Barack Obama hasn’t endorsed a Michigan Senate candidate. An AIPAC-linked group is spending millions on ads with him anyway

 

Former President Barack Obama speaks in Norfolk, Virginia, on November 1, 2025.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

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.”