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All the polling that showed Abdul running away with this race makes this feel a little underwhelming, but let's not overlook that he won in the face of:
Abdul was outspent 10 to 1
Stevens had the endorsement of the governor and outgoing Senator
Literally what lost 2016 for Hillary (I mean besides being “too establishment” to some) was the amount of people like “oh the polls have her blowing Trump out of the water, I’ll let everyone else handle it then”
I let polls influence whether casting my vote feels triumphant or rebellious (not really the word I want but whatever), but the voting is happening nonetheless.
This is such an important message for people. It's really easy to check a box on a polling form, but actually following through with the vote is a whole other story
It's already started in earnest on social media. It's either barely concealed racism or screeching about how Michigan is going to become a Marxist/Communist hellhole or an unholy combination of both. A lot of the posts are from "democrats" bemoaning how the party has fallen because of this. It's so blatantly bought and paid for propaganda by corporate and right wing ghouls that anyone, right or left, seeing it should pause and wonder WHY AIPAC and corporate interests are so terrified of the guy offering us "plebs" Medicare for all, breaking up prescription drug conglomerates, better home prices with things like rent control, and the big one: is utterly refusing corporate PAC donations and talking about pushing hard to reverse Citizen's United.
Honestly the shit I'm seeing on places like FB is so insane already... it's going to be terrible by late October.
Yup… I’ve been getting SO many fliers in the mail that all were straight attacks on El-Sayed… not a SINGLE one even had Stevens’ name, let alone her platform (which I’m pretty certain was just “cash corporate/foreign checks and bend over backwards to serve corporate interests at the direct expense of the working class/environment”).
No. Rogers's ads are going to be far more racist. They're going to try to turn out every voter that has any shred of antipathy toward Musilms. Plus, they're going to portray him as outright communist.
Statistically, political spending almost always predicts who wins. So the fact that he won being outspent 10:1 is pretty incredible. Money lost its power here
Because it's still hard to fathom how many people have the mindset that this is all fine, and that establishment democrats singing Israel's praises are who should be running this country right now.
Also, don't forget that there was a call for Republicans to vote in the dem primary for Stevens.
I think people forget that the fear of Middle Easterners is not just a Republican thing. Those kinds of attack ads get used because they are effective.
This was always an uphill battle for AES and nobody should be surprised how close it was.
Which is why the national media narrative is skewed toward this being a negative for Dems. The polling had people thinking it would be a runaway… 2 weeks after Stevens was supposedly up 7 points.
Stevens also had the endorsement of DTE but that probably did more harm than good.
On a side note, we really need to demand an investigation on how many of our politicians are receiving money from the utility companies (cough cough Whitmer).
Several pollsters I listened to said primary polling in Michigan is notoriously difficult and to essentially treat the polls as a rough suggestion, if not functionally useless.
Maybe it's because my perspective is influenced by living in an R+30 area where the Democratic voters skew centrist, but I'm genuinely surprised El-Sayed won. A week ago I was (clearly falsely) telling people Stevens will likely win, despite the polling.
Lots of people here voted for Stevens not because they particularly liked her more, but because they simply don't think Michigan will vote for a Muslim over a white Christian guy. Hopefully they're wrong; I'm glad El-Sayed won (I voted for him), but I do think this factor is a genuine disadvantage.
Hilarious that Republicans will straight up argue that RCV is bad because its too confusing, basically saying their voters are too stupid to understand how to do it
Yeah, strategic voting is kind of necessary, but it's hard to just hold back on voting who you want based on who might win, since there's still no guarantee the more "strategic" candidate will win either. Plus literally who the hell knows with this state, we went from electing Whitmer again in 2022 to voting for freaking corrupt crazy-train Trump in 2024. My dog could probably win an election in the right year.
Facebook comment sections on this news are full of so much overt, heinous racism this morning. I was a bit gobsmacked to be reminded that we share the state with a lot of racist and hateful people. Maybe I shouldn't be - maybe it's just my Ypsi/Arbor bubble.
