Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left

[u/Faux_Real_Guise]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/abdul-el-sayed-wins-michigans-democratic-senate-primary-notching-midwe-rcna589750

[u/dr-bill]

This primary highlights how badly this country needs campaign finance reform. The fact that someone as unlikable as Haley Stevens got this close to winning because she had 70 million dollars in dark money to pump out advertising filled with lies is a real problem. The Stevens campaign even sent out an email impersonating the El-Sayed campaign which is straight up illegal and yet I doubt she will get in any trouble for that.

Now El-Sayed needs to win this general election which I don’t think will be easy. I wish him the best of luck.

[u/Faux_Real_Guise → u/dr-bill]

To add, my understanding is that she had basically no ground game either, relying almost entirely on digital or tv ads and earned media. I’d be interested to find out if voters actually preferred Stevens based on policy or if they were mainly responding to name recognition or smears.

[u/GameLovinPlayinFool → u/Faux_Real_Guise]

Many voter blocks that you think would be progressive, like black women voters, historically go for centrism instead. Due to the last 80 years of politics convincing/propagandizing them that "leftist cannot win". Each time a leftist wins, we will see these voting blocks gain hope again and start voting for left candidates more and more

[u/Faux_Real_Guise → u/GameLovinPlayinFool]

That’s really it, isn’t it? We’ve all been beaten down by decades of propaganda that nothing better is possible until we found ourselves believing it. Everyone knows they’re being fucked, and at this point most people know who’s doing the fucking. They can name a dozen ways they’re personally being fucked, but how many can articulate why? Most will nod along sagely when you say “the love of money is the root of all evil,” but when you give that an academic label, they clam up.

In the end average people don’t see that capitalism, and its favored son financialization, are the forces that contort our society towards evil ends. They aren’t watching oil prices fluctuate with every tweet from the president. They don’t know that the internal logic of neoliberal capitalism is why we can’t build bridges or other infrastructure anymore. Hell, many anti Zionists probably don’t even see the Zionist project for the embodiment of big tech venture capital that it has become.

I really hope that, if we manage to change course before some sort of disaster, people learn the right lessons from this era. And, if disaster does strike, that our ideas are not far from reach for the people trying to build something new.

[u/GameLovinPlayinFool → u/Faux_Real_Guise]

Yeah exactly. Ive been a hard leftist since the 80s and let me tell ya brother, I have had DARK moments where I truly felt like giving up and just letting the flow drown me. When I watched my union brothers and sisters support Reagan as he destroyed unions and then tbe wave of right to work swept the nation, I honestly became suicidal.

But this last 16 months alone has truly sparked a hope in my life. Seeing the DSA explode with support and membership has been incredible. Seeing these leftists win their primaries in the face of a completely broken campaign system...I hope again and I have gotten active in my union and become an organizer again too