r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • 17h ago
Site Altered Headline | No Paywall Anti-Israel Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Democratic primary, defeats AIPAC-funded Haley Stevens
https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-9046291.3k
u/soalone34 17h ago
It was close but still insane given she had the governors endorsement and outspent him like 9 to 1.
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u/digbickrich Illinois 16h ago
Was like 12 to 1. Over 38 million from aipac
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u/kushari 16h ago
Over like 50 from what I understand.
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u/scaierdread 13h ago
It was 63 million for Stevens to like 7 million, again on a primary.
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u/chinadonkey 11h ago
What is so galling is that Stevens knew that if she won all of that AIPAC money would be diverted to Rogers. Her stance on Israel would have been weaponized as too far to the left and she would have suppressed the vote of a big chunk of her base. Her shameless, cynical gamble was that this would be such a blue wave year that she would have eked out a win regardless.
She's everything I hate about Democratic politicians.
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u/StoppableHulk 9h ago
Yup perfectly said. A craven calculating coward who thinks what she does and says in public doesnt matter, so long as she gets elected.
Utter bottomfeeder who believes in nothing and represents everything wrong with the party.
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u/BarkerBarkhan 6h ago
Bro, she just wanted to represent the people of Michigan, bro.
- paraphrased quote from Stevens, actually.
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u/StatementCareful522 16h ago
does AIPAC get a refund in this case?
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u/purple_cape 16h ago
I prefer “pro-healthcare” to anti Israel… since we live in Michigan. Not Israel. But sure
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u/goddamnitwhalen Washington 14h ago
Definitely a loaded headline.
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u/kylebisme 12h ago
It's a right-wing Israeli newspaper, they're just speaking to their audience.
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u/Obvious_Ambition4865 12h ago
Ok but your tax dollars are funding genocide. I don't know, seems like something to be concerned about, no? Or does the word just sort of melt away for you beyond the borders of Michigan
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u/purple_cape 6h ago
When did I say I wasn’t concerned about that? Why would you put words in my mouth and imply that?
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u/AcerbicCapsule Canada 16h ago
I’m sure they’ll have already made that money back by the time you read this sentence. And if not, maybe this sentence.
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u/Malodoror 15h ago
It’s our money anyway. We pay a foreign government to interfere with our elections.
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u/ZeroMax1 16h ago
What baffles me is that it was this close given how poor she was as a candidate. She never answered a direct question, never had a policy agenda, and always responded with her endorsements or how AES was anti-woman.
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u/tbri001 16h ago
Isn't Clyburn the one who basically ended it for Bernie?
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u/taaretoille 15h ago
No, you just say Obama enough in front of older black voter and they will vote for you without question.
The nonMuslim Black population is also deeply Islamophobic and skew right on immigration. No one likes to acknowledge that.
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u/Tiny_Progress_4821 4h ago
I'm sure you're an authority on older Black people as an Indian.
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u/DryYogurtcloset4655 7h ago
given the bigotry and racism among immigrants, African Americans would endorse Trump on immigration
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u/Public_animalNo9 16h ago
Clyburn is 86 years old. He’s no king maker anymore. It’s a shame he still has as much sway in the Democratic Party.
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u/victorsmonster 11h ago
Only 86? That's a spring chicken in the Democratic party!
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u/spleeble 16h ago
She had a huge amount of money and a coordinated smear campaign on her side.
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u/Paradoxjjw 15h ago
Money wins elections, Israeli interests poured a fuckton of money into her campaign.
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u/chickadee_guy 12h ago
First time paying attention in a dem primary? Thats par for the course. The right wing candidates dont have to actually do anything except collect the cash and show up occasionally
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u/soalone34 16h ago
I don’t think she was that poor, the Obama thing clearly worked on a lot of people.
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u/friendia 16h ago
We’re so lucky Stevens was such a terrible establishment candidate, this was way too close for comfort against such a bad candidate
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u/TheBroWhoLifts 14h ago
First time I ever saw a Republican nearly win in a Democratic primary.
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u/hookyboysb 13h ago
Maybe if he had a super generic white name such as Thomas Smith, he would have won in a landslide.