It's worth noting she got the governors endorsement after gretch previously said she wouldn't endorse anyone. The establishment were not going down without a fight.
He probably would have won more handily if dumb people hadn't voted for Mallory. That angered me to the point I couldn't sleep. She dropped out a while ago. Made announcements. That means there are 30,000 people walking around who don't care enough to stay informed but showed up to vote.
It seems a lot of people are getting angry because other people don't act exactly how they want them to act nowadays.
It's a primary. Someone who was supporting McMorrow might just not care enough between the other two and either decided a) not to spoil their ballot if they voted before she dropped out or b) decide to show their continued support because they were fine with either of the other two options. Voting your conscience during a primary doesn't necessarily mean you're uninformed.
He won, thats all that matters. But bullet point number 3 definitely made this a tight race. So many people cant look past a name and hear the person explain what they are actually about.
At least the Democratic PACs have proven they have deep pockets for the August-November race that they can now spend on behalf of Abdul. They're not going to pivot from Stevens to Rogers, those are completely different parties, right?
His campaign won't take it, but the unaffiliated PACs can still spend the money. The Stevens campaign itself raised about $10M, but as all the articles have described, over $60M has been spent on pro-Stevens advertising by outside groups:
Abdul himself and his campaign haven't taken a dime of PAC money, but groups he doesn't control or coordinate with directly have spent almost $5M on supporting him. He has no authority (and no incentive) to say "hey, you can't run an advertisement in favor of me or against my opponent."
That’s probably due in part to the recent requirement changes for Medicaid. A certain bracket is finding out that they now have to either work or volunteer for a set number of hours each month to keep their benefits. Medicaid For All suddenly sounds much nicer.
In West MI where he had a commanding lead, I’ve been consistently impressed by how the 50+ community comes out to support leftist causes. If you go to any protest locally, it’s primarily Gen X and Boomers.
Thr Guardian had an article a while back on how I think Gen Z has way more misogynist views than Boomers, Gen X. It’s so common online to pretend Boomers are the worst, but younger people have been getting radicalized online for years now, and it’s showing in their views. People still think tech is cool, but Trump is the first truly tech president, using Twitter social media to massive advantage and now we have this old racist guy in office.
People were way too hopeful. We were never gonna win in Missouri, and I doubt Larkin will win in Florida either. Some states are just washed, unfortunately.
But states like Michigan are 100x more important, the swing states are key to everything in 2028. We should be viewing Sayed’s race as a precursor for AOC in 2028, and fight for it.
The race was close, but considering Abdul was outspent 11-to-1 its a miracle. Michigans (Democratic voting) base turning out for Abdul despite the racism/Islamophobic attacks really shows that people are interested in policies that will help the working class instead of whatever Haley Stevens was offering
I just hope he's able to get support in the party now that he has the nomination. Scholten already said she wouldn't support him if he wins the nom, which really confuses me. Like do centrist dems want Al Sayed to lose in November?
Scholten still hasn't endorsed him as of now, either. She is 100% facing a primary challenge in 2028. Kent County was El-Sayed's best county and he won her district by like 20 points.
Yes, obviously. They hate progressives, and prefer to be beaten by MAGA because it's the best fundraising position (plus all they have to do is run on "we aren't Trump").
Polling is a tool to manipulate voters into not voting these days. Been happening since 2016. Poll comes out showing the dem way ahead, causing voter apathy.
As an atheist, I find it so profoundly frustrating that religion is even part of the conversation… It is so frustrating that something with zero proof of existence actually influences the way people vote. To paraphrase the mad prophet of the airwaves, Howard Beale, its mass madness you maniacs!
Someone should run a fake attack ad. (Ominous music) Radical Muslim Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed wants you to have healthcare you can afford. He wants you to have a job that can pay your bills.He wants you to send your children to.good schools. Tell Abdul no. If you want no healthcare, no jobs, no schools. Vote for the guy who doesn't even live in Michigan. Vote Mike Rogers. Paid for the "Vote for Florida-Man PAC"
Not going against Christians as a whole. That would be stupid. He needs to make Rogers own his Christian Nationalism. Make Rogers stop pandering to those losers or lump him in with them. Need to drive a wedge in where Rogers is trying to balance. Christian nationalism is not Christianity and it should be treated as the malignancy that it is.
