‘I hate Democrats, but I love Abdul’: voters who left over Gaza return for progressive push

Two years ago, Zainab Bibi Ahmed thought she had turned her back on the Democrats for good. Now, she is volunteering for the party’s US Senate nominee in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. Ahmed was one of 100,000 people to vote uncommitted in the February 2024 Democratic Michigan primary, in a bid to send a message to then US president Joe Biden about his support for Israel, as people watched what Amnesty International later called a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza on their screens.

That November, Ahmed – a resident of Troy, Michigan, and an academic staffer at Wayne State University – opted to vote for the Green party’s Jill Stein amid calls to punish Democrats over the administration’s support for Israel. But then when I saw [New York City mayor] Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed, of course, and Shereef Akeel and Amir Makled,” Ahmed said, referencing two university regent candidates in the state, “I was like, OK, I cannot not support these gentlemen just because they’re Democrats.” A wave of progressive victories since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 has ruptured the Democratic party, from the unlikely victory last year of Mamdani to Peggy Flanagan’s nomination for Senate in Minnesota last week. In Michigan, El-Sayed was joined by a slate of other progressives who secured the Democratic nomination at every level of government, including attorney general hopeful Eli Savit, US House nominees Will Lawrence and Donavan McKinney, state House nominee Chris Gilmer-Hill, and Ann Arbor mayoral candidate Yousef Rabhi.

This month, 2.5 million people voted in Michigan’s primary election – a significant jump from the 2 million who turned out for the 2024 state primary election. It’s a sign, some supporters hope, that El-Sayed’s progressive, pro-Palestinian politics will help bring back reluctant and disenchanted Democrats. Like Ahmed, Waqas Sarwar, a Dearborn resident, voted for Stein in 2024, but he was excited to cast his primary ballot for Democrats El-Sayed and Representative Rashida Tlaib this month.

Sarwar believes that the party needs to bring “fresh blood” like El-Sayed and that it should pivot on Israel and Aipac to align with young voters. Polling shows a majority of Democrats oppose military aid to Israel, a position that has slowly gained some traction in Washington. A similar majority of roughly 75% supports the Medicare for All proposed system of universal healthcare and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), three positions shared by El-Sayed.

Meanwhile, the Democratic party’s approval rating has reached historic lows, at times sinking lower than Trump’s favorability. Not everyone has been persuaded to return. Some, like Amin Hashmi, have pivoted to Trump.

Hashmi, 63, a Pakistani American Muslim engineer in Troy, Michigan, described himself as a “solid Democrat” until 2024. But Hashmi said Harris did not seem to differentiate herself on foreign policy, nor did she make a substantive effort to reach out to Arabs and Muslims. In this month’s primary, Hashmi opted to vote on the Democratic side of the primary ballot and support El-Sayed over Haley Stevens, whose campaign was heavily backed by Aipac, the pro-Israel lobbying group.