and framing the current national moment as a chance to restore “kindness and compassion” in American politics.
“Yes, we need to lower costs, and we need to put money in people’s pockets, and we need to end this war and stop corruption in Washington. But we’ve also got to re-find our north star,” Obama told the crowd.
“If we don’t return to some of those old-fashioned virtues of honesty and integrity and kindness and compassion … we will continue to fester in anger and division.”
Recalling his multi-decade tenure in politics, Obama said, “I can tell you when an election comes along that just feels a little bit different.”
“It feels like change is in the air. And Michigan, that’s what I’m feeling right now. That’s what you get a chance to do in 10 days,” Obama said, referencing his famous “Change we can believe in” 2008 campaign slogan.
Obama visited Detroit to boost El-Sayed ahead of his Senate race against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another Democrat.
The former president made a stop in another critical Rust Belt battleground earlier on Saturday, visiting Ohio for the first time since 2018 to campaign with Democrats Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton, who are running for Senate and governor, respectively.
Michigan and Ohio are critical for Democrats’ efforts to retake the Senate from GOP control this year. The Great Lakes State has one of four seats the party must defend while flipping another four from Republicans to reach a majority.
Brown previously served for nearly 20 years in the U.S. Senate before Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno ousted him in the 2024 election. With Brown back on the ballot, Democrats are hoping to flip the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance and then filled by former Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.
Brown currently leads Husted by 3.3 percentage points in RealClearPolitics’ polling average.
Among his strong performances throughout the Midwest, Obama won Michigan and Ohio in 2008 and 2012, cementing their status as “Blue Wall” states before both swung to President Donald Trump in 2016. President Joe Biden ultimately won Michigan in 2020, but it swung back to Trump in 2024.
Even though a Republican hasn’t won a U.S. Senate election in Michigan in more than 30 years, this year’s race is tight in the final 10 days before Election Day. El-Sayed sits above Rogers by 1.9 percentage points in RealClearPolitics’ polling average. Recent polls have been close, putting the epidemiologist up by only 1 to 2 points over Rogers.
Detroit, with nearly 1.8 million residents across all of Wayne County, will likely be critical to an El-Sayed win. The metropolitan hub usually swings toward Democrats; Kamala Harris netted 62.49 percent of the vote there in 2024, and Biden won 68.32 percent of the vote in 2020.
But Wayne County was one of several areas that favored El-Sayed’s opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), in the August primary. Stevens carried the county by 5.9 percentage points, and performed even better in neighboring Macomb and Oakland counties.
Saturday was Obama’s first visit to Detroit since he campaigned there for Harris in October 2024. It also marked the first day of early voting across the Great Lakes State.
Obama remains fairly popular among the general public compared to other recent presidents, according to a June CNN/SSRS poll.
Roughly 57 percent of Americans view him favorably, compared to 30 percent who view Biden favorably. The other three recent presidents also scored lower on favorability than Obama: President Donald Trump (34 percent), former President George W. Bush (42 percent), and former President Bill Clinton (38 percent).
Obama is almost universally liked among Democrats as well, with 96 percent in the poll expressing a favorable opinion of him.
Years ago, El-Sayed criticized the Obama administration for what he saw as a failure to live up to progressives’ expectations, particularly on healthcare, but has since attributed those remarks to frustrations when he was young.
“I know that President Obama was handed a really difficult set of circumstances, and he did his best,” El-Sayed told NBC News earlier this month.
During his speech Saturday night, El-Sayed championed Obama for working to pass the Affordable Care Act, praising the legislation for expanding access to healthcare.
“His legacy, it continues to offer a guiding light and fitting lessons for the work that is yet to be done. And that work is not just about getting elected, but using your seat to make a difference in the lives of the people you serve,” El-Sayed said.
Trump is campaigning for Rogers in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday afternoon. Remarks are scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. EDT.
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