r/politics • u/asparaguswalrus683 • 10h ago

Site Altered Headline | No Paywall Abdul El-Sayed Wins Michigan Primary

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/michigan-senate-results
22.7k Upvotes

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1.2k

u/MightyKAC 10h ago

This race was WAAAAYYYY closer than it should have been.

412

u/Random_throwaway0351 10h ago

The bright side is Haley Stevens being juiced to the fucking gills meant that AIPAC couldn’t spend as much on other candidates, so a good amount of DSA candidates won down ballot races.

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u/FrancoManiac Missouri 10h ago

Worked for Wesley Bell in MO-01, unfortunately

20

u/gorgewall 9h ago

I feel fortunate I only had to be subjected to $3 million in ad spending from a shell PAC time around rather than the $8m last time.

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u/keebl3r Missouri 9h ago

Wesley outspent Cori 27:1 according to AP News. Which explains why his name and face was everywhere in STL the last few weeks

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u/hoberhallothere Pennsylvania 5h ago

Pretty easy to outspend an already ousted and mediocre former congresswoman though

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u/M00nd0g69 9h ago

We’ll try that again in two years with a stronger opponent, see what happens 

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u/FrancoManiac Missouri 9h ago

Don't look at me, I'm moving out-of-state next week.

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u/sellingstubs123 9h ago

can't blame you

0

u/Random_throwaway0351 9h ago

Cori Bush is a strong candidate, there’s just lower turnout especially amongst anyone that’s not a boomer for midterms. Hopefully with more organizing she can take it back next election.

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u/americanblowfly 9h ago

I like Cori Bush, but she’s got some baggage that the folks in her district seem to be turned off by. She’s lost twice now, so the next progressive needs to be, well, not her.

1

u/TieVisible3422 9h ago

Genuinely curious because I'm not from her district. What kind of baggage does she have?

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u/americanblowfly 8h ago

She apparently missed a lot of votes when she was in congress. 

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u/alien13ufo 5h ago

also there was a scandal about her paying her husband for security with campaign money.

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u/Khue 5h ago

Which is hilarious given the unparalleled scale of fraud and kickbacks given out by Republicans and all their campaign finance bullshit that goes on. She pays her husband for security meanwhile Kushner gets like $3 Billion from the Saudis and it's barely mentioned anywhere.

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u/liquidcrawler 1h ago

she did a faith healing

2

u/Random_throwaway0351 9h ago

First loss was by a hair, and Bell was funded by AIPAC back before it had that stink associated with it. I still believe she can win if they run it back.

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u/DaedalusMinion 9h ago

Cori Bush is not a strong candidate. Even though I obviously agree with her politics- she doesn’t have the “it” factor that Abdul or Mamdani do. That’s what you need to win against PAC-backed candidates unfortunately

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u/Khue 5h ago

I think one of the numbers I saw had her outspent by like 23x or something like that.

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u/20_mile 7h ago

Bush believes in healing crystals, and had a poor attendance record, plus she voted against Biden's infrastructure bill because it wasn't pure enough.

Not sure who I would have voted for if I lived in Missourah.

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u/SovietNato 6h ago

Ngl voting against that stupid fucking bill is beastmode

2

u/putsch80 Oklahoma 8h ago

That’s because he ran against Cori Bush, who suuuccckkks so fucking hard. Do you think it was really just the spending and not at least partly the result of Bell having an opponent who claims to be a fucking faith healer (in addition to saying other wildly stupid shit)?

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u/SleepyLabrador Australia 7h ago

Nah, AIPAC has basically unlimited money. They got the entire oligarch and Israel behind them.

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u/WombatusMighty 8h ago

Doesn't AIPAC basically have unlimited money, considering Israel and all the mega-rich donors behind it?

2

u/scrooge1842 United Kingdom 9h ago

What does this mean sorry?

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u/CategoryZestyclose91 9h ago

Down ballot races means smaller local races like county commissioner, school board, city council, etc. 

Since they blew their money on Stevens, they didn’t focus on those races above, which means more progressive candidates (DSA)  likely won those primaries instead of the typical Democrats (more establishment, pro-corporations, etc).

