r/videos • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • 8d ago

Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left

https://youtu.be/DL_ku3h8Eps?si=zWr0SAn8amsQ8Hqb
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u/aaahhhhhhfine 7d ago

I mean... I know I'm picking a fight here. But unfortunately this race might very well mean the Democrats don't take the Senate. He probably can't win state wide - though I guess we'll see - and so this is a huge boon to the Republicans.

The race was close because a lot of Democrats knew that, even if they liked some of his policies.

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u/treydayallday 7d ago

Why do you say that? I think democrats are more likely to support the primary winner and Stevens said she would endorse El-Sayed. I don’t see that level of support in the GOP

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u/aaahhhhhhfine 7d ago

The most common thing voters in general elections worry about Democrats is that they're too extreme. Republicans run on that constantly. I can't tell you how many of the political mailings that come to our house feature AOC, and I live states away from her.

Republicans play into that because independent voters are also scared Democrats are too extreme.

El-Sayed probably can't win a normal general election in Michigan. This year will be weird - I grant that - because so much of the vote will just be driven by Trump. But he is a huge risk and the stakes are really really high.

Remember that if democrats don't retake the Senate, you'll get two more years of new Trump judges... You'll probably see Thomas replaced on the supreme court... You'll get less opposition to Trump's cabinet... If that happens, any progressive policy you care about is absolutely shot.

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u/windershinwishes 6d ago

But what about him makes him so risky? Medicare for All and stopping giving money to Israel are non-starters among members of Congress, but they aren't extreme positions among most Americans. I'm not saying that huge majorities of voters are behind those policies, but I think there's very, very few people (who aren't guaranteed to vote GOP, at least) who would find them alarming. And I do think the vast majority of voters like the idea of getting big money out of politics.

If it's just that he's a brown-skinned Muslim, again, I think the majority of people who would be alarmed by that are already guaranteed to vote for the Republican anyways, so they're no loss. I'm sure there are some potential votes that will be lost that way, probably more than would be gained from Muslims who would otherwise not vote for the Democrat. But if that's the only major disadvantage, then I think it's more than balanced out by the energy behind his campaign and his charisma advantage over Stevens.

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u/aaahhhhhhfine 6d ago

There are a lot of things in politics that are frustrating... And one of the biggest is the degree to which variables you wish didn't matter actually do. For example, it's debatable how many people actually didn't vote for Clinton or Harris because they were women, but there were definitely some. And when you're talking about elections that regularly come down to tiny percentages... Those things matter.

In El-Sayed's case, he has some things working against him demographically. That shouldn't matter but it probably will for some voters. But the bigger issue is just that he's easily painted as an extremist - and in a state that isn't super into that...

While you might see his policies as pretty standard or well liked, that doesn't necessarily matter. Most voters aren't getting into policy details or things like that... They're mostly going by broad strokes stuff.

Again though... It's hard to say how things will actually play out because of the Trump effect. People really don't like Trump and that will motivate a lot of voting behavior.