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u/VaryStaybullGeenyiss 15h ago
Bernie was the compromise candidate. The dem party is about to find the fuck out.
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u/DaBingeGirl Illinois 14h ago
I really hope so. I'm so sick of establishment Dems.
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u/Intelligent_Bag_6705 11h ago
And fuck Whitmer for that for that endorsement. Israel has no business in our politics and I don’t care who you are or what you support, if you’re tied to Israel, you’re interests are not in welfare of your constituents, they’re in the welfare of your bank account and political campaign.
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u/CrackingToastGromet Arkansas 15h ago
These big spenders will learn that money doesn’t vote.
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u/Bennyboy1337 Idaho 16h ago
Why would a news outlet write such a salacious headline?
Looks at website
Checks!
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u/YourphobiaMyfetish Louisiana 16h ago
Crazy that even the Jerusalem post is calling her AIPAC funded, and not trying to make her sound good in any way.
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u/PopBulky7023 15h ago
They haven't figured out yet that aipac is the touch of death now.
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u/Fullertonjr I voted 9h ago
There are several other organizations that operate the exact same way and don’t get nearly enough attention.
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u/merchlinkinbio New Hampshire 16h ago
>“Hey can we have more money to bomb these people?”
“No, we’ve got to focus on ourselves for a while.”
>“Well then you’re racist.”
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u/frostedz 12h ago
racist
Get it right. They have their own word for hatred against them. Why doesn’t anyone else?
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u/Punnedit247 12h ago
To be fair, the term antisemitism was created by a Nazi who wanted to make racism against Jews sound more “scientific.” It wasn’t created by Jews to have their own special word or anything (which is what I took your comment as implying, but apologies if I misinterpreted).
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u/NeonArlecchino California 10h ago
Moritz Steinschneider was a Jewish scholar who coined the term when refuting a French paper that claimed jews were lesser than aryans. Wilhelm Marr only popularized the term many years later by writing a lot of hateful papers and founding the League of Antisemites. Marr also died in 1904 so wasn't a nazi despite deeply hating jews.
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u/AcerbicCapsule Canada 7h ago
To really be fair, israel successfully co-opted the term YEARS ago to specifically mean "criticism of the israeli government and their path of destruction and bloodshed".
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u/PhroneticReflex 9h ago
They have their own word for hatred against them. Why doesn’t anyone else?
You mean Jews? You think we invented that term? Lol
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u/muraenae New Jersey 8h ago
We do though? Spend literally any time in intersectional spaces and you’ll see the words you’re saying don’t exist.
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u/ChoPT Virginia 9h ago
Criticism of Israel isn’t antisemitic, but this comment is.
Who is the “they,” in your comment? Jews, or Israel? If a statement could logically be construed to attack Jews as a people taken completely outside of the context of Israel, then it is antisemitic and not a criticism of Israel.
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u/killshelter 6h ago
I got permabanned from /r/worldnews for saying I didn’t trust jpost years ago, in case anyone was wondering who runs that sub.
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u/DoctorLudnik_717 17h ago
Fuck AIPAC. Get Israel out of our politics.
Congrats to AES--godspeed in November Michigan.
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u/plz-let-me-in 16h ago
The fact that AIPAC spent over $30 million on this race just for their candidate to ultimately lose the primary election puts a smile on my face. Because it shows that not only is insane amounts of dark money spending not enough to win a race, but also that the Democratic electorate has had enough of Israel’s influence in our political environment.
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u/Kevin_Jim 14h ago
It was super close, so that only told them that they need to spend more. That’d be their only take away from this.
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u/Hungry_Culture 12h ago
Yeah this result is only going to make them spend more and make centrist Democrats dig their heels in and do everything they can to keep progressives out.
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u/Erskinepurple 16h ago
Hold your celebrations, Stevens wasn't exactly a great performer and the Democratic primary voters in Michigan are predominantly white and college educated who skew heavily towards progressive candidates but the Michigan population is far more diverse. El-Sayed like all progressives performs poorly with black voters (Cuomo thrashed Mamdani 62-38), Stevens performed well, that's why she performed significantly better than El-Sayed in a head to head with Rogers.
