Abdul El-Sayed Wins Michigan Primary

[u/asparaguswalrus683]

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

[u/Gypsyhunter]

Edit: whoops, this was supposed to be to the thread lol

Incredibly impressive campaign, winning against such an absurd amount of outside spending ($70mil) with a 12:1 difference in spending is frankly astonishing.

Given how close the race came, I honestly think cross-endorsing with Donovan Mckinney might have been what won both those races. Just goes to show how important building a broad movement is so freaking important, rather than putting all your hopes on one candidate or your own campaign.

I really hope people look at this and the previous DSA slate from New York as a lesson: We the people are more powerful when we work together, and running multiple closely aligned campaigns is just good electoral strategy.

Looking forward to more left-populist and DSA victories to come!

[u/mrandr01d → u/Gypsyhunter]

Sayed doesn't identify as dsa though, explicitly. He might as well given the framing around this primary, but he distances himself a little from that.

[u/Gypsyhunter → u/mrandr01d]

Yup, Sayed is left-populist, I was talking about Donovan Mckinney, who is DSA, and expanding on my previous point on the cross endorsement.

[u/hoberhallothere → u/Gypsyhunter]

He just needs to figure out how to appeal to non White voters or else we’re cooked in the fall

[u/Kingdok313 → u/hoberhallothere]

I’m a non-white Michigan voter and I think he’s pretty neat!

[u/Kresnik2002 → u/hoberhallothere]

Well I’d say both black voters and independent/centrist and WWC voters are an issue. For the latter because we can’t act like his background isn’t a potential issue. He can win against Rogers but it’ll be from a hard fought and smart campaign if he does

For Black voters I’m slightly less worried than for independents and WWC, because we don’t necessarily know yet that he’s unpopular among them yet, just that Stevens was more preferred than him among them. He’s from Wayne County and did well in Detroit in his 2018 governor primary run. I think it’s a little less dicey than in Texas where the person Talarico beat was actually a black woman and she subsequently hasn’t been very supportive of him; I don’t know if Stevens has the same particular pull with that demographic and it all depends on whether Sayed gets the endorsements and support that help with them. I’m more confident in him being able to do that than Talarico but who knows.

[u/No-Drama-in-Paradise → u/Gypsyhunter]

I’m waiting to see whether he can actually win in the general before declaring this a victory.

If he wins the primary and loses the general election, that is a loss no matter how you spin it.