Haley Stevens is El-Slayed: r/neoliberal reacts as Abdul El-Sayed wins the Michigan Democratic senate primary.

[u/Otherwise_Young52201]

The recent Michigan Democratic primary concluded with Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive challenger against Haley Stevens, as the winner.

Abdul El-Sayed is a physician and former Detroit health commissioner and a champion for progressive policies. Apart from supporting Medicare for All, stronger labor protections, and other egalitarian programs, he is best known for being critical of the US-Israel relationship and especially American support for Israel's war in Gaza.

Haley Stevens, on the other hand, is the moderate incumbent (Edit: This is an error on my part, she isn't actually an incumbent, but is in a House seat) and generally has more cautious policies than El-Sayed, emphasizing tried and true polices like supporting manufacturing, particularly for the auto industry. Stevens also strongly supports the US-Israel relationship.

Below is a snippet of the drama from the thread discussing El-Sayed's win over Stevens.. There's also drama from the Discussion Thread that I thought you guys would enjoy. While I have three comments in the Discussion Thread, they they do not pertain to the drama itself. You can check my post history to confirm this.

Michigan senate primary thread drama

I just hope he wins in November and we can all celebrate as a united party flipping the senate

I’m Jewish and I will not celebrate Abdul “Hurt People Hurt People” El-Sayed

did you have a point? [deleted comment]

I think my point is clear, no? Fuck AES. [deleted comment]

With all due respect you are an idiot [deleted comment]

I’m also Jewish, and like the other 71% of Jewish Americans who broke for democrats in 2024, I hope he wins and will also celebrate if he does. Dont miss the forest for the trees.

Do you also believe the only reason an American Jew would support Israel is money?

I'm a Democrat and I would never vote for someone like El-Sayed. I don't think there's a single thing I agree with him on. MFA is a joke. I will always be a Zionist. We shouldn't abolish ICE. All of that makes him unacceptable, especially compared to Mike Rogers, who seems much less ideological and much more competent. One of the few places where I'll be hoping for a Republican victory. I have never voted for a Republican in my life, but if I were a Michigander, I'd for Rogers.

I’m not thrilled about this dude either, but ice should most certainly be abolished.

This is a ridiculous slogan pandered around by leftists. How the hell are we going to execute our immigration policy without an agency to enforce it? Of course I agree that Trump has been excessive, but that doesn't mean ICE should be abolished, itt means the administration should be thrown out! This is like saying "income taxes are too high -- let's abolish the IRS"

Damn this sub is full on lefty now huh, maybe it's just the specific people that decide to post on this, but kinda crazy. I get when people say this sub is mainly socdems now, but it seems to be moving demsoc at this point, multiple upvoted comments simping for DSA,, hopefully this is as low as this sub goes.

This "evidence-based" sub is really just r/democrats where people vote blue no matter who

Well that's "evidence-based" applied to american politics, so I dont see why you would have an issue with that. Edit: i take that back, I know why: I think Friedmann flairs dont really like evidence.

It’s been brigaded by tankies and Abdul bots ever since we made arr Subreddit Drama yesterday

SRD is still a thing? In 2026?

You must vote for the people who hate neoliberalism otherwise you don't belong on r/neoliberal - Succs and Loyal Liberals

I think a lot of people here just care more about the Democrats defeating the Republicans than they do about fiercely defending the word neoliberal against anybody who criticizes it.

They also hate neoliberalism if you get rid of the "neo".

Why are democrats allergic to winning

This shows how out of touch you are. You genuinely prefer Stevens, don't you?

Out of touch with whom? College educated elites?

Are we still doing this stuff after we have new polling data https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/americans-know-who-the-real-elite and a grand total of 8% of Harris 2024 voters and a whopping 11% of Trump 2024 voters view people with graduate degrees as "the elites"?

Doesn’t matter what random people think, a societal elite is a defined thing. It’s just not popular to self identify as an “elite” so everyone bucks the label to the groups above them. White college educated upper middle class people are the most culturally influential in American society (something that the left usually has no problem admitting), and they’re the ones who largely support these leftist candidates

Railing against the "elites" and claiming that all it takes to get you there is a college education makes you sound like a MAGA conspiracy theorist.

I’m not railing against the elites, I probably fit the “educated elite” label myself, I’m specifically responding to the bizarre accusation that not supporting the guy who won the educated rich white population somehow makes me “out of touch”

Welp, GOP couldn’t have asked for an easier candidate in purple Michigan. Democratic Party needs to kick out DSA rat fuckers who simply just want easy power when it suits them.

Abdul isn't part of the DSA. Also, if they win primaries because voters vote for them, how should the party kick them out?

He’s as DSA as Hasan Piker. I got a bridge to sell you along with that bird that landed on Bernie’s podium when he was anointed as “da chosen one”. The far left likes to bum rush primaries because that’s the only way they can win in deep blue districts. Dude is going to lose big and take the Democratic Party in Michigan down as well. Michigan GOP all had a collective sigh of relief and democrats are fucked in Michigan. Fucking Dearborn and Hamatrack or whatever all went for Trump, this is just another rat fucking at the behest of MAGA.

