What are your predictions for the Democratic and Republican nominees likely to win upcoming elections, and why?

His actual positions

El-Sayed's platform centers on Medicare for All, ending military aid to Israel and campaign finance reform. He also backs abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that carries out immigration arrests and deportations. He has been vocal about being "the only candidate running for US Senate in Michigan that has never taken a dime of corporate money."

Medicare for All means replacing private health insurance with a single government payer, the way Canada or the UK run their systems. Abolishing ICE means ending the agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement. Those are left-of-center positions, but they are positions held by a significant chunk of the Democratic Party, not fringe views.

What Republicans are actually doing

The Senate Leadership Fund and National Republican Senatorial Committee released ads painting El-Sayed as "too radical." The Senate GOP's campaign arm called him "the most radical Senate nominee in U.S. history" in a recent memo, pointing to positions he has taken in the past.

Part of this is straightforward attack-ad politics: the GOP sees Michigan as one of its best pickup opportunities, and "radical" tests well in swing states.

After El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama called him a "TERRORIST" and "RADICAL ISLAMIST" on social media. The Washington Post found that conservative commentary about him quickly shifted focus from his policy positions to his Muslim identity. El-Sayed, if elected, would be the first Muslim senator in U.S. history, and some of what gets labeled "radical" is anti-Muslim bias dressed in political language.

Where things are genuinely complicated

El-Sayed has been seeking to appear more moderate to general election voters while maintaining ties to figures who hold positions far to his left. Since launching his Senate bid, he has distanced himself from a number of positions he previously held and scrubbed much of his left-wing pre-campaign content from the internet. The Detroit News, which endorsed Mike Rogers, wrote that "a candidate who feels the need to hide his past from voters is not someone who can be trusted to be the same person after Election Day as he was on the campaign trail."

He also drew criticism from Democratic primary opponents and Jewish advocacy groups for campaigning with internet streamer Hasan Piker, whose past comments are controversial.

The bottom line

El-Sayed holds genuine progressive convictions, Medicare for All and abolishing ICE chief among them, that are to the left of most Senate Democrats. His victory gave progressives something they have been seeking: evidence that their politics could prevail not just in deep-blue cities, but in a Democratic primary in a premier swing state. Whether those positions are "too radical" to win Michigan in November is the actual open question. His current lead of 48 to 44% over Rogers suggests voters there aren't treating him as unelectable, at least not yet.

The deleted content

A CNN KFile investigation found more than 100 videos on El-Sayed's YouTube channel that appear to have been made private before he launched his campaign. The contents span several politically sensitive topics.

In one clip from April 2023, he asked: "What if we tweaked the Constitution, amended the amendment, and instead of the right to bear arms, we change it to the right to have healthcare?" He argued the move would lead to "fewer people dying by gun and more people living because they have healthcare."

He also deleted social media posts supporting the "defund the police" movement. Other removed videos captured El-Sayed dismissing the southern border as a top concern for Americans while criticizing Republicans for making it a central campaign issue. And there was a video arguing Americans should find another way to celebrate the Fourth of July, with El-Sayed promising four reasons "why fireworks suck."

The Hasan Piker association

Separate from the deleted videos, El-Sayed's decision to campaign alongside Hasan Piker, a popular left-wing internet streamer, has kept a second controversy alive. Piker has drawn criticism for past comments about the September 11 attacks and the October 7, 2023 assault on Israel, including remarks that appeared to downplay or justify the violence, and he minimized reports of mass sexual assault during the October 7 attacks.

When pressed on why he had not directly condemned Piker's rhetoric, El-Sayed pushed back:

"With all due respect, this is the third time you've asked about a Twitch streamer in California."

The Muslim Brotherhood accusation

A resurfaced video from a 2018 gubernatorial forum shows El-Sayed responding sharply to accusations about alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed served as vice president of the Muslim Students Association chapter at the University of Michigan during his senior year, though no reporting has uncovered any direct tie between him and the Muslim Brotherhood itself. The memorandum cited by his accuser lists a wide range of organizations, from the Islamic Book Service to the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers, groups that do not maintain formal relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood.

What El-Sayed says

His campaign's response to the deleted videos: "Cherry-picked comments from old podcasts don't reflect his beliefs today." On guns, the campaign said El-Sayed respects the Second Amendment while supporting policies aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.

