A carless island known for its fudge, horse-drawn carriages and pre-modern charm seems an unlikely spot for a political war to breakout during a campaign for a United States Senate seat in the year 2026.
But that is what happened when footage from a 2020 documentary went viral Friday of presumptive Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed seemingly ripping Michigan’s Mackinac Island. To those not from the Great Lakes State, that may seem like a silly issue to lose ones marbles over.
To a Michigander, that is the equivalent of a Massachusetts Senate candidate calling Fenway Park trash, or an Egyptian candidate calling the Great Pyramids an abomination. Generations of Michiganders went on family and school trips to the island that is situated near the state’s upper and lower peninsulas in the Straits of Mackinac.
“I hate Mackinac so much. Every time I’ve ever come here, I’ve hated it. Why am I here?” El-Sayed said while attending the influential annual Mackinac Policy Conference. The comments were recorded in a 2020 documentary, “How to Fix a Primary,” that chronicled El-Sayed’s failed 2018 Michigan gubernatorial campaign.
Lest you think Mackinac Island has become only a conservative-driven issue, don’t forget that during the first Trump administration then-Vice President Mike Pence was denounced by a bipartisan swath of Michiganders for riding in a motorcade on the island where cars are outlawed.
Supporters of El-Sayed claimed the clip was taken out of context, and that the Democratic candidate was referring to the Mackinac Policy Conference, not the island itself.
Predictably opponents such as former Michigan Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who will be El-Sayed’s rival for the Senate seat in November, seized on the clip knowing it struck a chord with Michiganders.
Rogers posted pictures of himself on Mackinac Island Friday in which he professed his love for the Michigan tourist staple.
“There’s no place like Mackinac,” Rogers said in the post.
Michigan native Kid Rock joined “Fox and Friends Weekend” Saturday to rip El-Sayed over his anti-Mackinac comments, calling the island “one of the most beautiful places in America.”
El-Sayed responded by adroitly framing the clip as representing a broader economic issue. “Both of these multimillionaires can afford a weekend on Mackinac Island. How about you and your family?” El-Sayed posted on X.
So, does El-Sayed have a point? Yes and no.
He’s right that staying on the island for a weekend would break your bank; a stay at the world-famous Grand Hotel (which was featured in the Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour film “Somewhere In Time”) would set you back over $1,200 for one night during the summer tourist season compared to hotels starting at roughly $228 in nearby St. Ignace, Michigan. And that doesn’t include the cost of the ferry ticket to get to the island, food, gas, carriage tours and other travel-related costs.
El-Sayed’s retort holds water in an election in which affordability is top of voters’ mind.
However, El-Sayed is also over-simplifying his point. As a Michigander, he surely knows that Mackinac Island has always been expensive, but generations of Michiganders have saved to make the trip and most don’t actually stay on the island, they go for the day or they get a cheaper hotel located on the mainland Upper Peninsula or Lower Peninsula.
By attacking Mackinac Island, El-Sayed also is going further than just making this an economic issue, he is attacking a right of passage for those who grew up in the Great Lakes State. The island that has outlawed cars and features a tour of a large 18th-century fort is as American as apple pie.
El-Sayed’s Mackinac attack might appeal to those who despise American colonialism: the British and French raised flags over Fort Michilimackinac before the stars and stripes flew over the island.
This strategy might play with his base in college towns like Ann Arbor, but betting the house on attacking an island beloved by the wider populace is a risky strategy.
The island sits near the five-mile long Mackinac Bridge, the largest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere that connects the state’s two peninsulas, and which Michiganders refer to as simply “the bridge.” (Yoopers, as the residents of the Upper Peninsula are known, call residents who live in the Lower Peninsula “trolls,” because they live under the bridge.)
El-Sayed needs working-class, lower-educated voters in the counties of Northern Michigan on both sides of the bridge to turn out for him in November after Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens won those counties during Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
Rogers narrowly led El-Sayed in the RealClearPolling average last updated before Tuesday’s primary.
There is something about the island that strikes at the core of being a proud Michigander that goes beyond merely class and economic concerns.
No matter who wins, the “gales of November” will come early in the 2026 midterm elections.
(DCNF)