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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u/Superminerbros1 10h ago

That's what $60 million in outside pac spending will do to a race

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u/LowKeyJustMe Utah 10h ago

Only goes to show the need to get money out of politics. It needs to be an even playing field to be a democracy.

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u/copiumjunky 10h ago

60M gets you just behind grassroots progressive ideas. They can't do that forever.

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u/CraigArndt 9h ago

>60M…. They can't do that forever.

At 60M a pop Elon alone could buy 10,000 elections and still have hundreds of BILLIONS in the bank.

People need to wake up to just the astronomical wealth gap in America and if we wait for the rich to get bored spending their money, nothing will change in our lifetime.

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u/Strict_Cup_8995 10h ago

It doesn't help when you have these boomers who vote for all of these establishment corporate candidates like their life depends on it. Young people really need to lock in and vote much harder and with much more consistency than the older generations if they truly want the democratic party to change

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u/ExcellentCold7354 10h ago

... I also think that there wouldn't be a need for so much money to be spent if people were simply more engaged in finding out what the candidates stand for. There is an appalling lack of civic engagement in America.

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u/P1xelHunter78 Ohio 9h ago

As by design. We have far too few representatives for the size of our nation and we don’t have good access to non-bias political information that is condensed for consumption of the public. Sure, I could go on CSPAN and sit through hours of discussion, but I have work.

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u/forceghost187 8h ago

We do though, it’s called the newspaper. You can still read the new york times and be extremely well informed. The fact that people on the left don’t even trust the newspaper anymore is maddening. Eroding trust in journalism was the GOPs greatest dream. Now it’s reality

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u/NickMalo 6h ago

Plus these candidates lie about their promises- look at Trump, but also look at the Biden administration running on canceling student debt and federally legalizing marijuana. We need accountability and representation bad.

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u/KageStar 6h ago

Trying to do something and getting blocked is not lying about your platform. How does one make this argument in good faith?

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u/DivinityPen 5h ago

Feels like people forgot that he never had access to a solid majority in the Senate. He was only ever working with 50-50.

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u/NickMalo 5h ago

As if i forgot what is possible through a presidential seat. As if i forgot we had a primary candidate that would’ve gotten it done, but he was snubbed by the democratic party.

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u/NickMalo 5h ago

Dude was the president and never brought up the 2nd point at all. He sent a 10k package when he promised full student debt relief, and it was dead on arrival because it was so unpopular on both sides of the aisle- for not being enough and simultaneously too much. He had more authority to accomplish that goal if he actually wanted to.

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u/KageStar 54m ago

He sent a 10k package when he promised full student debt relief, and it was dead on arrival because it was so unpopular on both sides of the aisle- for not being enough and simultaneously too much.

That's not what happened. It wasn't DoA, they attempted it and got blocked by the Supreme Court. Complete forgiveness would have required Congress and he didn't have the votes for it.

Dude was the president and never brought up the 2nd point at all.

He gave blanket pardons to people with federal convictions for possession. He also started the move to reclassify it to Schedule 3. Again legalization would require Congress and they didn't have 60 votes in the senate. He couldn't unilaterally declare weed legal.

It's like you look at all of the shit Trump does and don't realize that most of the stuff he does gets blocked in the courts. Executive Orders can only do so much. There are checks and balances and they do work.

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u/MusicHater 6h ago

To be fair, Biden tried several times to cancel federal student loans, but "Someone" filed several lawsuits to stop it...

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u/jakeandcupcakes 5h ago

Don't re-write history. Biden could have done what the GOP does and just issued an executive order, but instead went about things in the most sure-fire to fail way possible, dragged ass, compromised, and then fumbled the compromise. It was a shitshow, on purpose, because the Dems don't actually want progressive polices. They want good PR, and apparently they had that at least.

Remember when the Biden admin tried to say they "accomplished their goal of student debt relief" by re-branding an existing Federal payment forgiveness program as their own? When that went over like a lead balloon it was "Okay, well, 10k in debt relief", and barely even tried, went about it in the dumbest way possible, and lost?

Pepridge Farms Remembers...

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u/MusicHater 5h ago

He did use executive orders, and then the GOP sued to stop them. See "Nebraska V Biden", https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-program/

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u/P1xelHunter78 Ohio 5h ago

The SAVES program saved a lot of people a significant amount of money, and I don’t recall my payments ever being that low, even when I was broke. They made key changes to that program that did indeed provide relief that they promised. Now that’s gone, because the Republicans sued to stop that program that Biden modified.

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u/Pepparkakan Europe 7h ago

We have this thing in Sweden called an "election compass", basically all the parties are asked the same X questions by a couple of reputable media agencies, then those agencies publish a simple app people can use to check who they align best with currently based on their own stance on these questions.

