(CNN) — Former President Barack Obama hasn’t endorsed in the contentious Democratic Senate primary in Michigan – but voters there could be forgiven for getting that impression.
Supporters of Rep. Haley Stevens have spent $5 million airing an advertisement nearly 4,000 times that features Obama praising her work as chief of staff for the US Auto Rescue Task Force during the 2008 financial crisis.
It’s run more than any other political ad in the Wolverine State over the last year, according to data from AdImpact. The campaign is part of a determined effort to link Stevens to the former president in a state where Black voters made up around a quarter of Democrats in the 2022 midterms and remind voters of her part in the effort to save Michigan’s iconic industry.
In the final weeks of an intense race between the more moderate Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health official hoping to build on earlier progressive victories this primary season, the ad campaign is drawing pushback from opponents who argue it could mislead voters.
“We’ve seen some examples of folks saying, ‘Oh, I thought that Obama was supporting her in this race,’ because they’ve seen these ads,” said Denzel McCampbell, a Detroit City Council member who is backing El-Sayed. “I think it is concerning for me because this may be the only time that folks are tuning into the race.”
“What are they complaining about? It’s not a lie. He did say that. So, give credit where credit is due. He’s a hot ticket,” countered Keith Williams, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus and a Stevens supporter.
Amplifying the messaging gap, outside groups backing Stevens have plowed more than $50 million total into the contest, while El-Sayed, who has sworn off corporate PAC money, has seen less than $1 million in outside advertising support.
The source of some of the ads – funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, during a Democratic reckoning over US support for Israel – is another flashpoint in the latest showdown between the party’s rising progressive insurgency and its establishment wing.
Amid questions of ideology and electability in the battleground state, the stakes in Michigan stretch well beyond the August 4 primary. The winner will face former Rep. Mike Rogers, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, in a general election Democrats almost certainly must win to have any hope of retaking the Senate.
‘He’s not not endorsed her’
Obama’s political brand has proven to be a durable asset in high-stakes campaigns throughout the 2026 election cycle.
Last year, outside groups spent millions on ads featuring the former president urging support for partisan redistricting in California and Virginia, countering Republican efforts in Texas that kicked off a national fight over gerrymandering. Even GOP opponents got in on the action, replaying old clips of Obama criticizing the practice.
During the competitive Illinois Senate primary in March, supporters of both Rep. Robin Kelly and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who won the Democratic nomination, also ran ads featuring praise from the former president, clipped from past races.
Stevens’ supporters have aggressively deployed the tactic. United Democracy Project – a super PAC funded by AIPAC that’s spent nearly $30 million backing her campaign – repurposed a soundbite from a 2018 rally for Michigan Democrats, putting $5 million behind the ad, according to AdImpact.
“She was there. She was a critical part of my team that helped the American auto industry come roaring back,” Obama says in the clip, promoting Stevens’ first US House campaign. Another pro-Stevens group, which has not yet disclosed any fundraising information, is up with a similar ad, featuring the same Obama soundbite. “If President Obama trusts her, so do I,” a voiceover at the end of that ad concludes.
David Axelrod, a veteran Democratic strategist and CNN political analyst, pointed to Obama’s popularity within the party as a reason “why candidates continue to imply his support even when he hasn’t made an endorsement.”
Axelrod said the use of old campaign footage was a “shrewd” strategy, “especially in a state where as much as a quarter of the primary vote may come from African Americans.”
Wayne County Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch, a veteran of Michigan Democratic politics who appeared in one of the pro-Stevens ads, said that “her having worked with President Obama, being able to have a real connection to him, is absolutely something that Black people will notice and are noticing.”
Black voters are seeing the midterms through a lens of Republicans “dismantling” the former president’s legacy, Kinloch argued. “This election is extremely important, and the Senate seat is one that stands at the top of that list of importance.”
Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony of Fellowship Chapel, the president of the Detroit NAACP and another Stevens supporter, said that “anytime one can inject former President Obama into their campaign appears to be a good affirmation,” noting that he was “still well respected and appreciated here in Michigan.”
“Whether he has formally endorsed her or not, he’s not not endorsed her,” Anthony added.
Obama’s office declined to comment for this story.
El-Sayed has mounted his own outreach to Black voters, releasing an ad last week that highlights his 2024 endorsement of Kamala Harris. “He was the first Muslim American leader to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” the spot notes. It’s an effort to address a sore spot among some critics still frustrated by his support for the “Uncommitted” pro-Palestinian protest movement earlier in that election.
And the progressive hasn’t always been eager to tie himself to the former president.
