After the introductory speeches, El-Sayed took the mic to give a speech before he opened it up to the crowd for a question-and-answer session. Here are three takeaways from the 33-year-old candidate's rally: 

Education reform

Barring a major "blue wave" of Democrats being elected in 2018, the next governor of Michigan will likely be working with a majority-Republican Legislature. Republicans currently have a 17-person majority in both the state Senate and House.

This would likely pose challenges for a progressive candidate like El-Sayed, whose agenda includes a goal of making higher education tuition-free. However, attendees at the rally were excited to see El-Sayed even fighting for such a cause.

Fisheries and wildlife doctoral candidate Andrew Dennhardt has received two degrees and is working on a third. Given his plentiful experience with paying for an education, he said El-Sayed was "the candidate" for policies that would make higher education more accessible.

Dennhardt, who grew up on an organic produce farm, said he turned a childhood love of the outdoors into a passion for preserving the environment — a goal he said he doesn't believe should leave him burdened with expensive loan payments.

"I've seen student loan debt and what it can do to me and my own family, and I can see what it can do to my friends and colleagues and their families," Dennhardt said. "Enough is enough. Why on earth should we be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get an education to try and make the world a better place?" 

Fellow fisheries and wildlife doctoral candidate Amanda Dolinski said free higher education is a possibility "in the near future," and that El-Sayed's election would bring that goal even closer to reality — even if the candidate himself isn't able to accomplish it.

"If he becomes our governor and we don't get free education by the time his term ends, I know that we will have made great strides in order to get there," Dolinski said. 

In addition to these policy goals for higher education, El-Sayed also spoke of his desire to achieve reform efforts at the K-12 level. 

At the rally, he proposed closing the achievement gap between high- and low-income schools, establishing a public school infrastructure bank for improvements to dilapidated school buildings and preventing the "encroachment" of charter schools on public education.

Gun control 

El-Sayed pushed for gun control measures, namely calling for a full ban on assault weapons in his rally speech.

International relations sophomore Andrew Irons, a volunteer MSU campus leader for the El-Sayed campaign, said these gun control efforts were all the more important to the state after a 19-year-old allegedly killed his parents at Central Michigan University last month.

"It's terrible what happened there, and so we want to prevent something like that from happening," Irons said. "By having an assault weapons ban, we'd ensure that students here are more safe and more comfortable walking around to their classes without fear of getting shot." 

Adam Joseph, communications director for the El-Sayed campaign, attacked a certain primary opponent for her supposed flip-flopping on an assault weapons ban — although he didn't refer to her by name, former state senator Gretchen Whitmer is the only female candidate that has declared for August's primary.

"She recently called it too polarizing, and I just want to be very clear, we stand for an assault weapons ban," Joseph said. "We've been saying that since day one ... I encourage her to do the same." 

Immigration

While El-Sayed didn't explicitly use the term "sanctuary state," he nevertheless spoke of working to combat aggressive federal deportation efforts if he were to be elected governor.

"We are no longer going to collaborate with the likes of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), who are enforcing immigration policies that are at best incoherent and at worst heartless," El-Sayed said. 

El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, said immigrants make up a "really important part" of any campus community and often deeply value the educational opportunities available at American universities.

"I've never met an immigrant in my life who didn't come here wanting a better life for themselves," El-Sayed said. "Being able to stand with them and empower them and tell them that they are welcome to be here ... to me is critical. We are not America without immigration." 

The candidate acknowledged the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which fell on the same day as the rally. He called on attendees to honor King's legacy by embracing immigrants while fighting against the domestic troubles minorities face in America.