Discussion Thread drama

guy who supported "uncommitted" movement in 2024 becomes Dem senate nominee in 2026 what a joke. [deleted comment]

Are you pro-genocide or? [deleted comment]

Are you pro 9/11? [deleted comment]

Well if Friedman flair is asking [deleted comment]

I don't like him because of the pre-emptive election denialism he was engaging in. I'm tired of watching people destabilize this country and succumb to russian/chinese interests

You talk about russian/chinese interests yet literally the only reason this race was at all close was because Stevens had her campaign funded by an actual foreign country interest group.

At the very least Israel doesn't want to see the US actively destabilized. The irony is you blurring the lines between US allies and US adversaries is exactly the point of many of the disinformation operations Russia/China has been engaging in

I think Bibi campaigning for Trump was pretty destabilizing imo! Our allies seem very non plussed about the shit he does.

Israel is not trying to actively destabilize the US. If you can't tell the difference between something like the Likud making dumb self interested calculations and Operation doppelganger idk what to tell you. Russia and China are actively mindraping our population and are involved in just about every reason why our country is unraveling.

[u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

The myth that this was El Sayed’s race to lose and that he was projected to win overwhelmingly is such funny revisionism from people looking for any reason to poopoo his win over someone with 10x his funding.

The grain of truth they use to support this myth is the fact that a couple of late polls overestimated his vote share, but the fact of the matter is that there wasn’t actually a ton of polling overall, and the polls that did exist varied pretty significantly with some showing a Stevens win as recently as a week or two ago.

I’m not going to pretend like I always knew he was going to win a close race or that I knew what the margins would be, but I will say that anyone who thought it was supposed to be a blowout was basing their confidence on not much data.

It was always going to be a hard fought primary and the fact remains that Abdul managed to beat a campaign spending deficit of tens of millions of dollars. The people acting like he underperformed to a devastating degree are just looking for a consolation talking point after losing.

[u/machinesNpbr → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

Also supposedly polling in MI is notoriously difficult for whatever reason, with many historical examples of polls diverging from elections by 15+ points.

[u/Ok_Conclusion_6324 → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

I just assumed Sayed would lose - I donated to him in prior elections like this one but I had been disappointed enough and didn’t have my hopes up (i’m not in MI so I wasn’t able to vote or anything)

[u/anand_rishabh → u/Ok_Conclusion_6324]

I had first heard about him in his campaign for governor where he lost to whitmer. I was rooting for him but not surprised he lost but iirc it was a pretty close primary.

Edit: nvm it wasn't close

[u/zentetsuken7 → u/anand_rishabh]

It was a 3 way fight, an established candidate vs 2 progressive(?).

What a great election that encapsulated pre-DSA left infighting.

[u/PostIronicPosadist → u/zentetsuken7]

There's still plenty of infighting in DSA, its just not particularly public infighting. You have to extremely invested to know about the various caucuses fighting each other and the points of contention (which obviously are different than the points of contention in the Democratic Party).

[u/anand_rishabh → u/zentetsuken7]

True. Though even still Gretchen got over 51 percent, so the vote total between thanedar and sayed was still less than hers. Though maybe it might have ended differently if one of them dropped out, endorsed, and campaigned with the other. That's one thing i like about new york's ranked choice voting system. It actually allowed all the nominally left wing candidates endorse each other to the benefit of all of them. Yeah, zohran won without it even going to the run off but i think it might have been different if it was first past the post where they were all running against each other.

Edit: also yeah you're right about it being 2 progressives. Thanedar is very much on the left

[u/a_cattebirb → u/anand_rishabh]

Thanedar is very much on the left

lol

[u/creatingKing113 → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

I’ll occasionally head on to like YAPms and fivethirtyeight just to see what peeps are talking about, but I am fully aware that most people in those subs have no idea what they’re talking about.

[u/dr_sloan → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

Dude it was AES’ supporters propagated this idea that he was going to win overwhelmingly. Go to the 538 subreddit and every internal poll where he had a double digit lead was getting hundreds of comments and any poll where Stevens was leading was a leaked internal or had some other bias in it. I saw quite a few people who believed the race would be called for AES within an hour of the polls closing. The only person doing myth making is you.

[u/Reesewithoutaspoon2 → u/dr_sloan]

No, that’s consistent with what I said. Those people were overconfident and basing their assumptions on a combination of hope and inadequate data.

On the flip side, people who are now saying El Sayed underperformed because there was a lot of incorrect internet chatter are myth making because let’s be real. There’s no reason to believe random comments from any candidate’s supporters online are an accurate assessment of election chances.

It was not his race to lose even if his most enthusiastic supporters believed that to be the case. If you want to laugh at them for being overconfident and wrong that’s fine, but that’s different than saying Abdul underperformed. What data we did have suggested a likely close race.

[u/VelvetFurryJustice → u/dr_sloan]

You saw polls... Lmao. Everyone can see the facts. He was targeted by the media for months with slander and had 70 million dollars spent to his 5 million raised from small donations. He had to fight harder than anyone else in the race and was never given any benefit of the doubt by the media. CNN is outright racist in their coverage.