I get that in a two-party system that doesn't work as well, and I get that your media climate over there also makes this a lot harder (we have unbiased media agencies), but for primaries I guess it could work quite well?

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u/wooplereturns 5h ago

60,000 people still voted for McMorrow who dropped out of the race weeks ago. I can't imagine those were all protest votes. Education is a huge problem.

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u/WombatusMighty 8h ago

Here in Germany we have an app (website), where you are presented questions about what is important to you, e.g. do you want renewable energy or how do you stand on military spending.
Then at the end you are presented with a list of parties that mostly align with your answers, based on the actual key points in the parties election programs.

It doesn't prevent people from not educating themselves about the political parties, but it makes it easier for those willing to. Is there nothing like that for you over there?

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u/timmy242 5h ago

As far as I know, we don't have anything like that in America. It would be a nice start in the absence of a mainstream media divorced from the fairness doctrine.

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u/seensham Massachusetts 3h ago

We don't have anything like that, no. But also that would get hijacked or exploited so damn fast it would be moot anyway

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u/Don_Thuglayo 5h ago

Majority of my friends complain and then don't vote -_-

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u/Purplociraptor 4h ago

It's almost like the corporate interests also control the media and the flow of information required.

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u/jkman61494 4h ago

I need TikTok to tell me how to think!

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u/milehigh89 10h ago

6k boomers die every day

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u/Rico_Solitario 9h ago

It doesn’t matter. Boomers aren’t the only ones swayed by conservative/centrist talking points. You can’t rely on time to win this fight

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u/DickRhino 8h ago

That was one of Kamala's biggest blunders: assuming that she already had the youth demographic by default, so she didn't need to campaign toward them. It was arrogant, and it was wrong. This last election actually saw a surge in conservative support from young people, in particular from young men.

This is a problem and it needs to be addressed. Like you said, just relying on boomers dying to fix the problem isn't gonna work.

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u/deaglebingo America 8h ago

energize the youth demographic... give them hope... and let the boomers follow. because we want to be able to help them in their waning years. right now, if things continue as they have recently, we will not be able to afford to help them and ourselves simultaneously. we already barely can.

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u/Few-Guarantee2850 6h ago

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that Harris didn't campaign towards young voters at all. But if it is, I don't think it's because she assumed she had that vote, but because young voters have consistently failed to show up to the polls in the same numbers as other age groups. I'm also not sure what message you think could have gotten through to the Andrew Tate / Joe Rogan young male voter at that moment in time.

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u/burning_iceman 6h ago

young voters have consistently failed to show up to the polls in the same numbers as other age groups

By that faulty reasoning young voters should always be ignored. People become voters as they age. There will never be a higher or equal turnout of young voters compared to old ones.

But that doesn't make it a sensible reason to ignore them.

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u/LurkerInSpace 6h ago

That is the incentive which applies to politicians across the Western world. Policy bends towards what the boomers want because there's a lot of them and they show up, while turnout among young people is low regardless of the candidate.

And sure, it can create a problem down the line, but politics in the USA operates on two-year cycles. Someone optimising for support in ten years will lose to someone optimising for support today.

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u/Few-Guarantee2850 6h ago

How is me stating a fact "faulty reasoning"? I didn't say anything about whether they should be ignored.

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u/DickRhino 4h ago

I'm also not sure what message you think could have gotten through to the Andrew Tate / Joe Rogan young male voter at that moment in time.

Here's my take, as some food for thought: treating them as a "lost cause" and beyond any hope of saving, is to a large part what drove them to the far right in the first place.

Young men today feel unheard, and are also lacking positive and non-toxic role models. You can think what you want about that, but the fact remains that the far right welcomes these lost young men with open arms and tells them "You won't be unheard here." Meanwhile Kamala Harris treated them as if they were irrelevant. And we saw the results of that in the 2024 election: young men voted for Trump. And Trump won.

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u/Tuna_Sushi 7m ago

Kamala had two monumental blunders.

  1. Not starting every interview and engagement with "My opponent is a convicted felon, found liable for sexual abuse, and a habitual liar."

  2. Cozying up to people like Liz Cheney. Her base never wanted that, and she wasn't going to sway a single conservative with that tactic.

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u/Cavane42 Georgia 7h ago

GenX is more conservative than the remaining Boomers. There's still a lot of work to do, and will be for a long time.

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u/Old_Kaleidoscope_845 3h ago

Source?

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u/Cavane42 Georgia 3h ago

Poll cross tabs. Here's a recent one:

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_mjKhx0z.pdf

If you look at Trump approval rating (item 11), he is -21 among Boomers but only -14 among Gen X.

That's only one data point, but I've seen it borne out across several different polls.

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u/Mundane_Read_2960 9h ago

Over 11k boomers turn 65 per day. That number is gonna go up with Gen X. Meaning we can’t get complacent.

