Polls have consistently forecast a tight race between El-Sayed and Rogers, showing El-Sayed with a substantial edge over Rogers with Black voters.

But the margin matters. A recent YouGov survey of likely general election voters found El-Sayed winning 84% of the Black vote, with Rogers taking 11% — roughly the same spread that Michigan exit polls showed in 2024, when Harris narrowly lost the state to Trump in the presidential election. A Fox News poll of likely voters in late September measured Rogers’ support among Black voters at 22%.

NBC News visited an early voting location in Detroit on Saturday, ahead of Obama’s rally. Voters who spoke with NBC News said they were casting ballots for El-Sayed.

“I’ll admit that I’ve skipped it before,” Tony Gooden, a Detroit voter, said in an interview of having not voted in prior midterm elections.

Gooden added that he felt it was important to vote this fall because of “the state of the economy, the state of our country.”

“I feel like somebody needs to put a rein on what’s going on in Washington,” said Gooden. “So I can either sit back on my couch and complain, or I can get on and do something about it.”

Mary Waters, a member of the Detroit City Council who backed Stevens in the Democratic primary, said she is not yet committed to either candidate but expressed warmth toward Rogers. She said that skepticism of El-Sayed may stem less from a personal dislike of him and more from tense relationships between the Arab American and Black communities in Detroit.

“I don’t think that President Obama himself even understands the racial divides, the class divides, in the city. He does not live here,” Waters said when asked about the impact Obama’s appearance could have, acknowledging that some of her constituents may be swayed by Obama’s pitch.

In a recent interview with The Root, an online publication that covers Black news and culture, El-Sayed acknowledged the tensions Waters highlighted.

“Most of that spending was spending intended to break my relationship with the Black community,” El-Sayed said of money spent opposing him during the Democratic primary. “And unfortunately, you know, it was not that hard to break, because for too many Black Detroiters, in particular, their experience with somebody who looks like me is not a good one.”

“You go into a gas station, you go to a party store, you’re being talked at from behind bulletproof glass,” he continued. “If you’re a woman, you’re being catcalled. … I’ve always tried to be on the right side of that. But I also understand that, like, if that’s your experience with somebody whose name is like mine, that leaves a terrible taste in your mouth.”

Gilchrist, meanwhile, told NBC News he thinks little of Rogers’ attempts to woo Black voters and believes Obama’s rally would help unify the party.

“He occupies a singular place in our consciousness as Black Americans, and so his voice matters, and his perspective matters,” Gilchrist said. “I do think that that will be incredibly helpful in terms of letting folks know that this is an opportunity for them to mobilize and to make something happen to have the right senator from Michigan.”

El-Sayed, though, has previously expressed criticism of Obama, saying he fell short of delivering change. He has explained his thinking in the run-up to Saturday’s rally.

“Do you love your dad? Do you agree with everything your dad has ever done?” El-Sayed said after his Grand Rapids debate with Rogers on Oct. 8. “It’s a normal thing to love somebody, to really appreciate all that they’ve done, and to say, ‘Hey, here’s some things I would have done differently.’ But they still did some important things to create opportunity for you. There is no world in which I get to run for office without somebody like President Obama.”

Obama addressed the past criticism on Saturday.

“Abdul shares my values of wanting everybody to get healthcare,” he said. “He shares my values that if you work hard every day, you should have a living wage, and you should be able, if you’re a young person starting a family, to be able to buy a house that you can afford, and that you shouldn’t have to pay six bucks every time you fill up the tank of gas to get to work. We share those values of making sure everybody gets a fair shot in this society, and that the system’s not just run for those at the top.”