Former Detroit public health official Abdul El-Sayed and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) are in a statistical dead heat in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary based on the results of a new public opinion poll released Thursday morning by Emerson College that has El-Sayed at 24% and McMorrow at 23.6%.

U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham) is trailing the two front-runners by seven points at 13.4% in the April 11-13 survey of 519 Democratic primary voters. A 36% plurality of voters are still undecided.

The margin of error is 4.3%. The survey was sponsored by WOOD-TV/Nexstar Media.

(DETROIT) – Progressive-backed candidates Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II were endorsed Sunday by Democratic Party delegates to be their nominees this November for Attorney General and Secretary of State.

Also, in a convention race viewed by many as embodying the split created in the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) by the war in the Middle East, Democrats selected Dearborn civil rights attorney Amir Makled for the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents. Makled was selected alongside incumbent Regent Paul Brown, while Democrats rejected incumbent Jordan Acker, the Jewish lawyer who’s been scrutinized by progressives for disciplining anti-Israel college protesters.

The MDP’s convention adjourned around 9:50 p.m., and was attended by a record-breaking 7,252 delegates inside of Detroit’s Huntington Place. Unlike the Republicans’ endorsement convention, where most participants were locally elected precinct delegates, the MDP allows participants to vote if they signed up for the party by late March.

Michigan’s budget next year would be $106 million smaller than last year under a House Republican spending plan that cuts $2 billion in alleged “waste, fraud and abuse,” while making targeted investments in roads, public safety, schools and free breakfast and lunch for private schools.

House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) laid out the 50,000-foot view of the caucus’ budget Thursday during a 90-minute press briefing that provided a couple dozen specific cuts – stalled IT projects, arts grants, Rx Kids, among others – and some of its spending priorities, including $100 million more to roads, $75 million for revenue sharing to local governments and a $250-per-pupil increase in K-12 spending.

Hall also uncorked a new acronym to describe his desire to expand the state’s free school and lunch program to private schools – the Hall Universal Breakfast in Schools program or (HUBS).

The Republicans’ $75.8 billion proposed budget would also deposit $300 million into the Rainy Day Fund, which Hall noted is a departure from the Governor’s plan to withdraw $400 million from the account. The plan also doesn’t use more School Aid Fund money to cover university and community college spending.

“This is not a rainy day,” Hall said. “We don’t need to take money from the Rainy Day Fund. We don’t need to raise all kinds of taxes. We don’t need to do new hunting and fishing fee increases like the Senate proposes … We don’t have to do any of the gimmicks. We don’t have to do any of it. We don’t really have to cut very much at all, to be honest.”