Abdul El-Sayed

Abdul El-Sayed is a physician and public health official who became Detroit's health director in 2015, ran for governor in 2018 and led the Wayne County health department from 2022 to 2025. He is the Democratic nominee for the open Michigan Senate seat after winning the August 4, 2026 primary over Rep. Haley Stevens, and his campaign says he is running to make life in Michigan less expensive, including through Medicare for All.[1][2][3]

Abdul El-Sayed was born on October 31, 1984, in Rochester Hills, Michigan, to Egyptian immigrant parents, and was raised in Southeast Michigan, where he attended public schools and captained his high school football, wrestling and lacrosse teams. He graduated from Bloomfield Hills Andover High School in 2003. His campaign biography says his father, Mohamed, is an Egyptian immigrant and that he was raised with his stepmother, Jackie.[1][4] He graduated from the University of Michigan in 2007 with a B.S. in biology and political science and played on its men's lacrosse team. He earned a D.Phil. in public health from the University of Oxford in 2011 as a Rhodes Scholar and an M.D. from Columbia University in 2014, then joined the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health faculty as an assistant professor of epidemiology.[1][2][4]

After Detroit's bankruptcy, El-Sayed was appointed Health Officer and Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department in August 2015 by Mayor Mike Duggan to manage the city's newly privatized health department, a post he held until February 2017, when he left to run for governor full time.[2][4] His campaign credits him with securing free glasses for children, removing lead from elementary schools and making Narcan universally accessible.[1] He lost the August 7, 2018 Democratic primary for governor to Gretchen Whitmer, receiving 30.2% of the vote, and afterward served on several boards and as a political adviser and contributor. He founded the political action committee Southpaw Michigan in 2018.[2][4]

In 2020 El-Sayed was selected for the Joe Biden-Bernie Sanders Unity Task Force on healthcare, he has hosted the podcast America Dissected since 2019, and he is the author of Medicare for All: A Citizen's Guide.[1][4] El-Sayed was named director of Wayne County's Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services in December 2022 and took the role in March 2023, resigning in April 2025 to run for the Senate. As director and health officer, his campaign says he spearheaded a program to cancel up to $700 million in medical debt for 300,000 residents.[2][1][4]

El-Sayed entered the race in April 2025 after Sen. Gary Peters announced he would not seek re-election, and he won the August 4, 2026 Democratic primary with 48.5% to Stevens' 47.5%; Mallory McMorrow, who had unofficially withdrawn, received 4.0%.[3][4] He faces Republican Mike Rogers in the general election, and according to his campaign website he lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, Sarah, and their two daughters.[3][1]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.