Bringing Barack Obama to Detroit to rally Black voters for Abdul El-Sayed may generate excitement. Still, it cannot erase Flint, Detroit’s economic struggles, or legitimate questions about what decades of political loyalty have delivered.
Barack Obama is returning to Michigan. On October 24th, he will be in Detroit with Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and other Michigan Democrats, including gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson. The rally is taking place on the first day of Michigan’s mandatory early in-person voting period, and its political objective is clear: the Democrats want to energize their coalition and help El-Sayed build support in a state where control of a U.S. Senate seat is in question.
However, the Democrats ought to be cautious in thinking that having Barack Obama appear on a stage in Detroit automatically deals with the concerns of Black Michigan voters. To some Black voters, Obama’s appearance might be exciting, but to others it could be seen as political symbolism that replaces real answers, bringing America’s first Black president to Detroit to persuade Black people to back the Democratic nominee.
That question matters because El-Sayed has shown a clear weakness among Black voters. Although he narrowly won the Democratic primary statewide, his opponent, Haley Stevens, did better in Wayne County, taking about 51 percent compared to El-Sayed’s 45 percent. In Detroit, a city that is over 75 percent Black, the gap was even wider: a Washington Post analysis found that Stevens defeated El-Sayed by 28 percentage points.
Black Detroit residents interviewed after the primary made a point politicians should take note of: they did not necessarily know El-Sayed, didn’t understand his connection to their community, or know exactly what his platform would mean for Black people in Detroit. This is not the same as simply labeling Black voters as conservative, uninformed or unwilling to back a Muslim candidate. Some voters were asking the most fundamental political question any citizen can ask: What are you going to do for us?
The Numbers Show The Disconnect
The Washington Post-Schar School poll, conducted in September, made the issue even more clear-cut. Of likely Black voters in Michigan, 83 percent said they wanted the Democrats to control the U.S. Senate, while only 67 percent backed El-Sayed. A 16-point gap separates Black voters who wanted Democratic control of the Senate from those willing to support the Democratic Senate candidate.
That is important since it contradicts the simple idea that Black people’s skepticism about El-Sayed is just the result of Republican pressure or a general shift of Black voters away from the Democrats. Although these voters mostly favored Democratic control of the Senate, many still doubted El-Sayed himself.
The Democrats have already got former Vice President Kamala Harris to campaign with El-Sayed, and now Barack Obama is joining them. The political strategy is clear, but maybe Democratic leaders should spend as much time asking why Black voters need to be convinced as they do identifying prominent Black Democrats to do the convincing.
Black voters are not considered the property of political parties. They should not have their votes passed on merely because a candidate has a “D” next to his or her name, and they should not be brought out to vote at each election by introducing well-known Black political figures to the area.
Detroit Has Questions That Celebrity Endorsement Cannot Andswer
If you look at Detroit itself, about 75.3 percent of its residents are Black, and the Census Bureau’s estimate of the poverty rate in Detroit from its 2024 American Community Survey is about 34.5 percent.
On employment, the city’s own economic report indicates that Detroit’s unemployment rate averaged 10.6 percent in the first quarter of 2026; it averaged 7.2 percent in 2023, rose to 9.1 percent in 2024, and then increased further to 10 percent in 2025. This is not something of the past. These are the economic conditions people in one of America’s most important Black cities face today.
Those figures do not show that Democrats have achieved nothing in Detroit. Democratic officials at the federal, state, and local levels can cite investments, infrastructure spending, tax credits, economic-development schemes, and programs designed for families, workers, and businesses. Since then, Detroit has seen substantial redevelopment and investment.
Yet political accountability should not end with announcing programs or tracking how much money is appropriated. Black voters have every right to want to know whether those investments are leading to real improvements in household income, employment opportunities, homeownership, the quality of the schools in their neighborhood, and their ability to build wealth over generations.
That is the kind of conversation that Democrats should be ready to have in Detroit.
Then There is Flint
One more aspect of Michigan’s history makes Barack Obama’s return especially complicated: Flint.
The Flint water crisis started in April 2014, while Barack Obama was president, when Flint changed from buying treated water from Detroit’s system to taking and treating water from the Flint River. The water system served nearly 100,000 residents, and inadequate treatment led residents to drink water contaminated with lead.
We should be accurate about responsibility. Barack Obama did not cause the Flint water crisis, and it would be dishonest to say he did. Rick Snyder, a Republican, was governor of Michigan at the time, and Flint was under state-appointed emergency management, with the Michigan government and its environmental regulators sharing major responsibility for the decisions and failures that led to the disaster.
This does not erase what happened at the federal level.
The Environmental Protection Agency belonged to the Obama administration, and the EPA’s Office of Inspector General later concluded that EPA Region 5 had both the authority and the information to issue an emergency order to protect Flint residents as early as June 2015.
The emergency order was not issued until January 21, 2016, which was seven months later.
The Inspector General discovered that by June 2015 the EPA was aware that Flint was not employing corrosion control, that some houses had lead levels above the federal action level, that residents could expect their exposure to increase as the corrosion progressed, and that the state and local authorities were not taking swift enough action to protect public health.
A later report by the EPA Inspector General found that management weaknesses delayed the federal response to the Flint water crisis and suggested stronger federal oversight of state drinking-water programs.
Those facts deserve to be remembered.