During his first run for elected office, El-Sayed’s Ivy League background and rhetorical style as he sought to become the nation’s first Muslim governor drew frequent comparisons to that of the first Black president. While El-Sayed has noted commonalities with Obama, he’s argued that his politics didn’t go far enough – a criticism that Stevens’ team has also highlighted in contrasting the candidates.
“Haley is proud of her work as Chief of Staff on President Obama’s auto rescue,” Arik Wolk, a spokesperson for the Stevens campaign, said in a statement. “Haley believes President Obama made Michigan and the country a better place, unlike her opponent, who complained that Obama ‘had a list of failures.’”
The auto bailout veteran vs. UAW’s chosen candidate
Stevens’ role as chief of staff on the US Auto Rescue Task Force during the 2008 financial crisis is another focal point of the ads. It’s a regular talking point for Stevens in the campaign, playing up her local roots and policy chops.
“I took all the phone calls from people in Michigan – I just literally told the White House and Treasury operators, I said, ‘Let me take the calls.’ And you know, people were so freaked out and worried,” she recalled on a podcast last year.
The auto bailout was a key component of Obama’s program to help the economy recover from the Great Recession. The administration directed billions of taxpayer dollars to prevent the bankruptcies of iconic American car brands such as General Motors and Chrysler, which Stevens regularly notes “saved over 200,000 Michigan jobs.”
As chief of staff, Stevens served as a liaison between corporate leadership, unions, and third-party suppliers and dealers. In his account of the effort, Steve Rattner, a Treasury official who led the task force, touted her “energetic” performance.
“We would come to find her tireless, cheerful and blessed with a social conscience and a talent for improvisation,” he wrote in a book chronicling the bailout.
Despite the history, the influential United Auto Workers union endorsed her rival, El-Sayed, in June, writing that members in Michigan “want a fighter in Washington, D.C. who isn’t afraid to push forward a strong working-class agenda with moral clarity.”
Noting that he’s “never taken a dime from corporate PACs,” the group said that El-Sayed is “someone we can trust to have our backs.” And this week, the UAW said it was sending a cease-and-desist to A Stronger Michigan, one of the pro-Stevens super PACs that hasn’t disclosed its donors, complaining that its ads featured unauthorized use of the union’s wheel logo while “promoting a candidate not endorsed by the Union.”
“This is yet another example of why we need dark money corporate PACs out of our politics. These ads are a deliberate attempt at misleading voters in Michigan, including hundreds of thousands of active and retired UAW members and their families across the state,” UAW wrote.
AIPAC’s outsized role
The complaints from UAW underscore another dominant theme of the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan: outside spending.
United Democracy Project, the AIPAC super PAC, has spent the most, approaching $30 million, according to AdImpact. And its intervention has sparked criticism, animating Democratic divides over US policy toward Israel that have shaped primaries across the country this year.
On top of the TV ads, UDP has distributed mailers to voters highlighting the Stevens-Obama connection and criticizing El-Sayed’s support from Hasan Piker, the pro-Palestinian streamer and leftist influencer.
Stevens has historically been one of the House’s more reliable pro-Israel Democrats. She has backed continued US military aid to Israel and supports a two-state solution for the region, though she has sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the campaign trail – drawing a rebuke from Netanyahu himself.
El-Sayed, an outspoken critic of Israeli leadership and the military campaigns in Gaza and Iran, has pushed back forcefully on the group’s opposition to his campaign. “They are spending against me because they’ve called me the most dangerous candidate for the US-Israel relationship, because maybe I don’t want to waste our money fighting wars we don’t need,” he argued at a debate earlier this month.
Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, defended the Obama ads as “just the facts.”
“Rep. Stevens was a critical staffer on the president’s auto task force and he praised her in public for her work. It’s just the facts that she was part of saving 200,000 jobs in Michigan. We took a clip of President Obama talking about the great work that Rep. Stevens had done to save auto jobs in Michigan,” he said in a statement.
Stevens has also benefited from millions in spending by other outside groups not affiliated with AIPAC, reinforcing a broader establishment vs. anti-establishment dynamic that El-Sayed’s camp has embraced.
“The guts to stand with the working class. That is the guy we need in Washington,” progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders says in one of El-Sayed’s ads.
“While allies of Congresswoman Stevens pour $50 million into the race to mislead voters, we’re focused on building a robust volunteer-led movement that reflects everyday Michiganders,” Roxie Richner, a spokesperson for El-Sayed, said in a statement.
Stevens supporters reject the criticism, however, and instead emphasize the stakes facing Democrats in November.
“All I’m going to say is Michigan is not New York,” said Williams, contrasting El-Sayed’s progressive, anti-establishment campaign with the string of upset victories there by the party’s left wing. “We are a purple state. And it ain’t gonna be like it was in New York. It’s gonna come down to the finish, it’s going to be a tight race.”
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