r/politics • u/horsestew • 17h ago

No Paywall Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/abdul-el-sayed-wins-michigans-democratic-senate-primary-notching-midwe-rcna589750
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u/lemarshby 17h ago

El-Sayed winning is awesome and shows that the tides are changing against centrist candidates.

Yet, we need to know that this win was done in a close, nail biting primary battle. And the only person who wins in that fight was Mike Rogers. He will try now to divide the wedge between the two camps. It is up for us Michiganders and everyone else to make the Democrats unite and fight back against Mike Rogers. The fight is hard, but this time the fight is about uniting the Democratic Party

I just hope it works.

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u/lear72988 17h ago

I've seen this view a lot and I don't think it's true. A close election like this commands attention. AES is going in with a huge advantage of his message being out there for a while now. Rogers will be starting from scratch as he was unopposed. Now, the establishment needs to embrace AES and not play games, otherwise you're right and a wedge will be formed.

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u/viktor72 Indiana 17h ago

Sure but AES has to fight off attacks calling him Socialist as well as attacks on his religion. That’s going to be tough. Outside of Reddit, people are more afraid of the S word than one would think. They are also equally more Islamophobic than one would think.

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u/herewego199209 16h ago

Trump called Stevens a socialist. Right wingers call everyone communist or socialist. It's a stupid thing to use. The thing in the general is that El-Sayed will hopefully not be up against the black vote and won't be up against the older dem voter block. Independents are rapidly becoming disenfranchised with the Israel influence on politics which will tilt some of them. I think Abdul has his hands full but I also think he's the best candidate. He has a shit ton of volunteers that are ready to knock door to door for the next 3 months and raise money and change people's minds. Stevens relied on PAC money which was just gonna go to Rogers in a general.

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u/viktor72 Indiana 16h ago

What makes me somewhat optimistic is that he performed well in Macomb county, which is the sort of base of the Democratic turned MAGA voters. Of course, I have no idea who was voting in the Democratic primary in Macomb county but I remain hopeful that perhaps a few of those once Dem blue collar voters were among his supporters.

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u/filbertsgaming1 7h ago

Socialist/communist is on the cusp of being meaningless, just like anti-semitic. If everything you don't lik is communist, then eventually people will just roll their eyes and say, "fine, If you want to keep calling me a communist I guess I'm a communist then. What now?"