It was just a week ago that one Democratic Senate contender in Michigan said her rival wanted to “blame all” of his “problems on Jewish Americans,” after he called her the “the least capable candidate in America.”
Now Michigan Democrats are rushing to heal the wounds inflicted by the most divisive Senate primary in the state that any of them can seem to remember.
At a unity rally on Friday night in Detroit, the winner of the primary, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, joined the party’s moderate nominee for governor, Jocelyn Benson, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who lives in Michigan.
Before the event began, the Republican National Committee branded the event the “Michigan Democrat Disunity Rally.”
Mr. Buttigieg acknowledged that the Democratic primary had been “spirited” and that it was “no secret that we all may not have voted the same way.” But, he told the crowd at a packed high school gymnasium, the party would “pull together.”
“Make no mistake,” Mr. Buttigieg said, “the world is watching.”
Democrats have three months to unite the party behind Dr. El-Sayed, who is running against former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a race that could determine control of the Senate. The seat is now held by Senator Gary Peters, a retiring Democrat.
The rally was the second unity event held by Michigan Democrats in the two days since Dr. El-Sayed defeated Representative Haley Stevens, a centrist, by a single percentage point.
On Thursday, a breakfast in suburban Detroit was meant to bring Democrats together. Ms. Stevens has had more than one conversation with Dr. El-Sayed since the primary and has endorsed him.
But Dr. El-Sayed’s struggles in heavily Black communities and some working-class areas pointed to potential general-election challenges ahead.
Some Democrats who supported Ms. Stevens are clearly reluctant to rally behind him.
Many Jewish Democrats, in particular, were dismayed by the way Dr. El-Sayed criticized the Israeli government and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose main super PAC spent tens of millions of dollars to support Ms. Stevens.
The Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus has not endorsed Dr. El-Sayed. The group’s founder, State Representative Noah Arbit, said on Friday that Dr. El-Sayed had a long way to go to repair trust with the Jewish community, though he said he was eager to meet with him.
Outside the gym, Eric Lerman, 71, a retired doctor who is Jewish, said he enthusiastically supported Dr. El-Sayed, citing the candidate’s support for universal health care. But, he said, many of his friends who are Jewish are gripped by concerns.
“There’s an existential fear factor,” Mr. Lerman said. He hoped, he said, that they might come around to Dr. El-Sayed. “I’ll do my best to get them to.”
Inside the gym, Edgar Faler, 54, who is not Jewish, said he was also uneasy about Dr. El-Sayed’s candidacy. Mr. Faler had supported Ms. Stevens, and did not like the way Dr. El-Sayed sometimes attacked her in personal terms. He did not like the way Dr. El-Sayed spoke about Israel, either.
He said Dr. El-Sayed had “some work to do” to “earn the trust” of Ms. Stevens’s supporters. And though he planned to vote for Dr. El-Sayed, he said, he worried about whether the candidate could win in November.
Mr. Rogers has already moved to exploit the Democratic divisions. In a video on social media on Friday morning, he encouraged Democrats to support him if they were dismayed by Dr. El-Sayed’s victory.
“Just know there is still hope,” Mr. Rogers said. “Michigan deserves a senator who is ready to sit with you, hear from you and represent you.”
He suggested that Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign was filled with “anger” and “divisiveness.” The “fight is far greater than just left versus right,” he added. “The fight is for the very soul of our nation.”
A spokeswoman for Dr. El-Sayed, Roxie Richner, responded in a statement that the Democratic nominee looked forward to earning “every vote” and that Mr. Rogers was “an extreme Republican.”
Republicans were also working on Friday to seize on a years-old video circulating on social media, drawn from a documentary about Dr. El-Sayed’s run for governor in 2018, that shows him saying, “I hate Mackinac so much.” Republicans said he was referring to Mackinac Island, a vacation destination on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign said he had been referring not to Mackinac Island but to the Mackinac Policy Conference, an annual gathering of business executives and politicians.
Jim Frank, chair of the Democratic Party in St. Clair County, outside Detroit, acknowledged that many of Ms. Stevens’s supporters felt a lingering bitterness.
“Some of them have some legitimate concerns” about the treatment of Ms. Stevens, said Mr. Frank, whose county supported her.
But he predicted that the party would “get through” its divisions.
“We’ve asked the more progressive members of the Democratic Party to vote blue when it comes time to vote in the election even if their candidate doesn’t get through,” Mr. Frank said. “Well, I think it’s the turn of many Democrats to go ahead and do the same.”
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