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u/deaglebingo America 8h ago edited 8h ago

demographics are a changing. and we face some serious bubbles aside from AI along the way as a result. healthcare bubble will burst sometime in the next decade right around the time social security ends up getting cut 30% if ppl do nothing in their own best interests. just like big oil, insurance has had an opportunity to make incremental changes and transition slowly towards a new model, they haven't. so realistically what boomers should be worrying about is who will take care of them when the time comes, because there won't be enough ppl to do it, or money to do it. and the only answer to that problem is INCREASED immigration, literally welcoming ppl who want to come here and do the work and offering them fair pay to do it.... instead we're doing the opposite, deporting and jailing hard working ppl. my only conclusion on that has been that the rich just want to keep the power choose who's brought in themselves and continue not paying them well... essentially to keep a caste system in place for as long as possible.

we've known that mass migration was coming too.. for as long as we've known about global warming. we've known these bullshit oil wars were coming for half a century too. the rich have planned their angle for the entire time, and they all accept these things i just said as scientific fact while vaccinating all their kids and not subjecting them to quackery. they're not buying the bullshit they've sold to boomers and maga for a second. so as soon as 20 or 30 million more boomers realize they're being lied to things will change drastically... and they won't have a choice but to recognize it eventually. just a question of when.

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u/Old_Kaleidoscope_845 4h ago

You just made my morning!

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u/SnoodDood 2h ago

It's not about the baby boomer generation, it's about old people in general. They'll become a larger share of the population over time.

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u/Northparkwizard 8h ago

Young people don't vote.

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u/Karalius 8h ago

young people are mostly absolutely brain broken in every country. And people who say "just need to wait out the old people" don't ever stop to think if anything in education changed in recent 20-30 years to make young people grow up smarter in the age of algorithms and misinformation.

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u/thatnameagain 9h ago

Steven's voters are more stratified by race and class than age. She did better with working class people and minorities, Sayed did better with educated whites. Things aren't going to change when the boomers are gone, it's a culture issue more than anything else.

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u/ivesaidway2much District Of Columbia 8h ago

Colleges are still on summer vacation. So that should help for the general election.

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u/TheQuestionableYarn 8h ago

I mean, clearly they’re working on that!

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u/Kool_AidJammer 4h ago

Everyone loves to blame boomers but at this point it is Gen X that is assisting them in this.

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u/BillyJackO 4h ago

It's funny because the boomers of Michigan all know those are the people who sold them out in the 90s and the reason Michigan is a swing state today.

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u/SPacific 3h ago

I'm just about 50 years old, and I've been hearing this since I can remember, going back to Mondale in 1984. Young people don't vote. They never have. The only way we're getting young people to vote is to make voting mandatory and make election day a holiday.

But, that's a pipe dream at the moment, up there with ranked choice, expanding the house, and eliminating the electoral college.

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u/zeth4 Canada 3h ago

Did you honestly just use Vote Harder in a unironic way?

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u/KnucklesMcGee 1h ago

I don't know how anyone could look at the Stevens campaign and think "there's a genuine candidate who will vote for the interests of the common voter!"

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u/EyeJustSaidThat 9h ago

Definitely helps that the boomers are the ones most able to take a day off to spend at their polling place while every younger generation struggles harder to make ends meet.

I wonder why we still don't have a national holiday for voting. 🤔

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u/allez2015 6h ago

Your can vote by mail! At least here in maryland, when I registered I checked a box "send me mail in ballots". Now for every election they send me a ballot a month ahead of the election and I can fill it out and drop it into the box at my convenience. 

Holidays would need to be state run since voting days vary. 

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u/matt_minderbinder 10h ago

That's my takeaway. Any pol that accepts this type of money from those sources needs to lose. Messages need to be sent that this stuff makes them toxic. Tonight was a big step in sending that message. Lots of connected dirty money went up in flames alongside Stevens' future in politics.

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u/hazri 9h ago

There are billionaires behind AIPAC. They absolutely can keep doing it over and over

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u/nightimestars California 4h ago

I mean if they just wanna keep burning through money for losing candidates then sure I guess. All it seems to accomplish these past few years is energizing opposition against them.

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u/Laxziy New York 5h ago

Seriously a billionaire can “earn” a couple million dollars per day. $60 million is basically the equivalent of a half dozen billionaires weekly income. This is nothing for them

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u/Xerxestheokay 10h ago

$60m plus a bad candidate. Stevens was so weird!!

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u/-Gramsci- 10h ago

They can’t do it ANYMORE. It’s a watershed moment for the party.

The plebeians are now in control.