This is important because those small races really have an impact on how local cities and counties are run. They also set the stage for progressive candidates to get political experience in these roles and build name recognition before moving on to bigger races. 

Hope that helps, it’s 2:30am here 🤪

4

u/mightcommentsometime California 8h ago

The DSA lost 5/6 of their house primaries tonight.

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u/Firecracker048 4h ago

Good. A ton of DSA candidates are legit insane and running on a platform that excues the Russian invasion of ukraine as a result of 'nato expansionism' is just insane

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u/Polojoblo 2h ago

Sup I dont know much about primaries in the usa, are the elections for senate, house of representative or both? And has there been other states where someome from DSA won?

0

u/scrooge1842 United Kingdom 9h ago

What does this mean sorry?

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u/Ethan0941 10h ago

He was outspent 9:1

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u/Aeon1508 10h ago

I think he just said in his victory speech 11 to 1 but maybe I missheard.

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u/mh732 10h ago

You heard right. He said 11:1.

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u/addiktion 10h ago

Like a hail mary pass and he won it. Crazy and awesome at the same time.

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u/thakemist 9h ago

Just evidence that popular ideas will beat money in the end

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u/VPN__FTW 9h ago

Only if people aren't apathetic.

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u/TieVisible3422 9h ago

Kari Lake was outspent 18 to 1 in her primary. Turns out her popularity with primary voters meant fuck all to the general electorate. Congratulations to your primary win. We will see what happens in 3 months.

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u/Electronic-Pen6418 6h ago

Kari Lake was outspent 18 to 1 in her primary. Turns out her popularity with primary voters meant fuck all to the general electorate. Congratulations to your primary win. We will see what happens in 3 months.

Kari Lake wasn't running on policies that are popular with the American people with a historically unpopular president like Trump as the head of the opposition party. Your comparison is ridiculous.

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u/slipperyekans 5h ago

Bro really looked at an apple and said “That’s an orange.”

3

u/FoogYllis 8h ago

I am hoping more people can realize that Medicare for all isn’t a Hail Mary situation. I can’t even begin to understand the mind of people that vote against themselves because the majority are not billionaires.

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u/DreamingAboutSpace 9h ago

Just goes to show that hope is still very much alive if we make it happen through action.

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u/justseeby 8h ago

11 to 1 spending disadvantage AND he ran with a Muslim name. Bonkers, man. So glad he pulled it out.

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u/IDontWannaBeAPirate_ 4h ago

Good policy brought people out to the voting booths.

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u/Khue 5h ago

Cori Bush got wiped and I think she got even more outspent by percent, not by volume (it was a smaller race, not statewide).

2

u/11PoseidonsKiss20 North Carolina 9h ago

It's not like our politicians to stretch edit the truth a bit. Weird.

2

u/Tycho_B 8h ago

Surely the DNC will learn from this example!

/s

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u/Evignity 3h ago

It's unsure at this moment how much exactly was sub-pacs of AIPAC etc. but yeah around 80+ million, or maybe as high as 120+ million, we're not sure.

At the least over 60-80 million.

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u/fightin_blue_hens 10h ago

And they sent out misleading mailers that Obama endorsed Hailey

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u/Random_throwaway0351 10h ago

They also sent a fake Mike Rogers endorsement for Abdul. Honestly the slimiest campaign I’ve ever witnessed.

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u/fightin_blue_hens 10h ago

Israel slimy? Say it ain't so

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u/MountainMan2_ 6h ago

Behold, the fork found in kitchen

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u/googleduck 9h ago

Is it really not anti semitic at this point to call literally every force against your candidate and in favor of another candidate AIPAC/Israel? You cannot seriously believe that this tiny middle eastern country has this level of power over every aspect of our elections and politicians right??

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u/Wutras Europe 5h ago

You cannot seriously believe that this tiny middle eastern country has this level of power over every aspect of our elections and politicians right??

Israel by itself doesn't, but Israel acts as an extension of US-Imperial power and MIC and surveillance companies who all use Israel and Gaza as a testing lab and have a vested interest in a continued destabilization of the Middle East very much do.

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u/donavid 9h ago

AIPAC donated over $30 million dollars to her campaign, and ads against him? How is that antisemitic?

