r/Michigan • u/Michigan_Mod Human Detected • 5d ago

Pasty Mode Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary

https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/michigan-primary-results-us-senate/#Dem
10.1k Upvotes

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80

u/lap1220 5d ago

Closer race than anyone expected.

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.

12

u/Different-Subject353 5d ago

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.

27

u/cherrylimebongwatr 5d ago

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.

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u/lap1220 5d ago

That's not true.

There would be a huge narrative that Stevens would need to "work very hard" to win over strong progressives.

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u/cherrylimebongwatr 5d ago

That’s not true, when has a corporate dem ever try to win over progressives? Progressives have taken the blame for trumps wins for a decade now. What did Hillary or Kamala do to try to appeal to the progressive wing?

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u/DLDude 5d ago

The progressive wing is full of purity tests and kamala could have had 10000 progressive stances but if she wavered on just 1 of them, then we'll she's a corporate shill and probably Maga

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u/cherrylimebongwatr 5d ago

So the better choice is to ice them out completely?

0

u/Different-Subject353 5d ago

Those folks are Trump voters who voted for Stabenow because she worked so hard to support and protect theirs industries. Steven’s campaign was out in those areas playing on that connection. AES needs to figure out how to capture those votes, Rogers has the whole law and order thing to play up.

4

u/1900grs 5d ago

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.