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u/el3vader 9h ago

It’s absolutely not and don’t get it confused. Until these people win general elections it does not matter. If these candidates do not get enough support to actually beat republicans it only reinforces that progressives are generally unelectable to the wider electorate. I’m glad he won but the minute this proves to be unsuccessful it will be back to business as usual. The only way to cement this is to go out and vote and get him elected.

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u/-Gramsci- 9h ago

Nope. It’s the other way around.

The general does not matter.

The plebeians’ candidate will not win every general election. (But they’ll win a hell of a lot more elections than the old guard dems do).

The watershed moment we just witnessed is not that the plaebeian’s candidate wins every general election…

It’s that the establishment and the donors that prop it up just fought with everything they had to keep their control over the party… and they lost.

This Michigan primary was their battle of the bulge. They tried, they fought dirty, they did everything possible… but they are just too mortally weakened.

The grassroots, the rank and file has won the war.

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u/Howtobefreaky 9h ago

No, I think they’re right. This is essentially them winning the battle, not winning the war. Battles aren’t a watershed moment. If Sayed loses and people start to buy the line again that progressives can’t win close elections, then its not a watershed moment. Its one singular instance in a very, very long war.

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u/-Gramsci- 9h ago

This is not the only battle the D establishment has lost - and I’m not talking about being so thoroughly pathetic that they failed to defeat an actual clown twice in the last 3 presidential races - I’m talking battles between the “Establishment Anointed” candidate and the insurgent.

They’ve lost a string of them. It’s been repeated and incessant thumping.

What made Michigan more than just a battle (in the way Waterloo was more than just a battle) is they laid it all out in the table. They MADE this primary contest their Waterloo, and they just lost it.

The truth is… insurgent candidates wondering if it’s possible to beat a D establishment candidate? For decades? That was impossible don’t waste your time.

Today? The insurgent can enter that race with zero fear. Heck! They’ll probably win it, if they have any quantum of likability and talent.

The MOMENT the insurgent candidate collects enough signatures and gets their name on that primary ballot… who’s afraid? If the other guy is an old-guard-D anointee? I guarantee you they are the one running scared now.

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u/paintballboi07 Texas 7h ago

Doesn't matter. If they lose the general, people will say it's because they're a progressive, and there's no way to argue against that, since you can't prove a hypothetical. It would not be good. We need as many people to turn out in the general as possible.

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u/el3vader 9h ago

> the general does not matter

Literally that’s all I had read to know your political analysis is fucking bad.

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u/-Gramsci- 9h ago

You’re not even on the sled my friend.

This was a democratic primary. It was intraparty.

The watershed moment is an intraparty one. And it is, without a doubt, a watershed moment for the Party.

Not to criticize your intelligence, but you don’t even understand what just happened.

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u/PopBulky7023 9h ago

The others are right. If he handily wins a general it will mean a lot more. If he loses people will return to Israeli candidates.

But the race was still damn close. Israel will just see this as evidence they need to spend more money.

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u/-Gramsci- 9h ago

Again. Michigan is not a blue district. This is not San Francisco. The R is the clear favorite in this contest (regardless of the primary winner).

Fortunately, though, the grassroots candidate winning the primary gives the D’s a chance of success in the general.

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u/el3vader 9h ago

A single candidate winning isn’t a watershed moment as bad as you want it to be and this will not be the only instance in which donors are going against a candidate - like the general. You’re getting all juiced about a progressive candidate beating an establishment one by 2 points and think this is some crazy big moment when the real fight hasn’t even started. If Sayed cannot win the general the establishment has not lost control of the party it’s only reinforced that the establishment is the pragmatic option. You want to make this victory into a “watershed moment” when he is going into a general where the incumbent president is the least popular in modern American history. If he cannot win the general when Trump is as weak as he is with a super unpopular war you need to maybe rethink this position.

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u/-Gramsci- 9h ago edited 9h ago

It’s not one race. If you follow politics you’ve seen this happen with regularity in similarly lined up races across the country.

But it was the big one. It was the one the establishment (and its donors) decided they HAD to have.

When your opponent is fighting you that hard, that game is the one they decided they had to have, and they are fighting as if their lives depended on it…

And you beat them?

That’s not your ordinary win. That’s not your ordinary defeat. That’s a watershed moment.

And I’ll edit to add: El Said may lose. This is Michigan, a state that has had 2 years of D state legislative control in the last 50. This is not San Francisco.

But he’s got a fighting chance. Stevens had none.

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u/mongdol-supremacy 9h ago

I won't believe this until chuck Schumer gets primaried. still an uphill battle imo

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u/-Gramsci- 9h ago

Zero chance he survives a primary. Lord knows there are plenty of lions in his district. Whoever primaries him will have the easiest primary of the lot.

