One of the states the Justice Democrats
made their biggest push to the electorate in 2018 was Michigan where they ran
five candidates for Congress in Democratic primaries and was one of five states
where they attempted to run a nominee for governor.
At the time Abdul El-Sayed was 33 years old
and had only held the position of health director of Detroit. He had done a
great job rebuilding that city's Health Department after it had declared
bankruptcy in 2012. By all accounts he did a super job, particularly in regard to
testing after the water crisis in Flint. He was fully endorsed by the campaign
and by the progressive movement but he only received 30 percent of the vote,
losing to Gretchen Whitmer.
It was not much better for the five
candidates who ran for office. Only three of them Matt Morgan, Rob Davidson and
Rashida Tlaib managed to win their primaries. El-Sayed would campaign for those
three but only Tlaib manage to win the general election. Whitmer would end up
winning election by nearly ten percent over the Republicans while incumbent
Debbie Stabenow easily won reelection over Republican candidate John James.
In 2020 Michigan barely went to Joe Biden
after barely going to Trump for years earlier. Gary Peters was running for
reelection that year and he beat John James but by a much closer margin then
Stabenow, less then 2 percent of the vote. Two years later Whitmer would win
reelection by an even larger margin over Republican Shane Hernandez, a far
bigger margin then even the polls had expected.
Two years later Debbie Stabenow chose not
to run for reelection. By that point Elissa Slotkin had announced her run for
the Senate. She'd represented first the seventh and then the eighth district in
Michigan for six years, elected to the house in 2018 but in a far more
competitive ones than Tlaib's thirteenth. Prior to that she's been Obama's last
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs. Michigan ended up narrowly going to Trump yet
again and it took until November 6th to official call the race for
Slotkin over her Republican opponent Mike Rogers. She would win by less than
19,000 votes out of over 5.4 million casts.
As these results show at no point was it
clear that Michiganders have any more desire for the far left politics that El-Sayed
and Tlaib have made a part of the Justice Democrat platform. And while El-Sayed
is more centrist on many positions then say Tlaib (which may be why he doesn't
have their official endorsement for this cycle) he has far more in common and
he has done little to hide it. He campaigned for Sanders in 2020 (which Biden
trounced Sanders in) has said 'regulating billionaires to fund infrastructure
is not radical) and is just opposed to US military aid as the overwhelming
Justice Democrats say. He's called for tougher enforcement of environmental
laws and achieving 100 percent renewable energy in Michigan by 2030 which is
not going to go over with Detroit. But the fact remains all of this pales in
comparison to the one issue that is the center of his campaign for Senate and
one that has zero to do with the people of Michigan at all: Gaza.
Why so many progressives believe that an
issue that will guarantee them electoral success is to support a country
halfway around the world and that America to this point has no troops on the
ground might be the best example yet to argue the left is out of touch with
most Americans. And indeed a poll taken the week before the primary made it
clear that for most Michigan voters Gaza was not a top priority as is
essentially the case for any American voter who is not a progressive. That the
left has spent the last two years putting all of their chips for winning the
hearts and minds of America on a conflict that doesn't effect their day to day
lives, that only people in that region of the world can do anything to bring a
resolution to, despite administrations of both parties doing everything in
their power to resolve it, is by far the greatest delusion of the American left
in recent years. Tellingly none of the candidates who've run on that as a
platform for the Justice Democrats have tried to make an argument what they
themselves would do if they were given power; they've chosen to frame it in
what is essentially a compilation of their greatest hits, involving
corporations, the establishment and good old fashioned bigotry.
By and large the electorate has been
unmoved with only a handful of Justice Democrats managing to win primaries in
deep blue districts. These victories have gotten a huge amount of attention
from both the media and have been vilified or beatified depending on which part
of the electorate cares the most. And
while it may come as a huge shock if I were to say this the midterms will not
be determined based on the Democrats position on Gaza but rather on how the
current Republican administration is doing in 2026.
To their credit the overwhelming majority
of Democrats running for the Senate this cycle know this very well and this is
true in every red state they're contending in, whether it is James Talarico in
Texas, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Mary Peltola in Alaska or Josh Turek in
Iowa. Only El-Sayed has not gotten the message and in fact seems to have built
his entire campaign on this fact – to the point he's going to be a difficult
position going into the general.
