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Black voters could play a decisive role in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race this November, raising the stakes for Democrats as signs of softer support among the historically reliable voting bloc threaten to complicate the party’s path to victory.
National surveys suggest that the proportion of Black Americans who believe Democrats represent their interests is slipping.
Additionally, the percentage of Black voters who identify with the Democratic Party fell by 10 percentage points between 2020 and 2025, according to the Pew Research Center.
Fox News Digital spoke with roughly a dozen Black voters on the ground in Detroit, most of whom said they believe the Democratic Party has either failed to prioritize their concerns or has taken their support for granted.
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“I feel like some of the stuff that they do is just to hush us up and, like … there you go,” Dalia, an African American from Detroit, told Fox News Digital.
“It’s just the way that they don’t address our issues, issues that concern actually Black people, especially working-class Black people,” Vincent, a Black voter from the Detroit area, told Fox News Digital.
“It’s always a ploy to get the Black vote, make all these promises, but once that vote is in and stuff like that, then it’s operation as normal,” another Black voter said.
Another snag for Democrats is their Senate nominee’s lack of support among African Americans in his primary election.
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Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s razor-thin win over Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., earlier this month was closer than expected, and Black voters appeared to have a lot to do with it. In jurisdictions with the highest percentage of Black voters, El-Sayed consistently struggled against Stevens.
A collective analysis by The Hill found that, in counties where Black residents account for 15% or more of the population, Stevens outpaced El-Sayed by an average of eight points.
Fox News’s Power Rankings have the Michigan Senate race rated as a toss-up while also showing a steady decline in Black support for the Democratic Party.
El-Sayed, however, performed strongly in the Arab-American enclaves of Dearborn and Hamtramck.
“I guess the Arabs resonate with who’s running for Senate. So, he don’t really have to prioritize us because he has enough people on his side already,” Parisia, another Black Detroit resident, told Fox News Digital.
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“It’s a fool’s errand to assume terrorist-sympathizing and socialist-aligned candidates like Abdul El-Sayed and William Lawrence can unite Democrats in a general election when they’ve spent their careers disparaging Black Americans,” RNC spokesman Hunter Lovell told Fox News Digital.
Even some of the Black voters who told Fox News Digital they were skeptical of the Democratic Party reported favorable feelings toward El-Sayed, however.
Those views came despite criticism of El-Sayed’s relationship with socialist streamer Hasan Piker, whose comments about Black voters in a 2024 livestream have been cited by El-Sayed’s critics.
During a 2024 livestream about Democratic border policy, Piker reacted to the claim that “Black people care about the border” by saying, “I don’t give a f— what Black people care about or what you think Black people care about,” before accusing Democrats of using Black voters as a “shield” to defend a rightward shift on immigration.
“Like, shut the f— up,” Piker said.
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One Black Detroit area resident told Fox News Digital she was “appalled” by the fact El-Sayed was campaigning with Piker.
“I guess clearly you don’t care about Black voters then because you would never bring … somebody to run with you who is against or not even against but who don’t care about Black voters,” she said.
Lawrence, whom Lovell referenced, is another DSA-aligned candidate running in the Great Lakes State.
Facing off with Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., Lawrence previously said Black Democratic leaders wrongly “defang the White left” because they support the establishment.
“The extent to which the older generation of Black political leadership are such a pillar, frankly, for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power through their role as this kind of traditionalist, establishmentist (sic) pillar of the Democratic Party, it’s a big problem,” Lawrence said in 2024 on his “Hegemonicon” podcast as reported by the Huffington Post at the time.
“It really defangs the White left and puts us in impossible positions, really.”
Those comments led the Congressional Black Caucus PAC to release a statement saying that people supporting Lawrence should “denounce his hateful remarks and withdraw their support.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Lawrence for comment.
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An African American pastor serving in the Detroit area told Fox News Digital that, while he strongly supports El-Sayed, whom he knows personally, Democrats can’t necessarily count on the Black vote as a given.
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“He does understand us,” Keith said of El-Sayed, later noting that Democrats have “discovered that if you’re not courted and not talked to or whatever, we don’t necessarily turn out for you.”
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