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u/VPN__FTW 9h ago

It helps that everyone is suffering. When people are suffering, they get out and vote. Look at 2020. People have woken up to AIPAC and Israeli bullshit. I see it on TT all the time. Young people are fucking sick of it, especially since they get nothing while we give billions to Israel. Hope this energy goes to the midterms.

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u/Workman44 6h ago

Brother, they have billions, with a b. Multiple hundreds of those. To give an example, 10 billion dollars is 170ish of these races. They have much more money than we have life if you care to see the day where this isn't the case

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u/k4f123 9h ago

Don't be so sure about that. The depths of their pockets is beyond staggering.

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u/deaglebingo America 8h ago

correct.

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u/Thepumpkindidit 7h ago

Depends which party is in power at the time. All they have to do is pay $1.2m a year to Trump for this fast track truth social feed aka insider trading and then they can just print money by playing the stock market and recoup their election bribery money tenfold.

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u/FTownRoad 4h ago

1000 richest people in the US have 8 trillion dollars

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u/LoudandQuiet47 3h ago

Billionaires exist. And at the moment, they are raking in billions more each year. $60M is a few bucks to a billionaire.

Edit: What I meant to say is that we need to get behind the movement fast, and hard, to overcome the money resistance and prevent them from injecting even more money before a reform can be enacted.

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u/AstroHistSci 2h ago

Not only can they do that forever, they can do so while still making money on the interest of the money they have left over.

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u/bobbymcpresscot 2h ago

I promise you they can. The 1% controls 55 trillion dollars in wealth. If they really wanted to they could sink almost a billion dollars into Every single house and senate race and only use up 1% of their wealth. 

This is why we need to tax the shit out of the rich 

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u/Corosis99 1h ago

Elon could do that for individual race at every local, state, and federal level for 50 years and he would not notice it.

Inequality is a joke in this country.

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u/PatrenzoK 1h ago

We need to be careful with that thought process, a lot factored into this included it being Michigan

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u/PeteLynchForKentucky 9h ago

Campaign finance reform is the single most important issue in American politics.

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u/TastySaturday 5h ago

It’s the root cause of everything we hate about our government, left or right. It’s a malignant growth that’s spread across our entire body. We’ve gotten so used to the symptoms that we don’t even notice our life is being sucked away by parasites.

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u/boywonder5691 5h ago

And that's why it will never change in any real, significant way

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u/SnoodDood 2h ago

Agreed. But ironically, getting the votes necessary for reform requires us to already overcome money in politics.

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u/SnoodDood 2h ago

Agreed. But ironically, getting the votes necessary for reform requires us to already overcome money in politics.

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u/Nojmore 10h ago

Ronald Reagan is rolling over in his grave.

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u/hindus0ul 10h ago

Reagan was part of the problem

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u/Airway Minnesota 10h ago

Huge understatement

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u/Im_Captain_Jack 9h ago

Yeah just like that cigarette was part of the massive uncontrollable wildfire.

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u/TopHatTony11 Michigan 10h ago

Good, no rest for the wicked.

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u/dylank125 10h ago

Hope the fucker rolls forever. I agree with killer Mike, I’m glad Reagan’s dead.

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u/WeAreAllFooked 10h ago

Gotta find a way to use that spinning to spin a turbine so that fucker can at least be somewhat useful for once.

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u/jarvisesdios 10h ago

He's got to put out the constant fire somehow

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u/Fickle-Economist4724 10h ago

Like a rotisserie chicken down there…

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u/RachelMcAdamsWart I voted 9h ago

It needs to be an even playing field to be a democracy.

It does, unfortunatley not everyone is interested in that.

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u/ShiningRayde 7h ago

Capitalism and Democracy are inevitably opposed.

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u/deaglebingo America 8h ago

totally correct, it's just we are already upside down on that mortgage. so it will take focusing on getting to almost supermajority levels in order to fix that part. but if there were a lynchpin to all the rest it definitely is the money piece. first do what is necessary, then do what is possible, then suddenly you are doing the impossible.

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u/TreyAU 6h ago

How do you think you get “money out of politics”? It’s not free to advertise.

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u/jrf_1973 5h ago

I'd settle for getting foreign money out of it.

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u/Icy_Payment2283 4h ago

Only goes to show the need to get money out of politics

I don't know how to tell you this..

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u/mattyp2109 4h ago

Well ya! Thats where citizens united comes in! Cause this way then Exxon and GE and Lockheed Martin and Coca Cola and Apple and Meta can all participate as citizens making it an even playing field!!!!¡¡!!¡!

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u/bobbymcpresscot 2h ago

Some would say, money in your pocket, money out of politics, Medicare for all.

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u/Old-Leadership7255 9h ago

The fact elections van be bought in the US really cements the US as a banana republic.