The honest read is that none of this is a hidden secret so much as an earlier version of himself, one built for a podcast audience rather than a Michigan general election. The issue for El-Sayed is less what he was hiding and more whether voters in a competitive swing state find the gap between the 2023 podcaster and the 2026 Senate candidate credible.

What the organization is

The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist movement that seeks to implement sharia, meaning Islamic Relations law, under a global caliphate. Founded in Egypt in 1928, it is that country's oldest Islamist organization and has branches throughout the world. Sharia is the body of religious law derived from the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad; a caliphate is a single unified Islamic state governed by that law.

It was founded by schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in Ismailia, Egypt, and began as a pan-Islamist religious and social movement, building popular support through proselytization, political activism, and social welfare. The organization initially focused on educational and charitable work, but quickly grew to become a major political force by championing the cause of disenfranchised classes and promoting a conception of Islam that attempted to restore broken links between tradition and modernity.

While its branches operate under a variety of names and use social, political, and occasionally violent methods, they share a commitment to establishing rule according to sharia. The most notable Brotherhood offshoot is Hamas, the Palestinian militant group operating out of the Gaza Strip.

Its legal status today

The Brotherhood's standing in law varies sharply by country. Muslim-majority countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain have already designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

In the United States, the picture is more complicated. President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing that certain chapters or subdivisions of the Muslim Brotherhood be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Acting on that order, the U.S. departments of Treasury and State designated the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood, also known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah, as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The global Brotherhood organization itself has not been designated under U.S. federal law, though bills requiring that designation have been introduced in Congress.

Why it keeps coming up in the Michigan Senate race

Republican Mike Rogers claimed without evidence that El-Sayed had "pledged his support" to the Muslim Brotherhood. There is no evidence that El-Sayed has ties to the organization or pledged support, although he has occasionally weighed in on Egyptian affairs and politicians associated with the group, according to a Bridge Michigan review.

The specific document at issue is more nuanced. A 2012 Arabic-language statement published on an Egyptian news portal and signed by 46 "leaders of the Egyptian community" in the United States included El-Sayed's name. El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to requests for comment about that letter.

Senator Ted Cruz has also tied El-Sayed to the Brotherhood through his father-in-law's work with Muslim nonprofits, claiming at a Senate Judiciary hearing that the father-in-law is involved with organizations Cruz described as founded by Brotherhood affiliates, including the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

El-Sayed has fired back at such claims before, including at a 2018 gubernatorial forum where he pushed back sharply against Patrick Colbeck's claims linking him to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed is a practicing Muslim of Egyptian descent who was born and raised in Michigan. Critics of the attacks say they amount to guilt by association, holding one candidate responsible for the affiliations and statements of relatives and community members, a standard applied to no one else running for office.

The House: why 92% still means a net gain of three

The betting odds tell you who is likely to win. The seat math tells you what winning requires, based on where things stand today.

Republicans currently hold 218 House seats and Democrats hold 214, with three seats vacant. A majority takes 218 of 435. So Democrats, sitting at 214, need four more seats to clear that bar. In the 2026 general elections, Democrats need a net gain of three districts to win a majority. The "three" rather than "four" figure accounts for the vacant seats in the count: pick up three Republican-held seats without losing any of your own and you cross 218.

The 92% odds simply say that the markets believe Democrats are very likely to accomplish that. High confidence in the outcome doesn't change what the outcome requires.

The Senate: why 63% still means a net gain of four

The Senate math is straightforward. The Senate currently has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats, making it a 53-47 Republican majority. A majority is 51 seats. Democrats are at 47. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats to reach 51 and take outright control.

The 63% is the market's estimate of the likelihood that Democrats achieve that four-seat swing. Of the 35 Senate seats up in 2026, 22 are held by Republicans, so Democrats have plenty of targets, but most rating groups identify only two Republican-held seats as highly competitive, and Democrats must flip at least four seats while defending two highly vulnerable seats of their own. That is a narrow path, which is exactly why the odds sit at 63% rather than 92. Something with 63% odds fails to happen more than one time in three.

The short version: odds measure probability. Seat math measures distance. They measure two different things, and both can be true at once.