Perhaps no state has embraced the political outsider as much as Michigan, where a venture capitalist won the last two governor's elections and a real estate baron carried the presidential vote.
But Abdul El-Sayed, a 32-year-old liberal doctor in Detroit, is putting that affinity for newcomers to the test — by mounting a surprisingly robust bid to become the nation's first Muslim governor.
Democratic leaders are stunned by the sudden emergence of El-Sayed, a former Rhodes scholar who served as Detroit public health director, in the primary field after he quickly raised $1 million.
He is one of four viable Democrats and, for now, three Republicans in a race that his party considers a must-win to re-establish itself after eight years of GOP control of state government.