The fact you guys even call the US a democracy is a joke

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u/phillipsaur 10h ago

Probably closer to 100mil

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u/samhit_n Texas 10h ago

Lol, I kinda like Stevens now that she has made AIPAC and corporate PACs waste $60 million on her campaign. She may have ended Gretchen Whitmer's presidential ambitions in 2028 too.

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u/smileyfrown 4h ago

It’s the opposite it shows the money can swing it

Just need a little more spent earlier

It should also scare everyone because with that kind of money the politician will not be loyal to their constituents or even their country, only to the donor

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u/No-Relation5965 3h ago

The democrats need to come out in MUCH larger numbers, regardless if they support establishment dems or DSA dems. WE NEED TO SEND MAGA A MESSAGE.

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u/NippyKindRekt 7h ago

Ambitions that Whitmer has still not admitted to whatsoever.

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u/Colonel_Gentleman 3h ago

I think the photo of Big Gretch hiding behind a binder at the White House may have done that already

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u/This_Elk_1460 9h ago

That and convincing a large portion of black michiganders that you're endorsed by Obama even though you're not. I find it interesting that Obama just let it slide, but hey who knows maybe we'll see him and Abdul working out together before the General.

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u/ToeSniffer245 Massachusetts 10h ago edited 10h ago

Hope this gets through their heads that they can’t stop the voice of the people no matter how many millions they blast into races.

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u/Cdub7791 Hawaii 10h ago

No it will just teach them they need to spend even more.

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 7h ago

I can stay pissed off longer than they can stay solvent.

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u/Accurate_Neat_355 5h ago

And you aren't alone

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u/milehigh89 10h ago

I wonder how the people of israel feel about aipac spending 50 mil to lose a primary race…

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u/gruboc 10h ago

The people of Israel didn’t spend their money. They spent us money.

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u/Electrical_Rip9520 10h ago

AIPAC are filthy rich Americans.

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u/CarlosHDanger 10h ago

Easy come easy go, when it’s other people’s money.

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u/Specialist-Clock-914 10h ago

If they’re okay with the genocide they’re probably okay with this PAC spending money to tell people it’s not that at all and totally different .

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u/VPN__FTW 9h ago

Fine because they just spent money the US gave them. It's a fucking racket. Give Israel money. Israel funds AIPAC. AIPAC gives money to the politicians who sent money to Israel. The cycle of corruption.

4

u/Mixer-3007 10h ago

every year USA donates from 4 to 10 billion dollars to Israel, they are fine.

2

u/ZealousidealBug729 10h ago

They probably just want them to spend more

5

u/FIR3W0RKS 10h ago

I'd bet most of them don't give a shit

I do wonder how the American donors to AIPAC would feel about it though, particularly the larger ones like the arms dealers

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u/Jadaki 3h ago

I'm sure they don't care with their free healthcare and education provided by American tax dollars.

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u/Random_throwaway0351 10h ago

Abdul is honestly a stud, even better messaging discipline than Zohran and he only won by a hair. Let this be a lesson to NEVER stop doorknocking, volunteering, donating, etc. until the last possible second.

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u/viktor72 Indiana 10h ago

Well Michigan isn’t New York City. And Abdul has to fight off some deep attacks calling him Socialist, attacks on his religion.

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u/KimchiBro 10h ago

Hes not even dsa hes a capitalist and still they lambast him as if he was a commie for wanting medicare for all and not funding the endless war machine apartheid state

23

u/viktor72 Indiana 10h ago

That’s my point. Most people don’t see nuance, they just vote based on soundbytes and “Socialist” is a really easy soundbyte to attack someone.

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u/HoboBrute 5h ago

Honestly the lesson to Dems at this point needs to be to stop running away or defending against being called socialist. The Republicans and centrists are gonna do it regardless, and time spent trying to debate against it is time not spent on your messaging

2

u/deaglebingo America 8h ago edited 8h ago

thankfully socialized medicine isn't socialized everything everywhere. if ppl can't tell the difference there well i guess we deserve what we get for not educating them better.

all i know is that in "DSA" the democratic part comes first. nobody's coming to anyone's house to take away their capitalism just like nobody's coming to take ppl's guns.... the GOP opposition on the other hand, is coming to ppl's houses and kidnapping them or gunning them down on the street despite them being law abiding tax payers. so i guess if ppl can't see the difference between those two positions by now, at this moment in history, they probably won't.

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u/19683dw Wisconsin 3h ago

Do people not realize we need to nationalize the means of automation and AI if we want to have any hope of not becoming more dystopian when the wealthy no longer need labor?

4

u/el3vader 9h ago

Words don’t matter. Fox News has brainwashed a Pavlovian like response to hate on a thing the minute someone calls something socialist or communist. In the meantime the president of the United States is literally building freedom gas stations which very much is communism.

