Abdul El-Sayed, supported by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, leads moderate Haley Stevens by just one point. His victory shifts the Democratic Party further to the left, but risks handing the Republicans a decisive seat in the midterms
The American Democratic Party continues to veer to the left. On Tuesday, in the Democratic primaries for the Michigan senatorial seat, the radical candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, managed to prevail over the centrist congresswoman, Haley Stevens. “To paraphrase Muhammad Ali, we shocked the world,” declared the winner yesterday, after a photo-finish count.
Supported by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, El-Sayed ran an election campaign that de facto winked at the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani. In addition to proposing the abolition of ICE, he also promised to increase taxes on the rich, as well as “fight for a path that leads to 100% renewable energy”. Strongly critical of Israel, the person concerned was also responsible for some controversial behavior. “There are many people in Dearborn who are sad today, so I absolutely don’t want to comment on the Khamenei affair,” he declared in March, shortly after the ayatollah was killed by an Israeli-American raid. Furthermore, during the election campaign, the person concerned was accompanied several times by Hasan Piker: a far-left influencer, known for having defended Hezbollah in the past and for having said that the United States “deserved” the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The accusations of radicalism had become so pressing that, in recent weeks, El-Sayed had specified that he was not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA): the socialist organization of which he is notoriously an exponent Mamdani. Yet not only that, as we have seen, the political recipes he proposed were (and are) similar to those of the mayor of New York. But Fox News also revealed that, between 2017 and 2020, El-Sayed took part in various DSA events. Finally, without neglecting that its main political sponsors, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, are the same ones who accompanied the rise of the current mayor of the Big Apple.
And what will happen now? The upper echelons of the Democratic Party have long appeared worried. In the 2024 presidential elections, Donald Trump managed to conquer Michigan, attracting the vote of those blue-collar workers who were increasingly scared of both green extremism and illegal immigration. It is therefore clear that El-Sayed’s ideas do not represent the best tool to ensure that Asinello manages to regain ground among the local working class. Undoubtedly El-Sayed, above all due to his anti-Israeli positions, was favored by the vote of Arab-Americans: a community which, in the so-called Wolverine State, is quite numerous. Without neglecting that part of the Dem base is increasingly permeated by deep anti-establishment feelings, which it would be wrong to underestimate.
That said, it remains to be demonstrated that, in the November elections, El-Sayed will be able to compete for the blue-collar vote against Republican candidate Mike Rogers, who has obtained Trump’s endorsement.
And be careful. El-Sayed won in Leelanau and Livingston: the first and third wealthiest counties in Michigan. In contrast, the areas most tied to the manufacturing sector – such as Wayne, Genesee, Monroe and Macomb counties – overwhelmingly voted for Stevens. This is a dynamic common to Mamdani’s DSA: according to the New York Times, 58% of their members carry out skilled professions and only 4% carry out manual jobs. Furthermore, over 80% of their members over the age of 25 have a degree: which highlights their belonging to the wealthy or middle-upper classes. The same socialist candidates who, supported by Mamdani, won the Democratic parliamentary primaries in New York in June managed to prevail electorally only in high-income areas. In short, despite its rhetoric about the disadvantaged and the oppressed, the American far left has, for the most part, a wealthy base and, unlike Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, struggles to be attractive to the working class.
In this sense, the higher echelons of the Donkey fear that, in November, El-Sayed could end up pushing the vote of moderates and blue-collar workers into the arms of Rogers, thus allowing the Republicans to win a Michigan senatorial seat for the first time since 1994. Not surprisingly, yesterday Trump exulted in El-Sayed’s victory, calling him a “communist loser who hates Jews and Israel”.
“Now, the foolish policies of the stupid Democrats will only get worse,” he continued. Of course, the Republicans also currently see their historic senatorial seat in Texas shaking. However, if they were to lose that of Michigan, the Dems would have a very difficult time regaining the upper house in November.
Finally, a final element emerges to underline. The polls on the eve showed El-Sayed ahead by at least ten points. Yet, the far-left candidate, in the end, won on a razor’s edge, beating Stevens by just 1% of the vote. This data highlights that, despite certain media fanfare, the Dem base remains more divided than ever and that, outside the two coasts, the far left has to deal with a harsher and more complex reality. This is why the Republicans, who also have their own problems ahead of the midterms, hope to be able to take advantage of it.
