Black voters in Detroit are sending a clear message to Democrats: they’re tired of being taken for granted.
Fox News Digital spoke with roughly a dozen Black voters on the ground in Detroit, most of whom said they believe the Democratic Party has either failed to prioritize their concerns or has taken their support for granted.
The frustration is visceral.
“I feel like some of the stuff that they do is just to hush us up and, like … there you go.” — Dalia, an African American from Detroit
Vincent, a Black voter from the Detroit area, put it bluntly: “It’s just the way that they don’t address our issues, issues that concern actually Black people, especially working-class Black people.”
Another Black voter told Fox News Digital: “It’s always a ploy to get the Black vote, make all these promises, but once that vote is in and stuff like that, then it’s operation as normal.”
The numbers back up the frustration. The percentage of Black voters who identify with the Democratic Party fell by 10 percentage points between 2020 and 2025, according to the Pew Research Center.
National surveys suggest that the proportion of Black Americans who believe Democrats represent their interests is slipping.
And that slippage is showing up in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race.
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s razor-thin win over Rep. Haley Stevens earlier this month was closer than expected — and Black voters appeared to have a lot to do with it.
In jurisdictions with the highest percentage of Black voters, El-Sayed consistently struggled against Stevens.
A collective analysis by The Hill found that, in counties where Black residents account for 15% or more of the population, Stevens outpaced El-Sayed by an average of eight points.
El-Sayed performed strongly in the Arab-American enclaves of Dearborn and Hamtramck — but that success may have come at a cost.
“I guess the Arabs resonate with who’s running for Senate. So, he don’t really have to prioritize us because he has enough people on his side already,” Parisia, another Black Detroit resident, told Fox News Digital.
El-Sayed’s campaign also drew fire for his association with socialist streamer Hasan Piker, whose comments about Black voters in a 2024 livestream have been cited by El-Sayed’s critics.
During a 2024 livestream about Democratic border policy, Piker reacted to the claim that “Black people care about the border” by saying, “I don’t give a f— what Black people care about or what you think Black people care about,” before accusing Democrats of using Black voters as a “shield” to defend a rightward shift on immigration.
“Like, shut the f— up,” Piker said.
One Black Detroit area resident told Fox News Digital she was “appalled” by the fact El-Sayed was campaigning with Piker.
“I guess clearly you don’t care about Black voters then because you would never bring … somebody to run with you who is against or not even against but who don’t care about Black voters.”
RNC spokesman Hunter Lovell told Fox News Digital: “It’s a fool’s errand to assume terrorist-sympathizing and socialist-aligned candidates like Abdul El-Sayed and William Lawrence can unite Democrats in a general election when they’ve spent their careers disparaging Black Americans.”
Fox News’s Power Rankings have the Michigan Senate race rated as a toss-up while also showing a steady decline in Black support for the Democratic Party.
An African American pastor serving in the Detroit area told Fox News Digital that, while he strongly supports El-Sayed, whom he knows personally, Democrats can’t necessarily count on the Black vote as a given.
“He does understand us,” Keith said of El-Sayed, later noting that Democrats have “discovered that if you’re not courted and not talked to or whatever, we don’t necessarily turn out for you.”
The message from Detroit is clear: Democrats either start delivering — or they risk losing the vote they’ve counted on for decades.
