SLF PAC's Anti-El-Sayed Spending Doubles to $14M as Michigan Senate Outside Money Passes $35M

Independent-expenditure spending in Michigan’s 2026 U.S. Senate race passed $35 million by the FEC’s 2026-09-16 receipt-date coverage, with SLF PAC’s spending against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed reaching $13,991,757.85 — more than double the $6,580,648.44 recorded at the prior 2026-08-29 data cutoff, roughly eighteen days earlier.

Totals as of that coverage date, computed from the FEC’s own Schedule E bulk file rather than an aggregator: $22,613,095.07 opposing El-Sayed against $969,323.47 supporting him (roughly 23-to-1), and $11,441,851.97 supporting Republican nominee Mike Rogers against $13,115,167.37 opposing him. Outside money therefore runs net-against both major-party nominees, and net-against Rogers by about $1.7 million — a pattern that cuts against the assumption that independent spending favors the Republican in a competitive Senate race. The largest single pro-Rogers spenders are Americans for Prosperity Action ($5,367,063.95) and GLCF, Inc. (“Team Rogers,” $4,604,645.71).

No general-election independent expenditure has been filed under AIPAC’s or United Democracy Project’s own name. Two pieces of reporting bear on whether that will hold, and this entry cites them by publisher and date only — neither was fetched first-party for this entry, and no URL is asserted for either. The New York Times reported on 2026-08-05 that AIPAC was weighing a second effort against El-Sayed after his primary win (read via PoliticalWire’s republished excerpt and corroborated against Al Jazeera, Middle East Monitor and Newser coverage of the same NYT reporting; nytimes.com is paywalled to this research environment). The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on 2026-08-25 that Rogers’s campaign had asked AIPAC to refrain from direct spending and route support through an unbranded super PAC instead — a characterization AIPAC’s spokesperson disputed. That dispute is unresolved in the public record. See el-sayed-abdul for the full sourcing chain. Because FEC Schedule E reports expenditures by filer rather than by ultimate funding source, the filings can establish that no money was spent under AIPAC’s name; they cannot establish whose money funded SLF PAC.

The ratio against El-Sayed narrowed from roughly 143-to-1 to 23-to-1 between the two pulls, but that narrowing reflects support-side spending growing from a very small base while opposition spending roughly tripled — not a shift toward parity.