As I wrote in an article earlier this
month:
For El-Sayed, (Gaza) is the only issue that
he cares about, regardless of whether he can do anything about it if he is the
Senator of Michigan. Which brings me to his next problem: to El-Sayed, winning
election to the Senate is simply a means to an end. He has been very clear that
his main priority for winning is so that he can have influence over who becomes
the Democratic nominee for President in 2028 as the Michigan primary is
scheduled to be early in the calendar. In other words his run for the Senate is
basically a shadow campaign to get inside the corridors of the Democratic power
structure and the interests of the people of Michigan are secondary, if that.
To the average progressive, perhaps even
more strongly in Michigan, this is all they care about which if nothing else
shows that they don't even care about the electorate at large at all. And
outside of Gaza, El-Sayed has had great difficulty giving a message that
connect to any other part of the electorate, even the progressive stump speech.
When asked to explain how his campaign would help the working class he
answered: "I think a custodian who makes $14,000 a year is sick and tired
of his tax dollars going to Israel."
…In
the final weeks of the campaign multiple polls showed El-Sayed winning by
anywhere from 10 to 15 points against Haley Stevens. Instead, he barely managed
to eke out a victory with 48.5 percent to Stevens' 47.5 percent. This argues
that so much of the support that was for Al-Sayid was soft to begin with and
that the primary was divided.
This leaves out the fact that at least 3
percent of Michigan Democratic primary voters chose Mallory McMorrow, who'd
dropped out of the race a month ago but was still on the ballot. El-Sayed
couldn't win a majority of voters in the primary in what by far was the closest
Democratic Senate primary in 2026.
I've written about the obstacles El-Sayed
will face in the general election before and I'm not going to relitigate them
here. That said I think its time for me to get more personal for once because
much of what will follow is going to go against my natural pragmatism when it
comes to politics.
However I don't think its that much of a
contradiction. I'm a Democrat and the majority of candidates I've promoted in
this series have been the kind of senators our country will need in a
post-Trump America. I've argued for centrist Democrats in red states, an
independent in Nebraska whose vowed not to caucus with either party, several
independents who have rejected affiliation in deep red states and to this point
one centrist Republican. (There will be one more in a future article, for the
record.)
At the same time I'm a loyal Democrat and I
do think it is in the best interest of the country at the moment for the party
to take back the Senate this fall. I
know that it has always been an uphill battle and to argue against a
Democrat would make that battle all the harder for my party.
Finally I believe it is in the best
interest of America for both houses of Congress to be made up of members who
represent their party, their country and their voters. I've argued that many
Justice Democrats such as Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush failed at that task and I
have little doubt that many of their eventual successors will not be any
better. We can't have an orderly
government if the inmates are running the asylum and that's as true for Melat
Kiros as it is Lauren Boebert.
So even though it is against my party's
interest I can not in good conscience endorse El-Sayid as a Senator nor can I
argue that Democrats in Michigan do so. And that is for the same reason I have
against all Justice Democrats, past and present. I don't believe he has the
best interests of Michigan in mind.
He may feel very passionately about what is
happening in Gaza and he is allowed to do so. But Gaza is not on the ballot
this year nor will it be until at least 2028. Considering that seems to the
crux of El-Sayed's campaign far more than the usual progressive issues I fail
to see how his being in the Senate meets the moment.
Start with the obvious. El-Sayed has spent
the last two years saying that Gaza is a public health emergency. Well he's a
public health official and a doctor, so the best way to help that region would
be to work there. The people of Gaza need qualified doctors and health
officials there far more than they need people advocating for their
cause in Michigan. And it's not like there's exactly a shortage of activists in
that state alone.
The fact that El-Sayed has spent the last
year running for the Senate in Michigan rather than using his abilities to help
the people who are suffering there would seem to indicate that, like every
other activist on the left, his concern stops at the water's edge. And it speaks
that he's more interested in his own personal ambitions than what is a crisis
he could do something more substantial to help with.
Furthermore there is a more consequential
election that will deal with Gaza then El-Sayid's this year. It's the one in
Israel. This election is the only one where what happens with Gaza is
on the ballot and it’s the only one where the winner will affect the fate
of that region. Putting it mildly it's more important for his main issue if
Netanyahu wins reelection in Israel this fall then if El-Sayid does and I
honestly wonder if he or any of his primary voters are aware of that.