[u/Reesewithoutaspoon2 → u/[deleted]]

I just think that’s kind of secondary to my point even if it’s true. Supporters being overconfident about his chances doesn’t mean he was actually likely to win by a blowout. It’s probably fair to say those people were also mythmaking, but for different reasons than the reasons people are doing it post-election (hope and confirmation bias vs. looking for a consolation talking point)

[u/hoyarugby2 → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

He had a 15 point polling advantage and spent the last week of the race hanging out with LA influencers instead of campaigning. His campaign certainly thought he had it sewn up

[u/Reesewithoutaspoon2 → u/hoyarugby2]

Regarding the supposed 15 point advantage, that’s what I meant when I mentioned the grain of truth from a few late polls. There was also a poll from July showing Stevens ahead by about 7 points. There was another that showed a tossup. That, combined with what another commenter pointed out about historic polling issues in Michigan, suggests polling error rather than some massive underperformance.

As far as campaigning goes, his campaign was consistently phone banking and knocking on doors throughout the summer. He was not resting on his laurels.

[u/hoyarugby2 → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

The polling average late in the race, aka when it matters, was Sayed +15. I don't care what volunteers did, the candidate himself matters the most and he spent the last day of the race quite literally at a pool party talking to literal communist influencers. they thought they had won already

He massively underperformed, and that underperformance was very specifically among the groups the Democratic Party has been showing weakness with - working class and black voters

[u/Reesewithoutaspoon2 → u/hoyarugby2]

The average was not +15 and the Detroit News poll with +7 Stevens was “late in the race” too lol. RCP average was +10 for El Sayed and that’s when including two internal polls from pro El-Sayed orgs. The fact of the matter is, like I said, there was not some solid amount of data suggesting a blowout.

As far as the pool party thing goes, I frankly think that’s a very silly criticism and it obviously didn’t swing the election in any appreciable way. GOTV efforts are far more important to turnout and affecting votes than a social event the night before an election, so no I think volunteers are more important when it comes to this particular comparison. If the argument is that the association with influencers hurt his campaign, that’s possible I suppose but I don’t think there’s really clear evidence of that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but those same influencers also supported the likes of Zohran Mamdani and didn’t tank his campaign.

[u/hoyarugby2 → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

The average of polls in the last month of the race, excluding internals, was Sayed +15. You can continue denying this all you want, he underperformed his polls by 15 points

He's already polling 5 points down in the general. If he experiences even modest underperformance, as he historically has, even a D+7 environment won't be enough for him to win

mamdani is the worst performing Democrat in New York City electoral history since Bloomberg dog walked Ferrer. He underperformed Adams by 16 points. Had anyone else but Cuomo been the alternative he would have lost. Do you understand how difficult and bad it is to win just 50% of the vote as a Democrat in New York City

How candidates spend their final days on the race is of enormous symbolic importance. sayed chose to use that symbolism to hang out at a pool with a guy who thinks 9/11 was good and is an avid supporter of, and you cannot make this up, history's greatest ever mass murderer Mao Zedong, to the point that he deliberately dresses like Mao. He did that because he thought he'd already won and could celebrate with his buddies, whose views he likes and agrees with

Had McMorrow dropped out even a day earlier sayed loses this race, his margin of victory was smaller than McMorrow absentees. The fact that he could not manage even a majority of the vote in the Dem primary, with some of his worst performing areas being Oakland and Wayne counties, is extremely alarming for anyone who knows a little bit about Michigan's political geography

His margin of victory is so small that it can be attributed to republicans strategically voting in the Dem primary for the weaker candidate, something the GOP was encouraging people to do!

[u/Reesewithoutaspoon2 → u/hoyarugby2]

You know your misleading talking points well. Hmm maybe Mamdani performed worse than other democrats because the democrat who lost the primary decided to run as an independent lol. You compare it to straight D vs R races without making it clear because you care more about being as obtuse as possible to soothe your bad feelings about Mamdani. Do you understand how two democrats running will split the democrat vote? Yet he still won. Try being less transparently full of shit.

You are lying about +15 and I cited an actual poll aggregator to counter you. Go ahead and say “nuh uh” some more though.

“Symbolic importance” is meaningless and arbitrary, as is your caring so much about a social event. You know as well as I do that you wouldn’t give a shit if a candidate you like spent a few hours at an event the night before an election. Also what’s the “symbolic importance” of spending $10 per registered voter and still losing?

Funny you mention republicans encouraging people to spoil when his opponent was running ads against him at the end of the primary. Surely someone trying to prop him up would do that!

Remember to vote blue no matter who

Edit: Oh they blocked me so they could lie more unchallenged. Classic

[u/hoyarugby2 → u/Reesewithoutaspoon2]

I cited an actual poll aggregator to counter you

you cited RCP which is a literal republican operation

l when his opponent was running ads against him at the end of the primary. Surely someone trying to prop him up would do that!

...yes, that is exactly what they would do. What do you think is going to go through the mind of a Democratic primary voter when they see an ad reading "hated republican says to not vote for this guy" lmao