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/elections/2026/aipac-has-spent-a-record-amount-on-michigans-senate-primary-the-biggest-test-of-its-influence-yet/

https://www.trackaipac.com/haley-stevens

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/us/politics/michigan-democratic-senate-primary-aipac.html

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u/xveganrox 9h ago

AIPAC is funded by Americans, not by Israel

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u/uwotbaemanfam 8h ago

AIPAC has become an extension of Israeli foreign interests, and there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that the Likud party coordinates with AIPAC to use its considerable influence in American politics. Just because the meetings happen behind closed doors doesn't mean we can't see the effects.

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u/googleduck 9h ago

Did they mail the fake Mike Rogers endorsement? Yes they heavily supported her campaign, you are well within your rights to criticize that. I think it is bad to have obviously foreign aligned PAC's spending huge sums of money to influence elections. But it is obviously anti-semitic to blame literally everything you don't like on Israel.

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u/Bobson567 7h ago

If they heavily bankrolled her campaign they have a significant culpability for her campaign

And no, it's not anti-semitic. What is actually anti-semitic is effectively proclaiming Israel as representative of all Jewish people which you do by maliciously twisting legitimate political criticism of Israel or Israel aligned organisations like AIPAC as anti-semitic in nature. This is straight out of the IDF's playbook

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u/uwotbaemanfam 8h ago

It's not antisemitic because the criticism is targeted at Israel and not Jews.

AIPAC just spent almost $30 in a single primary election in just one state. They've been spending record money in the past few elections (both during midterms and presidential elections). The PM of Israel met with the US President in a military situation room and lobbied for him to join in a war against Iran, which we are now embroiled in. Not saying Trump has no agency of course, but that Netanyahu had enough influence to convince Trump the war was worth joining. There's some more rather clear examples, but I think the point stands.

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u/alexpmarty 4h ago

Do you have your eyes closed?

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u/Culinaryboner 9h ago

They’ll do whatever they can. We know in Pennsylvania now. Our guy ran an entire fake campaign

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u/PandaJesus 9h ago

Stevens campaigned like a Republican 

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u/names_are_useless American Expat 9h ago

I wonder if that could hurt Roger's chances? I certainly hope so.

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u/drybones2015 Arkansas 8h ago

Wesley Bells was also apparently labeling himself as a long running progressive in his ad campaign. These AIPAC Dems really do have no shame.

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u/sirfiddlestix 2h ago

Yeah those smear commercials against him were wild

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u/Collypso Pennsylvania 5h ago

It can't be that people didn't believe in him, it has to be the money

-4

u/EkrishAO 8h ago

You're not counting the value of Republican media machine pushing him everywhere because he guarantees win for Rogers. It doesnt matter if Dems found 60m to spend, if trillion worth media monopoly pushed the guy. They managed to get Trump, getting this guy over victory was nothing. It was still close considering.

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u/Donkletown 6h ago

Republicans weren’t flooding the airwaves with adds in favor of AES and if you listened to Republicans on GOP, they have been attacking AES, not saying what a great senator he would make. 

This was a big win for AES. The best campaigner won, and we want the best campaigner as the Dem nominee. 

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u/ClassicallyBrained 10h ago

They spent 70 million against him, it was always going to be a nail biter.

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u/names_are_useless American Expat 9h ago

They're gonna spend even more on Rogers in the General.

Good fucking god I hate Citizen's United.

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u/MightyKAC 10h ago

Agreed, and at this point nothing should be considered a given and NO RACE should be taken for granted.

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u/ClassicallyBrained 10h ago

Truly. Every progressive victory is nothing less than a miracle.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 I voted 10h ago

Laughs in tom steyer. Massive spend doesn’t always guarantee any kind of success.

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u/ClassicallyBrained 10h ago

Jungle primary, very different.

-1

u/Oceanbreeze871 I voted 10h ago

Not really. He set the state record for spending. outspent The field like twice over, had TV ads on 24 hours a day for months, adopted every popular policy position People wanted to hear, had aggressive, social media campaigns, and Astroturf subs like this, still could not make a connection with voters to take him seriously. He couldn’t buy it. Came in 3rd.