What can El-Sayid do for the citizens of
Gaza as a Senator from Michigan? Like every single activist who advocates for
it he has been very vague on the details. Considering he seems more interested
in influence the Democratic nominee for President in 2028 that's still two and
a half year before any administration can carry out his policies. A lot can change in two years and it will
have little, if anything, to do with the Presidential primaries. For all he
knows by that time Hamas may disarm, Netanyahu may be in jail and a three state
solution may have been implemented. And if you think that's ridiculous it's not
nearly as foolish as believing that a single Democratic senator in America can
single-handedly change things in the Middle East. Yet apparently that is what
48.5 percent of Michigan primary voters seem to believe.
Right now El-Sayid has to convince the 51.5
percent of Michigan primary voters to unite behind him to defeat Mike Rogers in
November. This means he's going to have to prove to the majority of voters in
that state he is not everything he has spent the last year assuring the primary
voters he is. How he can thread that
needle involves a dexterity that no progressive candidate has ever been in a
position to do in the last decade. He has to move to the center without isolating
the left-wing voters who got him this far and consider any move to the center
to the right. It means he'll have the spend the next three months cozying up
the establishment figures – Gretchen Whitmer and Haley Stevens far more then
Rashida Tlaib, and we all know which group is more demanding of purity.
I also have somewhat more concrete concerns
about El-Sayid in regards to control of the House of Representatives that I
don't need to live in Michigan to know will be raised. As a New York resident every
two years since 2018 there is an attempt by Republicans to tie New York
Democrats to AOC and in a few cases Mayor Mamdani. This has some teeth in swing
districts of which New York has four that were decided by less then one percent
two years ago.
I have little doubt that something similar
has been done with Rashida Tlaib in Michigan during a similar period and now
that El-Sayid is the Democratic nominee for Senate it will have more teeth statewide
then it ever has in New York. And while Tlaib and fellow Justice Democrat Donovan
McKinney can shrug it off there are at least two districts where this could be an
issue. The 10th which is being vacated as John James tries to challenge
for the governorship and the seventh where freshman Tom Barrett is being
challenged by the ultra-left William Lawrence. The seventh is particularly
tricky because Barrett ran ahead of Trump in 2024 and Lawrence was already
considered a risky candidate because of his progressive nature. If he's tied to
El-Sayid Barrett might very well hold
his seat. Control of the House seems a lock this cycle but it would definitely
be easier if there weren't someone this far left on a statewide race as
so many Congressional districts. This isn't something the Democrats have to
worry about in regard to say Maine.
What troubles me the most about Al-Sayid is
that I only recently realized when I received the first official campaign email
from him. Here's the introduction:
We just fought through the most expensive
Democratic Senate primary in Michigan history – and won it without taking a
single dollar from corporate PACS.
I'm not thrilled how El-Sayid seems to framing
the Michigan Democrats in the same way he refers to the Republicans. Both are
beholden the corporate interest.
Next paragraph:
Here's something nobody tells you on
election night: winning doesn't refill a bank account. The primary basically
drained ours at the exact moment the real fight started.
Ok: if he actually believed this was going
to happen going in, he has no business running in the first place.
Every day we're spending playing catch up
is a day Rogers gets to define our campaign before Michigan hears it from us
first.
Okay so you're now assuming that during the
last year no one was paying attention to what you were saying for the last year
but the people you were trying to convince to vote for you? That's even
more naïve.
I'm not going to pretend that's not a real
problem. It is. (No shit.)But
it’s the same one we solved ruing the primary election with people like you,
showing up when it mattered.
For the record I didn't give him a dime
So I'll put it plainly: I need help getting
this campaign back on its feet immediately, so we can kept this momentum going
and defeat Mike Rogers in November.
Then he asks me to split a donation between
his campaign and the DNC. So to be clear he's shilling for the establishment
now, the same people he spent the last year vilifying. Glad to know you still
have principles.
