ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN — Progressive U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed held a campaign rally with online streamer Hasan Piker at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday evening, drawing a crowd that filled a lecture hall and spilled out onto the street. A line of mostly young people stretched out the door and down the block, with hundreds waiting in cold evening air.

Students banged on desks and stomped their feet inside the packed lecture hall. Some attendees had backpacks slung over their shoulders after coming from class, while others had traveled from afar to attend. Pennsylvania U.S. Representative Summer Lee also appeared at the event. "There should be a progressive running everywhere that one exists," Lee said. "We might not be victorious, but every single time we have to call the question," she added.

U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell, a longtime Democratic congresswoman whose district includes Ann Arbor, watched the event from the back of the lecture hall. "I haven't seen that many people outside an event yet this year," Dingell said. She noted that her attendance was not an endorsement. Dingell, who has seen long lines and packed rooms at campaign events over her decades in politics, had previously cautioned that Trump was on track to win Michigan in 2016 and again in 2024.

Attendees at the rally did not fit neatly into a single ideological category and shared dissatisfaction with both major political parties. According to Gallup polling, more than half of Generation Z and Millennials identify as political independents, rejecting both major parties at much higher rates than older generations, a majority of whom identify with a political party. AP-NORC polling from February found that younger adults are more likely than older Americans to have an unfavorable view of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

El-Sayed is competing against U.S. Representative Haley Stevens and state Senator Mallory McMorrow in Michigan's Democratic primary. He finished second in the state's Democratic primary for governor in 2018. Jacob Abbott, an undergraduate student at the university, dismissed concerns about El-Sayed's decision to campaign with Piker. "So is Hasan perfect? Probably not," Abbott said. "But he's much better than the alternative the Democratic Party has had," he added.

Piker, 34, has 3.1 million followers on Twitch and 1.8 million on YouTube. His appearance at the rally came as progressive candidates have posted recent electoral wins, including Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York and Analilia Mejia's win in a crowded Democratic primary in a special U.S. House election in New Jersey.