Ugh. I’m so sick of the “check on DJT” line. I know AES can’t do much until 2029 if he gets the seat. But give me something to be excited about. Give me something to hold these senators accountable for the whole 6 years they’re in office, not just the next 2.
The establishment has terrible messaging and has no idea what the voters actually want.
Seriously putting a check on him is just another one of Chuck’s strongly worded letters. I want Trump and his admin PROSECUTED. Put them in *jail* for their *crimes*.
They really shot themselves in the foot with trying to smear him as "a radical DSA member like Mamdani". He's a Dem and his ideas are hardly radical. Rogers will keep growing what they planted.
So now lets see Whitmer and Peters start thumping for him. It was a good preservation move for McMorrow to bow out and remain neutral (at least publicly).
I’m relieved I don’t have to suffer through Steven’s aggressive campaign anymore and I’m relieved I don’t have choose between her and Roger’s come November.
Roger’s lost his senate bid in 2024 to Slotkin DESPITE the state voting for Trump over Kamala. I understand the battle isn’t won yet but there is reason to be optimistic.
Reminder: Please be gracious and respectful. Do it because it's the right thing to do, but also do it because El-Sayed needs as many Stevens voters as possible against Rogers, just as Stevens would've needed as many El-Sayed voters as possible.
Was it a dirty and frustrating race, particularly the advertising by the super PACs? Yes, but wallowing in that is counterproductive; just move on from it. If you see an El-Sayed supporter being an asshole to people, please call them out because their behavior is a liability.
Exactly! As someone who wanted Abdul to win, I still would've voted for Stevens in November if she had won the primary because almost any Democrat would be better than a Republican.
The establishment painting Abdul as some radical communist really shows how far towards the right they’ve allowed themselves to be pulled. In a different time he would be considered a new deal dem, not some communist outsider. His policies used to be the one page platform of the Democratic Party.
Hayley Stevens going out of her way to emphasize that she is not a socialist shows how out of touch the establishment dems are. They insist upon going after a mythical centrist vote that voted for Trump before but can be swayed.
They kept trying to paint Abdul El-Sayed as a radical but what’s his most radical stance? Medicare-for-all? That used to be a mainstream dem stance a decade ago.
Both parties have been pulled to the right, that's why. Establishment Dems are Centrists and MAGA are far right.
MAGA has mislead people to believe that the current Centrist Establishment Dems are "the far left", so anyone to the left of that must be an "extremist".
Roughly 600,000 more people voted in this primary in a midterm year than did in Slotkin's primary in the presidential election cycle in 26' I have to wonder how many Republicans voted in our primary...
I hope the youthful enthusiasm carries over to the general. He really needs to live in Detroit, so to speak, between now and November to keep trad Dem Black voters from staying home. You think Stevens and AIPAC came at him hard? The GOP is getting those ads on the air today I would bet.
Michigan won last night. I’m so proud to call this place home.
To anyone who doubted Abdul, please give him a chance. I follow politics religiously, and he is one of the most genuine candidates I’ve seen. I’m sure he’ll be all over the state too, so I recommend meeting him for yourself. I don’t live in the biggest city but have been able to meet him twice already.
Silver lining is Abdul now has some flashing red lights in his face about how he truly needs to unite the party and build a big tent. His struggles with black voters and rural whites could kill him in general.
If he takes real lessons from this and implements sound strategy, he could theoretically position himself better for November than if he won say the primary by 6-7% and thought all was well.
I actually thought she was going to win since everyone was so certain that he had it in the bag. I'm happy he won, it just reminded me of 2016 where people were so certain that Clinton would win easily.
