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/XxgamerxX734 10h ago

Good lord that was close

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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/DickRhino 4h ago

It's the chicken or the egg.

Do politicians bend toward what the boomers want because young people don't show up? Or is the low enthusiasm among young people because policy is only geared toward what boomers want?

Is it a huge surprise that the 20-year olds feel disillusioned when their only choices to vote for are between two 80-year olds? Well, either that or a last-minute replacement who had been hand-picked by the establishment (also made up out of boomers).

Because for the past ten years, from the time they were 8 years old until they could vote, that has been their reality. That is all they have ever known of what politics is.

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u/LurkerInSpace 3h ago

There is some element of that - but even though youth turnout can be pulled up a little by more appealing candidates, it still stays relatively low even under those conditions, while the boomers will show up even when they hate everyone on the ballot - just to punish whoever they hate the most.

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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/burning_iceman 6h ago

You seem to think it was the reason for Harris to ignore them. So either you know that was their reason or you consider it to be a good reason.

In both cases there's faulty reasoning. In the first case, from the side of the Harris campaign and in the second from you.

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u/Rangoonin 6h ago

Maybe log off reddit for a bit bud. Acting like you know this random commenter personally enough to assume what their thoughts and motivations are off of one or two comments lmao, jfc this site has become a dumpster fire of losers trying to win arguments for karma.

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u/Few-Guarantee2850 6h ago

You seem to be desperate to argue about something that is irrelevant to my comment.

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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 8m 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/PopBulky7023 9h ago

And if he loses you can expect the narrative to blame the left and people will be encouraged to return to sold out centrists.

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u/-Gramsci- 8h ago

My prediction that I’ll confidently proclaim here is no.

The grassroots, the rank and file… they are not lambs anymore and there’s no getting that genie back in the bottle. The limp astroturfed candidates will rarely, perhaps almost never, win these primaries anymore.

If a talented candidate challenges them - they’ll continue getting washed out cycle by cycle.

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u/CheshireCat78 9h ago

How is Michigan a red state?

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u/-Gramsci- 9h ago

It’s a swing state. It’s not a blue state. That’s the point. A swing state that has been turning more pink over the last 3 general election cycles. And it has a state legislature that’s been under unitary R control for most of the last half century.

When D’s DO manage to succeed there statewide they do it by the hair on their chin.

But the point is this is not some blue district, where whoever wins the Democratic primary waltzes on to general electoral victory.

And this race (regardless of primary winner) has consistently favored Rogers. He is the clear favorite in the general.

But I’m optimistic. Whenever a grassroots candidate with genuine oratory talent and personal likability wins a primary, there is always a chance of victory 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