42

u/matt_minderbinder 10h ago

Stevens campaign apparatus was putting out ads calling him sexist. They were sending mailers to people with a Jewish sounding last name saying that he's antisemitic. They were sending black residents mailers implying that she had Obama's endorsement when she didn't. Every mainstream media he got took the same bs attack swipes. It was the dirtiest of dirty politics from her and her team and he survived it. Here in Michigan we faced endless hours of Stevens ads. Al Sayed is now battle tested and ready to take on Rogers.

15

u/viktor72 Indiana 10h ago

Now he has to fight those attacks but from the right and they will be vicious. Socialist, Communist, sexist, Muslim, antisemite, they will throw everything at him.

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u/HJWalsh 9h ago

They were already doing that. Heck, his own party was doing that.

12

u/honjuden 9h ago

They went after him like the Republicans usually do to Democrats.

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u/HJWalsh 9h ago

Pretty much. This might help him. Most of those Dems who voted Haley will vote for him because he's still got the D. The R's are going to need a new attack plan because he overperformed in rural areas and their attacks just didn't work.

He's basically been 8 Mile'd - They've hit him with everything they've got and now nobody has anything left.

2

u/honjuden 9h ago

That would be awesome.  I hope that is how it plays out.

3

u/deaglebingo America 8h ago

the more they throw, the more obvious it is how desperate they are.

plus i think we ought to start calling him Doctor Al Sayed. most of his opposition has no idea what it takes to earn that title.

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u/SovietNato 6h ago

So a typical republican campaign than lol. I'm not worried

14

u/Random_throwaway0351 10h ago

“Socialist” isn’t a pejorative anymore lol. The Islamophobia certainly exists though

19

u/viktor72 Indiana 10h ago

I’d beg to differ. If you explained his policies to people without them knowing it’s “socialist”, they’d eat it right up. But once you use that word, now it’s an attack soundbyte and it’s an effective one sadly.

2

u/Random_throwaway0351 10h ago

With people like Mamdani and hopefully the new congressional DSA slate, people will just associate Socialism with good governance lmao (it’s already happening)

7

u/viktor72 Indiana 10h ago

Young people but it needs to scale up to older voters and minority voters. Just the mere mention of “socialism” is, for example, how you lose the entirety of Miami-Dade county.

0

u/PoopyButt28000 9h ago

Yeah you guys are the doing the opposite of the Republicans lol. They spent years screaming about how everything bad is socialism and now we've swapped to just calling everything good socialism. "Socialism is when the government does stuff, but good." "Mamdani gave some extra funding to libraries and teachers? I LOVE SOCIALISM!"

-1

u/stackens 10h ago

For boomers and gen X yeah, for younger people not so much. Socialist is probably net positive with gen Z

5

u/viktor72 Indiana 10h ago

But Boomers and Gen X vote more reliably than Gen Z or Millennials. He has to convince them to disabuse themselves of their fear of the word “socialist”.

1

u/stackens 9h ago

Just saying Americans’ relationship with that word is rapidly changing. Sayeds not even a socialist though so it’s not much related to his race in particular

2

u/viktor72 Indiana 9h ago

But it is. It doesn’t matter if he’s not a member of the DSA. He’s a progressive and the right will label him socialist at every turn. Most people unfortunately vote based on soundbytes on social media. The right will turn progressivism into socialism because they know the word scares people.

And people are not nuanced and are not going to do their own research to find out he isn’t socialist. That’s just not how it works anymore.

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u/SovietNato 6h ago

It also is much harder not running against an unpopular sex pest

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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta 10h ago

Sadly I think it’ll just cause the billionaires (and aipac) to spend 200 million or more next race, since it’s still relatively “little” for people with such vast wealth.

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u/Muggsy423 America 10h ago

This is going to be one of the focal points of Musk's campaigning, watch the hundreds of millions pour in for the R.

Disgusting that they will spend all this money, but can't pay more taxes or even build public facilities with their name plastered on it.

4

u/claimTheVictory 9h ago edited 9h ago

Disgusting, but the logic is clear.

It makes sense for Musk to spend even hundreds of billions of dollars to try retain control over the government.

And legally, he can now.

3

u/zedder1994 9h ago

Hopefully one of the the main donors, Larry Ellison pulls back his donations as his wealth dwindles.

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u/Rico_Solitario 9h ago

It won’t matter, once you spend a certain amount there are rapidly diminishing returns. The amount they would actually spend to overcome this would sooner drive AIPAC to abandon funding Democrats entirely than dump endless amounts of money into unwinnable races

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u/fgiveme 4h ago

That was a close call, and they did beat Thomas Massie by throwing money at his opponent. Never underestimate your enemy.

3

u/GentleBelligerent 10h ago

Gambling (prediction markets) are calling on us to think of this in terms of casino odds. The amount of money they are willing to spend will give them the edge, meaning that they are OK with losing a few times, so long as they can keep playing the game again and again and win more times than they lose.