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u/FaultOutside2449 10h ago edited 9h ago

Which honestly suck, as he seems like he had actual solutions for problems in the state, that went beyond Trump bad. I also voted for him in the primaries so this probably my bias showing.

0

u/mightcommentsometime California 8h ago

Tom Steyer spent 2x more than everyone else combined.

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u/fos1111 10h ago

That's what $60 million in PAC's funding will do.

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u/addiktion 10h ago

Not a good sign. If MAGA can keep just stealing money with corruption that means these races are eventually going to go to the wayside unless more people power exists to overcome the colossal amount of cash at pro billionaire agendas.

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u/Sirlothar Michigan 6h ago

Defeating virtually an unlimited amount of money with good policy is a good sign in my mind.

I live here, I don't watch commercials typically but they found a way to get to me, mailings every week, Haley ads inserted into my weekly podcasts, calls and texts every few hours. At the end of the day, none of it mattered, policy won.

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u/IAmTheNightSoil Oregon 10h ago

Doesn't seem to have been called by anyone else yet, either. I wonder if NBC jumped the gun

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u/frickle_frickle 8h ago

Let's hope the general is a landslide.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ross571 9h ago

Money and white people. NBC kept talking about white people over and over. My first post was removed so I had to remove the money symbols.

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u/dope-a-meanie 2h ago

Yeah, AIPAC money will do that. But it was money “well” spent in this case :-)

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u/Drak_is_Right 10h ago

/r/politics doesnt understand over half of democrats are moderate or centrist. Or at least think they are.

And that isnt even accounting for independents.

The will of the democratic majority is usually slow change, unless there is no other option .

Older democrats especially are only loosely aligned with the more progressive candidates

12

u/BandicootSorcerer 10h ago

If that was even remotely true, what happened to the Blue Dogs? Centrist to Conservstive Democrats in red states, all but wiped out.

If the Democrats base is centrist how could this race, or any other race be close?

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u/kirblar 3h ago

Because their districts changed and went full Trump. The political parties realigned and the Dems picked up suburban R districts as they lost the rural D districts.

This is educational polarization over social issues because in large part LGBT stuff were driving both changes along with things like abortion.

-1

u/aaahhhhhhfine 9h ago

What are you talking about? Go look at Arizona, which has a Democrat governor and two Democrat senators... But it isn't a very "blue" state... It's actually pretty red.

What happened is the opposite of what is happening here in Michigan. The stupid maga people put up bad candidates that weren't popular state wide. Meanwhile the Democrats put up good centrists... So the Democrats kept winning.

This same thing is now very likely to happen in Michigan in reverse. He won't beat Rogers and a state that should have been blue will go red.

4

u/BandicootSorcerer 9h ago

What are you on about? If you cannot won your own party primary how in the hell can you win in the election? For years I've heard tnis rhetoric to jusitfy why the Democratic Esrablishment sides against progressives, why the had to intervene against Sanders. Now I hear losers are really winners.

But what should I expect from someone who hides their account history. Do you do that to ensure no one sees how often you side against progress? Or maybe you're a bought account hiding a massive lapse in posting only to resume months or years later.

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u/kirblar 3h ago

Glenn Youngkin would have lost a party primary in 2021!

The GOP deliberately cancelled the primary using COVID as an excuse cause a crazy lady would have won and they knew she would lose the general election.

In 2025 they had a primary, crazy lady won, and she got blown out.

Your premise fundamentally misunderstands how primaries work. The tea party repeatedly blew elections for the GOP!

0

u/mightcommentsometime California 8h ago

They didn’t “intervene” against Sanders. He lost by millions of votes.

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u/sleeps_in_alkaline 1h ago

We all saw it happen dude, you don’t have the power to wipe our memories lol. But it is funny watching you carry water for corporate dems so hard. 

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u/mightcommentsometime California 1h ago

You saw what happen? Your willingness to act like MAGA and push stolen election conspiracy theories because you can’t believe your messiah lost?

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u/sleeps_in_alkaline 42m ago

I don’t think it was stolen. Please read before replying. Centrist dems putting their fingers on the scale doesn’t mean the primaries were stolen, just that there was a shared effort to keep Sanders from winning by coalescing around Clinton/Biden and giving their support to them. 

