Kalshi puts El-Sayed at 77% as Stevens dispute shadows Michigan Senate race

Kalshi’s market for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat put Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s implied chance of victory at 77% on Saturday afternoon, compared with 23% for Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed’s price rose two percentage points in 24 hours, and traders forecast a 2.8-point El-Sayed win, even as a renewed dispute with former Democratic primary opponent Haley Stevens disrupted the campaign’s final days.

As we reported on Oct. 15, Kalshi’s Michigan market had put El-Sayed at 69% after his price recovered from a post-debate decline. The prediction-market assessment contrasts with Cook Political Report’s toss-up rating for the general election, which will decide the successor to retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters and could help determine control of the Senate.

The El-Sayed campaign omitted Stevens from a Saturday advisory for a planned Detroit event on Sunday that listed El-Sayed and Rep. Jim Clyburn. A person familiar with the decision told NBC News that Stevens had been asked not to attend further campaign events because the campaign feared distractions surrounding her.

The planned appearance would have been the first joint public event by El-Sayed and Stevens in months. Stevens endorsed El-Sayed after he narrowly defeated her in August’s Democratic primary, but she had not campaigned with him since an August party-unity event.

Their public clash centered on a Rebellion PAC advertisement that linked Michigan families’ grocery costs to money being set aside for “killing Palestinians” and blamed Israel for what Michiganders could not afford. Stevens called on El-Sayed to condemn the ad, which she characterized as antisemitic, and also urged him to remove an advertisement featuring Tucker Carlson, citing respect for Michigan’s Black community.

Rebellion PAC is an outside group, and El-Sayed was not affiliated with it. His campaign distanced itself from the advertisement. El-Sayed said Stevens was seeking to relitigate the primary and urged Democrats to concentrate on defeating Rogers, holding Donald Trump accountable, reducing the role of money in politics and passing Medicare for All.

Stevens nevertheless said she would vote for El-Sayed and the Democratic ticket. Her fiancé endorsed Rogers and campaigned with the Republican earlier in the week; Rogers praised Stevens and said El-Sayed’s response showed insufficient concern for the Jewish community.

The discord drew criticism from within the party. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow faulted Stevens’ conduct and said Democrats needed to recognize the stakes, while Rep. Debbie Dingell, who helped arrange the Clyburn event, argued that attention should remain on Washington rather than the controversy.

More than 2 million registered Michigan voters had already cast ballots through absentee mail and early in-person voting, according to TargetSmart data cited by NBC News. Democrats accounted for 51% of that total and Republicans for 39%, though the New York Times cautioned that Michigan’s new early in-person voting system left too little historical data to predict its partisan composition reliably.

The total was about 54% above the 1.3 million early ballots cast in 2022. Michigan voters approved a constitutional right to early in-person voting in November 2022, and the system became available with the 2024 presidential primary. The mandatory statewide and federal early-voting period lasts at least nine consecutive days and normally ends on the Sunday before Election Day; ballots are reported with absentee and Election Day votes after polls close at 8 p.m.

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.