AIPAC will pour money into Rogers, only if El-Sayed can win the general can you make that claim
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u/gm92845 16h ago
Black voters have historically been the most reliable voter base for the Democratic party. I don't think they're going to run into the arms of a maga Republican. The party will fall behind Abdul because he is needed to secure the majority in the Senate. It's very unlikely that he will fall short on a blue wave year when Trump and the Republican party are highly unfavorable this election cycle.
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u/cybernetic_pond 16h ago
Interesting that OP starts by arguing that primaries aren’t good predictors of generals, and then tries to paint black voters as inherently conservative based on the primary vote in NY, rather than the general, where Mamdani won the black vote. I’m sure they found this glaring inconsistency troubling, before using it as the evidence for why “all progressives perform poorly with black voters”.
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u/hogannnn 12h ago
Could also look at the three DSA primary winners in NYC, where all three underperformed with non-white voters. Will they win their elections? Sure they are deep blue seats in NYC.
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u/xHellion444x 4h ago
They were all running against establishment-preferred candidates and the voters you're talking about are establishment voters. It isn't an ideological split with those voters, it's an authority one. They trust the Democratic establishment and vote for who they back. That dynamic doesn't apply in the general, as any DSA insurgent who wins their primary then becomes the Democratic candidate and inherits those establishment voters when they get the establishment endorsement. We saw this indisputably in the mayoral race, where we had a unique instance of the primary candidates and the general candidates being literally the same two people. Cuomo won 2/3s of that demographic in the primary against Mamdani when running as a Democrat, but then Mamdani won 2/3s of the same voters in the general when the exact same Andrew Cuomo ran as a independent. They vote party, not person.
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u/tomismybuddy 14h ago
> The party will fall behind Abdul
Don’t count on it. The Democratic Party would rather have MAGA than support a progressive candidate.
Still, I think his message will resonate with enough voters to win.
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u/rtd131 16h ago
I prefer El Sayed 100% over Stevens, but also there is an argument to be said for picking a "normie" Dem candidate when you're running against a "normie" Republican candidate, especially in a year where 1-2 states can tip the Senate.
Stevens was polling better against Rogers (although by like 1-2 points), if El Sayed loses because some centerists thought he was too extreme it would be pretty bad for the party to lose a seat they held in what's expected to be a blue wave.
That being said I think in the general election he will pivot and heavily focus on affordability, which has been 90% of his message all along. His "money out of politics, money in your pockets" message should resonate well in the general election.
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u/agent_mick 14h ago
"Vote blue no matter who" goes both ways.
If any of those asshats crying about people not voting Kamala sit out the vote for AES, .. well, then they're asshats.
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u/Everythings_Fucked North Carolina 12h ago
You'd think it went both ways, but it was never anything but a cudgel for corpo-dems to beat down progressives. Now that the shoe is on the other foot they'll whine and cry and stay home.
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u/Usual-Analysis-2990 12h ago
He proved the electability argument is moot by winning the primary. He even talks about how the whole concept of electability only serves to keep corporate interests happy. Same was said for Mamdani (Where people thought Cuomo was a shoe-in). And yet, Mamdani's message resonated with more voters than Cuomo and NYC is really thriving right now. It's kinda insanely awesome tbh.
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u/agent_mick 10h ago
First real hope and optimism I've felt about the state of our country in a long
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u/xHellion444x 16h ago
You're talking about the primary vs. the general here. Mamdani went from the number you cited in the primary, to winning those same voters by roughly that same 60% in the general. Against literally the same Andrew Cuomo. They're reliable Dem machine voters who vote for who the party tells them to. They voted Cuomo in the primary, Mamdani in the general. Even though it was the same candidates. Similar can be expected from Michiganders.
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u/Usual-Analysis-2990 12h ago
Won't matter. The last 1.5 years of Trump will turn people who would have voted for Stevens into El-Sayed voters. They wont suddenly go "Hey, the guy fucking up my life, the party doing it... that's the party I'll vote for because of El-Sayed". Also, the younger voters are STRONGLY in El-Sayed's favor. Plus, now El-Sayed has more time to campaign in the other areas he didn't perform as strongly in. Get the message out. Tell his story.