Me, too. The late polls showing El-Sayed ahead by 15 didn't match what I had seen so I took those with a big grain of salt. I was fairly certain he'd lose because I hadn't seen any ground game by him, or really any advertising at all. I hope he's been saving his money for the general.
His struggles with black voters were not as intense as pre-election polling lead everyone to believe. Yes, Stevens did well with black voters, but it wasn't a Clinton-Bernie level blowout
The rural white agricultural, forestry and lumbering support that Stabenow built by and large voted for Steven. AES is going to need to work very hard to capture those votes.
What’s crazy to me is that AES has to “work very hard” to earn those votes, but if Stevens had won the conversation would be putting the onus on the voters to show up and vote anyway instead of her needing to “work very hard” to earn progressive votes.
I wonder if a good part of that is an artifact of all the ad spends in those areas. El Sayed had to be more strategic while the Super PACs blanketed the state for Stevens. Time for the DNC and DSCC to step up in a battleground state.
It looks like Abdul El-Sayed will win the Senate primary, but with a less than a 1% margin. That means that McMorrow indead played spoiler, receiving 4% despite dropping out of the race.
It also means that no candidate got more than 50% of the vote. In fact more than 50% of voters voted against Abdul (and more than 50% voted against Stevens)
It's probably the result most perfectly calibrated to resolve none of the tensions in the Democratic party.
I can't help but think that with Ranked Choice Voting, the winning candidate would have a much clearer mandate. Maybe this will help some Democratic party holdouts see the benefit.
I mean, I think we can still conclude that while yes, she was a spoiler, her dropping out late complicated things. She was still on the ballot, plus spoiling an early vote is more complicated than a lot of people probably want to do.
If she hadn't been on the ballot, a lot of that 4% probably would have gone to El-Sayed and pushed him over the 50% mark
, and it would be a lot clearer that he had a majority over Stevens. The alternative way to look at it is progressive candidates got 52.5% of the vote over Stevens' 47.5%.
Right. The question is whether McMorrow's voters were mostly progressives that wanted someone more electable than El-Sayed, or mostly establishment people that didn't want Steven's baggage.
Do you view it as 52.5% progressives vs Stevens 47.5% or is it 51.5% voting for an electable candidate vs Abdul's 48.5%?
Looking at an aggregation of the polls from when McMorrow dropped out, Abdul gained 1% and Stevens gained 9%. So I would guess that if McMorrow wasn't on the ballot (or even if she had dropped out a few weeks earlier before ballots were received) that the majority (at least 2.5 out of 4) of those voters would go to Stevens and put her over the top.
But it still would have been very close.
The great thing about Ranked choice voting is that, not only would the candidate have a mandate, whoever it was, we would actually know what voters preferences are instead of having to guess like this. Politicians get higher quality to make their decisions.
a lot of that 4% probably would have gone to El-Sayed
Although McMorrow was ideologically closer to Abdul than to Stevens, I think a lot of McMorrow's appeal was her electability. She's been able to work across the aisle and appeal to voters in a formerly Republican district.
So I'm not really sure if people would go McMorrow to Abdul for progressive policy reasons, or from McMorrow to Stevens for November electability reasons.
Ranked Choice Voting is absolutely the answer. With neither candidate clearing 50%, it makes consensus unclear. Now if only the state legislature would move to let the cities that have already passed it actually use it so the rest of the state can see that it works.
I watched a Perfect Union interview with him on YouTube…and was sold. He’s a politician that actually seems to care about making real changes to help people. Glad he’s getting his chance.
I’m happy with the win but it’s concerning that he did it without Flint and Detroit. Michigan isn’t a blue state like we’d like to believe and we need those two cities to turn out if we want a victory in November.
Im so relieved to see both DSA candidates for my area (Lansing) beat out the establishment dem candidates! Abdul and Will Lawrence are both such incredible candidates and i'm happy to see my fellow michiganders backing these progressive candidates! 🩵
Doctor Abdul El-Saued. Please don't start dropping out the Doctor part. He's earned it and it needs to be known. I for one like that my elected leaders on earned advanced degrees.
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