“The oligarchs are getting nervous,” Sanders told rally goers on Saturday, linking el Sayed’s campaign to progressive victories in New York last month. “They should be getting nervous.”

“Despite all of the money that the oligarchs are throwing into this election, we’re going to win here in Michigan,” he added.

The event comes at a critical moment in Michigan politics. El Sayed is facing a deluge of outside spending that has erased his status as front-runner and underscored establishment opposition to his candidacy. He will face Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a more traditional Democrat, in the Aug. 4 primary.

For Sanders, the barnstorm through Michigan follows the sudden fall of Graham Platner, his endorsed candidate in Maine, and a mix of failure and success in House primaries.

Sanders, who twice ran for president on a populist platform, is still the indisputed leader of the political Left, and event attendees called his appearance a big draw.

One street vendor outside the Detroit event joked that Sanders’s following was so large he’s “like Ron Paul on steroids,” citing the Bernie logo shirts that he said sell particularly well at political events.

Sanders is nonetheless arriving in Michigan with national Democrats more determined than ever to steer the party in a more pragmatic direction, effectively making the state ground zero for a proxy fight over progressive politics.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), his Senate colleague, dropped all appearances of neutrality in June and endorsed Stevens. Downballot, Sanders is splitting with party leadership in multiple House races.

Sanders campaigned on Saturday for state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a progressive vying to unseat Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI). On Sunday, Sanders will rally for William Lawrence, a Lansing-area candidate running against two establishment-favored Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez is often referred to as a successor to Sanders, 84, and her shock 2018 victory against a member of House leadership made her an instant heavyweight in progressive circles.

“They have a lot of energy, and we like what they stand for,” said Karen Debgupta, a retiree from Clinton Township who came to see Ocasio-Cortez for the first time in person.

Labor leader Shawn Fain introduced Ocasio-Cortez to the crowd as a “bada** fighter for the working class.”

Still, Ocasio-Cortez has been far more cautious than Sanders in doling out endorsements this cycle and has gone to greater lengths to avoid friction with her colleagues in the House. In Michigan, she only waded into el Sayed’s Senate race this month.

By contrast, Sanders endorsed el Sayed hours after he launched his Senate campaign last April, and Saturday marked his second appearance this year for el Sayed in Detroit.

That aggressive strategy has made Sanders a natural target. At a press event in Farmington, Stevens questioned whether he was genuinely interested in Michigan voters’ concerns, emphasizing her work on the auto bailouts under former President Barack Obama.

“I don’t remember seeing him here,” Stevens said.

Sanders has also attracted greater attention when his endorsed candidates lose. He faced pockets of Democratic backlash after Platner, faced with accusations of sexual assault that he denies, dropped out of the Maine Senate race a week ago.

Sanders eventually urged Platner to leave the race, but stuck by him through repeated scandals that raised fears he was risking a swing state pivotal to Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate majority next year.

Similar complaints are being raised in Michigan. Lawrence, the Lansing candidate, came under fire from the Congressional Black Caucus this month for unearthed comments accusing black leaders of undermining the “white Left” – remarks that Lawrence says have been taken out of context.

Ocasio-Cortez downplayed the idea that el Sayed’s race should be viewed through the lens of national party infighting, telling reporters after the Detroit event that “primary elections aren’t referendums on the party.”

“They are referendums on that community,” she said. “And so, I think that we can’t extrapolate from any one race about this.”

Still, rally speakers did little to hide the fact that the Senate race had been nationalized and at times fanned that intraparty struggle. At one point, el Sayed accused Schumer of “doling out corporate money” to candidates who would do his “bidding,” a dig at Stevens.

Michigan is just one state where Sanders’s presence looms large. He is poised to miss a vote in Washington on Monday to campaign for Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a progressive running for Senate in Minnesota.

But the fact that Michigan is a battleground currently represented by two Democrats in the Senate, a foothold they must keep to maintain a path to the majority, has exacerbated tensions with the political establishment.

It has also revived questions about what makes a candidate electable.

“What is electable in 2026?” el Sayed said after the Detroit event, standing alongside Ocasio-Cortez. “Electability doesn’t need a $50 million crutch. Electability is about actually having a message that people want to vote for that’s affirmative, that isn’t cynical, and that’s what we’re trying to build.”

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Stevens, first elected to the House in 2018, stressed the competitive races she’s won over the years when asked about el Sayed’s argument.

“The one difference that I can just share, that I maintain as a candidate in this race, is that I won,” she said.