Black Michigan Should Not Be Asked to Forget
Envision how Flint must have appeared from the point of view of a Black family residing there. Your water is polluted. The government says that the situation is under control. Parents are concerned about the stuff their children have drunk. The residents complain, the activists sound the alarm, and in the end the whole country finds out that an American city—one which has a majority-Black population—has been given access to lead via its public water system.
Republicans cannot avoid responsibility since Rick Snyder was governor; likewise, Michigan officials cannot escape responsibility since many of the decisions took place under state control. However, Democrats cannot just claim that because a Republican had been in the governor’s mansion, the federal government had no duty to act when a public-health emergency was developing.
Obama finally declared a federal emergency, and his administration arranged for a great deal of federal aid for Flint. These actions should also be included in the historical record.
The Inspector General also found that Obama’s EPA could have acted months earlier.
That is why Obama’s return to Michigan should invite more than nostalgia.
The Black Arab Conversation That Cannot Be Ignored
El-Sayed’s relationship with Black voters in Detroit also has to do with another complicated aspect of Michigan’s history—that being the relationship between Black and Arab-American communities in the metropolitan area of Detroit.
These groups have cooperated in numerous ways, formed coalitions, and shared common political interests. Arab Americans have also come across discrimination, stereotyping, and anti-Muslim bigotry, and El-Sayed has himself been the target of political attacks which exploit those prejudices.
Whenever that reality arises, it should be faced.
One does not have to feign that there are historical tensions between parts of Detroit’s Black and Arab communities if one admits that there has been anti-Arab or anti-Muslim discrimination. Over the years, Black residents of Detroit have raised issues concerning neighborhood businesses, economic relationships, racial treatment, and whether political alliances truly take Black interests into account.
It would be wrong to treat any conversations that Black residents have when they raise uncomfortable questions as mere accusations of bigotry. Likewise, individual disagreements should not be used as a basis for stereotyping the whole Arab-American community.
Political coalitions must be based on respect, existing relationships, and shared interests, and a political party can’t announce them just three weeks before Election Day.
Black Voters Must Demand An Agenda
This is where the Obama rally ought to turn into a much bigger discussion.
Rather than just inquiring whether Barack Obama can help El-Sayed boost his support among Black people, maybe journalists should ask El-Sayed what exactly he is providing Black Michiganders.
What is his plan concerning Black unemployment? What specific policies does he have to increase Black homeownership and to safeguard current Black homeowners? How would his economic program promote Black-owned businesses and access to capital? What steps would he take to deal with educational disparities? And how would he use his position in the United States Senate to tackle infrastructure and environmental justice so that another Flint won’t occur?
The questions shouldn’t be seen as hostile; that is exactly the kind of questions voters are meant to ask candidates.
El-Sayed has promoted major progressive measures, such as Medicare for All, and has focused on an economic agenda aimed at reducing the influence of money in politics and putting more money directly into working people’s pockets. However, even before the primary, some Black voters in Detroit interviewed by The Washington Post doubted whether those general progressive pledges would actually make a difference in their lives. That ought to tell the Democrats something.
Black people don’t live within political slogans; they live in neighborhoods, households, schools, workplaces, and businesses. They pay their property taxes, utility bills, mortgages, and rent. They worry whether their children can read at grade level, whether their sons can secure careers, whether their daughters are safe, whether their businesses can obtain financing, and whether they will ever accumulate enough assets to leave something valuable to the next generation.
Obama Cannot Be The Policy
Barack Obama remains one of the most important political figures in modern American history, since his election as the first Black president had great historical significance—especially for generations of Black Americans who never thought they would live to see a Black family in the White House.
Yet history does not release anyone from political accountability.
Obama is not the policy.
His presence cannot offer answers about Detroit’s unemployment rate. His speeches cannot erase the poverty statistics. The fact that he is popular cannot overcome the long-standing tensions between Black and Arab communities. Moreover, his legacy cannot change the fact that the EPA under him had both the information and the authority to intervene in Flint months before it issued its emergency order.
It won’t tell the Black voters in Michigan what Abdul El-Sayed actually intends to do for them. No one but El-Sayed can answer that.
That is why some Black voters might see Obama’s appearance differently from how Democratic strategists intend. To party leaders, this may seem like inspiration. Still, to some voters it could appear to be another instance of using Black political symbolism in an attempt to win Black votes without first addressing Black political grievances.
The fact is that Black voters need not reject El-Sayed; they need not choose to support his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers; and it by no means follows that Black voters should base their decision entirely on race, religion, or resentment.
It means they should demand answers from everyone.
No Permanent Friends, Only Permanent Interest
The level of black political power shouldn’t be judged by the enthusiasm with which black voters display when Barack Obama walks onto a stage; it should be judged by whether elected officials realize that black votes come with expectations.
Detroit’s history deserves seriousness. We should take the families in Flint seriously. We should take the seriousness of Black voters in Michigan seriously.
Then, when Barack Obama takes the stage in Detroit on October 24, the most important question may be whether he can win over Black voters to support Abdul El-Sayed.
It ought to be asked whether Abdul El-Sayed—and the Democratic Party asking Michigan’s Black communities to back him—can make clear exactly what benefits Black communities will get in return for their political support.
Black voters have listened to the speeches, seen the celebrities, and watched the presidents, vice presidents, and other top political figures arrive every election season to tell them it is all on the line.
This time, they have every right to respond with a question of their own:
What, specifically, are you going to do for us?