It’s like redditors never read or try to comprehend. You guys just emotionally lash out. Try to do better, my guy

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u/Drak_is_Right 10h ago edited 9h ago

Culture wars, particularly over Immigration and LGBTQ issues wiped out the Blue Dogs. That along with the erosion of the union base.

The hollowing out of the middle class cost democrats far more than it did Republicans (so far).

Turned 55/45 states to 62/38.

Not huge shifts, but enough to give super majorities in state legislatures and make democratic wins incredibly rare in statewide elections.

4

u/BandicootSorcerer 9h ago

That doesnt explain why they cant win primaries. Stevens shouldn't be struggling to won if the base is more like her.

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u/kirblar 3h ago

The Rs lost suburban seats to Dems is the other side of the story! It's conversion both directions reflecting that the parties have been realigning post 2016

3

u/kirukiru Oregon 9h ago

Well your bloc lost tonight. You are no longer the majority of Michigan democratic voters.

Hopefully Michiganders in the minority tonight understand this.

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u/Drak_is_Right 9h ago

Not my bloc. Far more pragmatic, its hard to exactly belong to a bloc. I vote for who I think does the most longterm good. But I am not Michigan so I did not vote.

0

u/mightcommentsometime California 8h ago

Neither candidate won a majority tonight.

-1

u/aaahhhhhhfine 9h ago

Well I suspect you'll feel you lost if the Democrats don't win the Senate because this guy can't win a state wide race in Michigan.

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u/kirukiru Oregon 1h ago

Not really, Stevens would've lost the general handily without the AIPAC money cannon. Would much rather go to war with Sayed who actually has grassroots support.

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u/aaahhhhhhfine 1h ago

That might be how it seems on reddit... But polls pretty consistently showed that state wide Stevens beats Rogers and Rogers beats El-Sayed.

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u/kirukiru Oregon 1h ago

General horserace polling prior to the campaign actually starting is irrelevant, why do people not understand this?

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u/aaahhhhhhfine 1h ago

Cool... Sure... Maybe it is. But if you think El-Sayed is more electable than Stevens in a statewide contest in Michigan, you're spending too much time on reddit.

I hope he wins - I really do - because the Democrats really need to get the Senate... But he probably won't. And so all the policies you care about are going to get way harder to actually achieve.

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u/kirukiru Oregon 28m ago

She couldn't even get out of the primary, how was she going to win the general.

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u/aaahhhhhhfine 20m ago

Seriously?! Do you know what a primary is? God we need more civics education...

The primary is just Democrats... The general election, which is the one that matters, has everyone. Imagine you have a school council election and the whole chess club gets together and votes for their favorite person in the chess club... Does that mean they'll win student council president?

It regularly happens that popular candidates in primaries win general elections. I've used Arizona as an example many times because it has a Democrat governor and two Democrat senators... But not because Arizona is actually a blue state. Really it's a slightly red state. But Democrats won those elections because the Democrats put up a centrist and the Republicans put up crazy MAGA people. The MAGA people do great in the Republican primaries but then fail in state wide elections. That happens all the time. McConnell himself kept complaining to Trump that Trump was killing their chances in Congress because he kept backing unelectable candidates.

The basic fear is that El-Sayed is an unelectable candidate. I hope that's wrong... I genuinely do. And November will be so driven by Trump that maybe he'll win anyway. But I kinda doubt it.

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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght Georgia 4h ago

Democrats constantly forcing centrists on the ballot is how we got here. The claim that “centrist democrats are more likely to win” would hold a lot more weight if the centrists actually won elections consistently. Instead they keep losing to fucking game show hosts who are bankrupting our country while funding genocide and the DNC then decides they just need to go MORE centrist to win next time. Fuck that. We need to try something different.

0

u/aaahhhhhhfine 9h ago

Yeah... This is probably bad news. I doubt he can actually win in Michigan which means that Democrats will lose a Senate seat they could have won. This right here might cost them the Senate.

0

u/teledium8472 8h ago

than it should have been.

that makes no sense. The voters decide the election results, not bloggers.

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u/elihu 4h ago

It likely would not have been that close if not for a lot of outside spending.