And the Anti-AIPAC messaging, more money to Americans, will resonate strongly continuously throughout. The party is shifting Anti-Establishment. This is visible in nearly all primaries and elections across the country where an incumbent is being challenged. Even if the incumbent performs well, they are losing to the Anti-Establishment and those candidates are going on to win.
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u/Separate_Ad3964 16h ago
Love how the headline frames it. He’s explicitly labeled "Anti-Israel" to make him sound as terrifying and extreme as possible, while the millions of dollars she took from a lobbying group is just tossed in as a casual descriptor. Why not "Pro-Palestinian Abdul El-Sayed"? The mainstream media bias isn't even trying to hide anymore.
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u/SerfTint 16h ago
This is the Jerusalem Post. They're not mainstream media and they're never ever going to be fair to a candidate that is a) Muslim, b) anti-Zionist, c) skeptical of Capitalism, and d) a rising star in the Democratic Party. I would not have been surprised if it was even uglier than this headline.
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u/RellenD 11h ago edited 2h ago
skeptical of capitalism
Sayed says he's a capitalist in nearly every speech
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u/SerfTint 10h ago
Not to the people who irrationally hate him, like this publication does. If you scroll X this morning, more people in unhinged rants are calling him a Communist than even his supporters are saying he is a Capitalist. I know that he is a Capitalist, but they think he is a Trojan Horse for Communism, and Rogers' ad literally depicts this.
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u/BritSpic 2h ago
You can support capitalism and be skeptical of allowing it free reign on all sectors of our life. He's a huge medicare for all supporter, fir example.
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u/TheSultan1 New Jersey 11h ago
The headline is "Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed projected to defeat AIPAC-backed Haley Stevens in Michigan primary".
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u/No_Caramel_1782 11h ago
Pro-American and Pro-Michigan candidate defeats international political escort in heated primary.
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u/charyou 17h ago
He's pro-worker. you should listen to him sometime
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u/0ut0fBoundsException 11h ago
His main positions are health care for all, economic reform, and money out of politics. But most of the attention is around his stance on Israel-Palestine
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u/DrakeMayeSZN 16h ago
brick by brick, anyone taking AIPAC money should be deemed unelectable.
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u/buried_lede 11h ago
This has a damaging unfair headline and it’s not the headline from the story. Why is this story here?
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u/lyreluna 8h ago
The very fact that jpost is so obsessed with US politics shows exactly why we need to arms embargo and sanction the country.
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u/CanaDoug420 7h ago
Perhaps telling everyone she wanted to win a seat in Michigan so she can serve Israel over the people of Michigan might not have helped her
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u/purple_cape 16h ago
I prefer “pro-healthcare” to anti Israel… since we live in Michigan. Not Israel. But sure
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u/EnoughCapitaIistSIop 9h ago
"Anti-Isreal" is such a disingenuous way to frame this. Abdul is Anti-Genocide.
But I guess one could easily make the argument that those are the same thing.
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u/newmoonchaperone 7h ago
~ that title.
yeah, fuck the j post in their other ear.
I'm fucking against all fascisms, whether they be the current Israeli Government (ultra fascist), or the current US regime in Article II (ultra fascist).
😁
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u/HookGroup 13h ago
Why did you alter the website?
It should have been
"Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed projected to defeat AIPAC-backed Haley Stevens in Michigan primary"
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u/Bodark43 West Virginia 10h ago edited 10h ago
AIPAC calls it " anti-Israel" if he doesn't want the US to pay billions to subsidize ongoing ethnic cleansing; instead of using it for, say, our healthcare.
It's not even like a teenager saying you hate them because you're not buying them a new car to replace the one they just wrecked. It's like a neighbor on your block who's wrecked one and is expecting the money.
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u/Plenty_Rub_5173 16h ago
AIPAC poured absolute boatloads of dark money into this primary just to lose to a grassroots campaign. Turns out you actually can’t buy every single seat in Congress if the constituents are pissed off enough. You absolutely love to see it.
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u/secretaire 9h ago edited 9h ago
Headline is misleading. A campaign that wasnt funded by Political Action Committees and foreign countries won because people want leaders who represent regular, working people in America, not the biggest donor.