To be fair none of this is different from
any of the email blasts I've gotten from any Democrat running for Senate
whether it is centrists like Sherrod Brown or Mary Peltola (who I'm working
for) or fellow far let candidates like Troy Jackson or Annie Andrews. The
difference is that when these thoughts are expressed by someone like Al-Sayid
who has spent the last year basically spitting in the face of all things
establishment, it's a lot harder to hide the hypocrisy then it is with all
these other candidates. What should read as an automated blast (which it is)
has a real disconnect that is harder to dismiss then the overwhelming majority
of emails I've gotten over the years.
And he'll have to defeat a Republican who
came with in a hair of beating a far more centrist candidate just two years ago
and who has been hoping for a candidate like this for months. I have little
doubt the RNC and the establishment, which is facing an incredible fight on all
fronts in states they long thought were safe havens, will welcome the
opportunity to put the Democrats on defense in a state where a Republican
hasn't won an election to the Senate since 1994 but where every single poll
prior to the primary showed Rogers ahead of El-Sayid. One poll showed him
beating El-Sayid by 49 percent to 39 percent and currently have him ahead by at
least three points.
And Rogers, I should be clear, is not
a MAGA Republican, at least in the terms I use.. He served in the House from
2001 to 2015 choosing to step down in 2014 rather then run for reelection. That
means he has none of the stench that is associated with the Trump era or even
the Tea Party. While in Congress he introduced a measure to make education
savings free of federal taxes and introduced the Health Savings Account program
into Medicaid that became part of law in 2008. He was the primary sponsor of
the Respect for American Fallen Heroes Act and introduced the Cyber
Intelligence Sharing Protection Act.
Now I'm not pretending he doesn't have
flaws – opposition to transgender athletes in women's sports, the usual open
borders rhetoric, support for tariffs – but he's not a rabid conservative. He's
made it clear he will not attempt to change the recent constitutional amendment
in Michigan protecting legal access to abortion and he's made it clear he's in
defense of Israel's right to defend itself. By the standards of so many
Republicans in the Senate today, he's practically a moderate. Even if you admit
some of the Trumpier things about him, the fact remains in two years Trump
isn't going to be President anymore.
I want Democrats win this cycle but I also
believe we should have sane people in the Senate. I made it clear that I didn't
want Graham Platner to be a Senator any more then I wanted Ken Paxton to be. In
both cases the candidates personal behavior was so beyond the pale I didn't
want either near DC. It's not the same question when it comes to El-Sayid and
Rogers but I do have an issue with Democrats who only seem interested in the
Senate as a stepping stone to higher office – I had no use for when Hilary Clinton
ran for the Senate in 2000 for that reason and while it's not quite the same
thing Kamala Harris's run in 2020 smacked of that similar kind of ambition.
That one of the foundations of El-Sayid's campaign is being a powerbroker in
Democratic politics smacks of that same kind of ambition. El-Sayid should be
running to represent Michigan, America and his party and there's nothing in his
stump speech of campaign that makes me think he has any interest in any of
them.
In a sense this is an abstraction for me
but for the people of Michigan it isn't. So I'll conclude with this. I'm
working for Peltola this year and I'll probably do some work in the fall of someone
in the Midwest – maybe Sherrod Brown, maybe Josh Turek in Iowa. At the very
least I'll donate to their campaigns because I believe they should be elected.
I'm not giving a red cent to Abdul El-Sayid.
I'm not going to write letters for him or work the phone banks. I'm not tacitly
endorsing Mike Rogers – although except for being a Republican I think he's
more qualified to hold office
then El-Sayid and that's not a dealbreaker for me the way it is for some of the
other Republicans running this cycle or some incumbents. I won't be dancing in
the street if Rogers wins but I'm not going to lose sleep over it the way I
would if Ken Paxton does.
As for those Michigan Democrats who are the
only ones this choice matters for, I will phrase the question like this: On
Election day when you walk into the voting booth, if you decide to vote for
El-Sayid can you do it with the sincere belief that he is the best man to
represent you? Or as you do it will you silently be thinking: "Please
don't let this man win?" I'd urge you only to do so if you can say the
former and if it is the latter, well, you can vote for every other Democrat on
the ballot and leave your choice for Senate blank. No one will ever know except
you.
The phrase 'vote your conscience' exists for
a reason and I think there are times it has to exceed such things as partisan
warfare. All I can say is that if you do it, you don't have to tell anyone and
if you do it, there will people like me who completely understand why.
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