{"id":751,"date":"2026-07-18T12:05:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T12:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=751"},"modified":"2026-07-18T12:05:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T12:05:38","slug":"how-the-michigan-senate-primary-became-a-battle-for-democrats-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=751","title":{"rendered":"How the Michigan Senate primary became a battle for Democrats\u2019 soul"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Democratic Party is at war with itself, and nowhere is the fight clearer than the Michigan Senate primary. On one side: Rep. Haley Stevens, backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the establishment, who says the left is too untested and too extreme to win a general election. On the other: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former public health official who wants to blow up the whole premise of the question.<\/p>\n

Read more Did Trump fire someone trying to stop IRS abuses?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More than $40 million in outside money has already poured into this race \u2014 a big chunk of it from pro-Israel groups lining up against El-Sayed \u2014 because it\u2019s less a Senate primary than a proxy war for where the party goes next. And at the center of it sits that dreaded word: electability<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That term has become a catch-all used by Democrats to encapsulate whatever approach they think has higher odds of winning the general election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This week on America, Actually<\/em>, I sat down with El-Sayed about what his<\/em> theory of electability actually means.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here are three takeaways from our conversation:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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1. His electability pitch is an \u201cAmerica First\u201d argument <\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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El-Sayed takes the two things his critics treat as liabilities \u2014 his opposition to US support for Israel and his populism \u2014 and fuses them into a single kitchen-table argument: money going abroad is money not going to you. Anti-war politics and affordability policy become one and the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMy priority is money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all. That\u2019s what I\u2019m campaigning on,\u201d he said. That reminded me of a similar argument I heard from Darializa Avila Chevalier, the socialist candidate who won an insurgent congressional primary in New York City.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cKids need glasses, kids need schools, kids need functional infrastructure,\u201d El-Sayed continued, fleshing out his case. \u201cAnd I\u2019m gonna find the money that we\u2019re sending to do heinous things to other people and keep it here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He says that pitch appeals to a broader swath of the electorate than the traditional left: Voters, he says, feel that the government is making them \u201cunable to afford my groceries, unable to afford a home… and then [it is] sending my money abroad telling me that somehow that\u2019s in my best interest?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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2. He rejects the left-right dichotomy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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El-Sayed also repeatedly rejected the left-right spectrum entirely. His read on Michigan isn\u2019t that voters keep lurching between extremes \u2014 it\u2019s that they are searching for a fresh type of politics, which neither traditional party was offering. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, Donald Trump in that cycle\u2019s general election, Joe Biden in 2020, Trump again in 2024. It\u2019s not whiplash, he argues. It\u2019s hunger. And that hunger reorganizes the whole map.<\/p>\n

Read more Hegseth wants a more macho military. Testosterone shots won\u2019t help.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf Michiganders wanted moderate[s], why would they have elected Donald Trump twice?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe better way to think about our politics is top-down: people who are locked out versus people doing the locking out. And if you\u2019re on the side of the people doing the locking out, you\u2019re going to have a really hard time in our politics right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With this framework, El-Sayed thinks he can create a greater contrast with Republican nominee Mike Rogers than his Democratic counterpart can.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cBoth Mike Rogers, the Republican, and Haley Stevens, my opponent in this primary, have been on the side of the people doing the locking out,\u201d he said. \u201cThey take their money and do their bidding.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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3. The moderates are in hiding <\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Stevens campaign rejected multiple requests for comment \u2014 which is becoming a bit of a trend on the Democratic establishment side of the party\u2019s civil war. If you want to bash the left, they\u2019ll talk. But if you\u2019re interested in their vision, they are much less willing to be forthright. In some cases, it seems like the moderate lane of Democrats is downright scared of its own shadow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But that\u2019s also a political strategy. Stevens and her allies at groups like Third Way are making a bet: that if they can turn the race into a verdict on El-Sayed himself \u2014 the Hasan Piker streams, the old campaign clips, the loose-cannon caricature \u2014 voters will get nervous and retreat to the safe choice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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El-Sayed said the approach was an insult to voters: \u201cIt\u2019s interesting taking political advice from a shop that exists specifically to launder old ideas and make them seem new again \u2014 and then, like, fail miserably at that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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New episodes of <\/em>America, Actually are in your feed every Saturday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or in the <\/em>Today, Explained feed<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more A \u201cGodzilla El Ni\u00f1o\u201d next year could be a glimpse into the future<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

See More:<\/span><\/p>\n
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  • America, Actually<\/li>\n
  • Podcasts<\/li>\n
  • Politics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks with Astead Herndon about electability, the left-right dichotomy, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nHow the Michigan Senate primary became a battle for Democrats\u2019 soul - American Living Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=751\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How the Michigan Senate primary became a battle for Democrats\u2019 soul - 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