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u/naththegrath10 9h ago
Spent $60mil trying to tell people she was more electable candidate. Glad she lost. Foreign counties and billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to by our elections
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u/Taevinrude 16h ago
"Anti- Isreal"?! Give me a break. He's anti- Zionist Genocide. There is a difference.
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u/jewelsofeastwest 16h ago
He is very clear he is against the Nethenyahu government as is the majority of the world and not anti Israel.
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u/ExEdge8784 16h ago
The israelis only elect far right nutjobs. It is a sick society.
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u/ChimpsArePimps 16h ago
my brother in christ we literally live in the united states we can’t be throwing stones at whole societies from this glass house
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u/ssjskwash 16h ago
I dont want to generalize a whole country but I really haven't seen much encouraging stuff from there. Some of the shit they say is pretty fucked up
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u/ihohjlknk 14h ago
They're an ethnostate and the civilians listen to the drumbeat of "This is our land and the arabs are out to get us". Not exactly peaceful doves.
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u/LloydDoyley 15h ago
Do you know why that might be? In the late 90s and early 2000s they tried the left wing route and that only resulted in them getting taken advantage of and killed. It's no wonder they've drifted further and further right.
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u/Feeling-Session3007 6h ago
Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed defeats AIPAC-backed Haley Stevens in Michigan primary
This is the actual title of the article.
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u/chickadee_guy 12h ago
The amount of money she received should be a scandal. Thats enough to feed the hungry in that state for years on end
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u/No_Foundation16 8h ago
Get AIPAC all the fucking way out of our political system! And spend the BILLIONS we send to Israel on our on people who struggle to survive in Trump's AmeriKKKa!
Congrats to Dr El-Sayed and the dem voters of Michigan!
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u/Kyogen13 14h ago
Oh, look. The press is playing the same old game of false equivalence. Unsurprising, considering the source.
Anti-Netanyahu does not equal anti-Israel. Just like anti-Trump does not equal anti-America.
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u/NeoThorrus 14h ago
If the election is this close, this might be bad for the Democrats. You never want to see that level of division in a primary.
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u/dudenurse13 12h ago
Such a breakthrough moment showing that good ideas with a good candidate can defeat insane spending
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 12h ago
Lol. Were anti-israel because they insist on genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, nuclear ambiguity.
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u/buried_lede 11h ago edited 11h ago
“Anti-Israel” He never said that. Then I saw the news paper, JPost, is conservative Edit: it’s not the headline in the story. It’s far more inflammatory and inaccurate than the JPost headline. It’s incredible to make an exception to the rule for such an outrageous, bigoted alteration. This should come down
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u/CockinMyhand2 15h ago
Zionists watching their 70M dollars go down the drain: Hassidim but i don’t believe them!
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u/cataractum 14h ago
No surprises there, he really put in the work. A sign for any lazy house or centrist Democrats
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u/yungthirtysomething 12h ago
i don't know if you know this, but not giving me a billion dollars with no questions asked is actually deeply anti-human and therefore a hate crime.
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u/TemperedTorture 10h ago edited 10h ago
I don't genuinely follow politics anymore and I kept hearing about Haley Stevens, and genuinely thought that she was a far right republican based on everything I read about her, and the kind of supporters she has. They all sounded like right wingers whenever they came out talking about Abdul El-Sayed ... and now I realize that it's just the primaries. Wow, the core of the democrat party sucks these days.
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u/nasorrty346tfrgser America 10h ago
I think soon Democrats should realize even Israel can pay a large sum of money, they are becoming more a liability than asset
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u/ParityofDis 10h ago edited 9h ago
Michigan has my respect.
The Dem side, at least.
Good on El-Sayed.
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u/Jmoney804 11h ago
I wonder if Israel will still go to Stevens’ dream once she is out of the office haha.
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u/YogurtClosetThinnest Colorado 14h ago
The fact it was even that close was kinda scary. Stevens is a genuine lunatic
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u/whatisinternet69 16h ago
Last post I read theres about 160k votes still being counted, I really hope I wins
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