Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate running for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat, appeared at the Michigan Theater on Wednesday, during a campaign event focused on students' concerns.
It was his second stop in Ann Arbor in less than a month.
El-Sayed spoke about the need to regulate artificial intelligence to keep it from swallowing up the white collar jobs that the college students in the audience would be seeking upon graduation.
He also said there's a need to rein in bad landlords and high rents and help young people afford a house.
El-Sayed, who has said he'll refuse donations from corporate political action committees, argued it's imperative to get corporate control out of the Democratic Party, one politician at a time. He said he hoped getting elected without corporate support would prove it can be done.
"It's a good thing if my Senate colleagues say, you know, I used to take corporate money and I stopped. The problem I worry about is people saying, well you used to take it and you're forever corrupted. No. Give them an incentive to be better," El-Sayed said.
"We've got to work from a place more of hope and inspire people about what we can do, rather than this place in our politics where everything is 'lash people with what they didn't do,'" said the Democrat.
Mike Rogers, El-Sayed's Republican opponent, held a campaign event in Shelby Township Wednesday in which he cast El-Sayed as anti-American.
"The American dream is on the ballot. We have to decide: Do you want to give your family divisiveness and anger, or do you want to give them the promise of America?" Rogers said.
“He believes that if you want to make the American dream, you should move to Canada," Rogers said of El-Sayed.
Rogers, a former congressman who has supported the Trump administration's military action against Iran, called for it to end at his Shelby Township event.
Rogers said the Iran war is beginning to hurt Michiganders by raising the cost of gas. He called for a suspension of taxes on gasoline last week, and El-Sayed agreed — though the odds of such a measure getting approved look slim.
Absentee ballots will be available to voters Thursday.