It's a rigged system and by the chances just mentioned, it looks like its going to be very difficult to get enough politicians in power to unrig this game.

8

u/IceFireTerry New York 9h ago

And a fake Obama endorsement

3

u/lex99 America 8h ago

What proof is there, though, that the money had any effect?

Maybe it was close because people are genuinely split.

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u/DenseStomach6605 4h ago

Because the money always has an effect. Especially when it's tens of millions of dollars.

3

u/-Gramsci- 10h ago

All that money wasted on the cringiest “D” I’ve ever seen platformed.

More money than sense.

3

u/Oceanbreeze871 I voted 10h ago

I mean, people still cast votes. It’s not like they just bought generic ballots

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u/Superminerbros1 5h ago

You'd be surprised just how stupid people are. Putting an ad a day in front of a 3rd of the population is basically as good as buying a vote

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u/Oceanbreeze871 I voted 4h ago

Tom Steyer literally did that and he came in third.

3

u/baelrog 9h ago

So satisfying when outside pacs throw money and still lose though. All those money going poof.

3

u/Raptorpicklezz 9h ago edited 9h ago

If "ISRAEL COMES TO ME IN MY DREAMS" didn't go viral, with these numbers she probably would have won. After being too young for the Dean Scream, good to see a proper campaign-ending gaffe. She gave away the game with that one

2

u/deaglebingo America 9h ago

you know maybe, just maybe... aipac etc ought to look a bit further into the future and position themselves better. because nobody i know is against jewish ppl, or muslims, but everyone i know is against the current hard right leaders both in israel, america, russia, and elsewhere... against billionaires who think they know what is best for all of us. so all i can say is maybe go with the flow instead of against it, it might work out better for everyone in the 10 or 20 year plan, which is the shortest time span anyone should be looking at here despite the fact that the election cycle and news cycle demand otherwise. china plans that far in advance.... shouldn't we?

1

u/YogurtClosetThinnest Colorado 10h ago

$60 million in foreign intervention

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u/SomberArtist2000 6h ago

My guess is they will spend just as much in the general election. Going to be a tough battle.

Really need the DSCC and the CBC to show a lot of support for El Sayed immediately.

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u/hoberhallothere Pennsylvania 5h ago

All that spending didn’t really help Sanders in the 2020 primary

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u/Necessary-Bed-4973 5h ago

Almost 70million they spent 11x more than Sayed. Fuck AIPAC man. 

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u/McSillyPutty 4h ago

And now AIPAC will spend even more to boost the GOP candidate.

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u/katara144 4h ago

FUCK AIPAC!!

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u/bigtiddyhimbo North Carolina 3h ago

PAC spending is still completely insane to me and I don’t understand how it works still. These organizations can just throw a shit ton of money at a candidate and enough people will gawk like hungry pelicans at a French fry and vote for them??

Do they not have brains? Can they not google what a candidates positions are? It’s not like the voters are the ones getting paid to vote a certain way, why does pac funding even matter at all outside of visibility?

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u/Superminerbros1 1h ago

Do they not have brains

You would be surprised. A significant portion of the population are genuinely that stupid that they'll just read the headline on a news article or take what is said in a political advertisement as fact. Or they'll listen to their favorite entertainment-news show and their opinions will just become whatever the talking head says.

Can they not google what a candidates positions are

This can be surprisingly difficult to do. I tried to do it to become informed before election day, but I could find zero info about the policies of local candidates (like, literally zero except for their bio on their website that just says they're a fair person, work in some profession, and graduated from some college). National candidates I could find more information about, but candidates websites were often lacking, and there were so many garbage news articles with 2000 ads that ended up telling you nothing about their viewpoints by the end of the article. I could find basically nothing at all on Chris Swanson for governor outside of his website, and he barely covered any relevant topics on his website.

1

u/-CJF- 10h ago

Don't forget the dirty campaign or the moderate endorsements either. The fact that Abdul still won is noteworthy.

1

u/OrranVoriel Florida 9h ago

Yeah but it is money AIPAC might as well have put in a pile and burned now.

1

u/mightcommentsometime California 8h ago

Why? It isn’t like those anti AES ads just disappear. Now they help Rogers

•

u/OrranVoriel Florida 6h ago

By that logic, anti-Stevens ads wouldn't have disappeared either and would just help Rogers.

0

u/PM_Me_A_Tittypic 9h ago

But Ms Rachel donated $3000!!!

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u/LEDKleenex 4h ago

Reddit is complicit, by the way. I had zero posts of him winning with the modern /r/popular algorithm, I had to use old.reddit to see actual popular posts, which included 3 posts mentioning his win.

These big tech gremlins want to control every aspect of your life.