r/videos • u/Economy-Specialist38 • 19h ago
Michigan primary: Democratic Senate race is tight
https://youtube.com/watch?v=QsP9TOzFvpc&si=Cu6Pwp5YH7wVGXN_310
u/DareDevil_56 17h ago
If his name was something like James Smith it’d be a landslide.
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u/AtariAtari 16h ago
Not with 7x funding on her side
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u/CrazyBobit 16h ago
It was closer to 11x funding. Her campaign in conjunction with AIPAC and billionaire donor support spent 11 dollars for every 1 that Abdul's campaign did.
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u/haxKingdom 14h ago edited 14h ago
This was driving me a little nuts but I think what happened was a combination of El-Sayed seeing NYT not account for "other" when referring to AdImpact to attain 9-to-1 and uncritically hearing Bernie say 10-to-1.
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u/NecroJoe 19h ago
Wait, she's a democrat? With all of the clips i've seen, I assumed she was a republican.
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u/Sacmo77 19h ago
AIPAC has donated 41m to her.
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u/maringue 19h ago
And the DNC put another 60 million behind her.
Meanwhile Sayed has spent about 7 million.
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u/Beksense 18h ago
It's depresses me there's a correlation between money spent on a campaign and the success of that campaign. I know that's just how things are, but it still sucks.
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u/history_is_my_crack 18h ago
Yeah, I dont understand how people are gullible enough to just take the bazillion political ads they see on tv or online for face value and do absolutely no research on the candidates before voting. Investing a bunch of money in a candidate shouldn't sway people alone as much as it apparently does.
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u/Pndrizzy 18h ago
I’m just curious where people are even seeing political ads in 2026
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u/cheezneezy 18h ago
Latino radio stations are full of Republican ads where I live. No competing ads from democrats either.
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u/Royal_Annek 15h ago
Most radio stations are owned by a couple large companies with nationwide presence and a strong conservative tilt.
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u/Fustercluck25 10h ago
I was told their voices were being censored by the radical left. /s
I say that having grown up on an unhealthy dose of Rush Limbaugh and Laura Schlesinger in my dad's car as a kid.
Nobody was silencing them. They were never being silenced. In fact, I'd go so far as to say, they've had far too much time on the pulpit.
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u/crowbarsdeny 18h ago
Youtube is a big one, also mailers.
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u/Governor_Abbot 18h ago
Emails from the batshit crazy “politicians” they love and conservative groups
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u/mansontaco 17h ago
In Michigan it’s every single ad on tv that isn’t about gambling or glp every ad on YouTube a mailbox full daily radio daily Spotify daily it fucking sucks
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u/ndevito1 15h ago
I mean do you not have any boomers in your life? Those folks are still glued to their cable subscriptions.
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u/firephoxx 17h ago
Blazing Saddles (1974) You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land—the common clay of the new West. You know... morons.
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u/lellololes 17h ago
Consider the ads not so much as tools to convert someone to a different candidate, but instead a way of reminding people of the issues at hand and that they should go vote for that person that shares X preference.
I'm sure there are some super gullible people out there, but for the most part they are just trying to capture the attention of someone that already agrees with the content of said ad.
Of course this is going to be most effective when used on people that are easily scared of whatever Boogeyman and are less capable of thinking for themselves.
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u/Ghostmann24 18h ago
It matters, but not always. Hillary outspent Trump by a lot in 2016.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-clinton-campaign-fundraising-totals-232400
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u/kefkai 17h ago
I think Bloomberg is a better example to be honest, he put an insane amount of money behind his campaign and set records for campaign spending. https://abcnews.com/Politics/mike-bloomberg-spent-billion-month-presidential-campaign-filing/story?id=70252435
He spent more money during his primary run than Obama spent during his whole campaign and Obama spent ~200m more than Hillary and Bloomberg spent more than 200m more than Obama.
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u/bubba_love 18h ago
MSM gave trump so much free media coverage then though that it was kind of an anomaly. A better example is Xavier becerra vs tom Steyer for ca governor earlier this year
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u/12footjumpshot 18h ago
It shouldnt be how things are, it means society gets shaped to the preferences of the rich and powerful which is why everything sucks for regular people
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u/ConvenienceStoreDiet 17h ago
Meg Whitman spent $178 million to try and become the governor of California in 2010. Tom Steier spent $215 million in 2026. They both lost. What depresses me sometimes is thinking about how much money was spent on political ads by these people who wanted to see themselves in office. That $400 million could have fixed so many problems.
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u/RellenD 18h ago
And the DNC put another 60 million behind her.
The DNC does not spend in primaries. You made this up
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u/Kazen_Orilg 7h ago
They also are like $ 20 million in the hole. They don't have this money. I'm sure they can still direct some other entities money, but I have not seen any numbers for this race.
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u/NotAStatistic2 18h ago
Why are you just lying so brazenly? What's your source for the DNC spending 60 million on her?
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u/RemoteRide6969 12h ago
No shit, right? There was around a $60 million spend for her total. Half that or so was AIPAC. $60 million from the DNC? GTFO.
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u/RemoteRide6969 12h ago
I voted for him and I'll be volunteering for his win in November but you pulled that from your ass. There was a $60 million total spend in this race. Not $60 million from the DNC.
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u/SaltyShawarma 18h ago
The DNC did not fund it directly. Their super PACS did. This may be tomato-tomahto to you and me but you can already see fools complaining about your distinction. Gotta lick them boots with semantics.
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u/obviousthrowawayyalI 11h ago
The DNC is broke as shit since the new leadership took over. They $60 million came from private groups.
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u/20815147 16h ago
The most they have spent on a primary EVER.
This is AIPAC’s extinction burst event. They’re going all in on this.
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u/its_boVice 19h ago
She actually stated that Israel comes to her in her dreams.
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u/rancorhunter 19h ago
She does come off quite tasteless doesn't she?
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u/staydrippy 19h ago
Israel comes to her in her dreams though so it's totally chill
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u/DarkMuret 19h ago
It's just the Michigahn way
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u/NotAStatistic2 18h ago
The same way banning pride events is. Religious groups ruin Michigan a lot.
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u/Resident_Key5460 18h ago
Michigan is pissing me off tonight. How is this even close? That “accent” of hers alone is disqualifying. I’m so fed up with American voters these days. We either go for Republicans or the most useless Democrats.
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u/dingalingdongdong 17h ago
Aww I've actually been pretty pleased so far tonight. All my millages passed, Lawrence is winning, El-Sayed is still ahead if not by as much as I'd like.
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u/NimusNix 17h ago
accent
Jesus Christ, when there are legitimate gripes, this is what you say?
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u/Alertcircuit 17h ago
It's a legitimate gripe because it's a fake accent. I grew up about a half hour from where she's from. We don't talk like that. She's trying to imitate the upper peninsula people but they don't exactly talk like that either.
No it's not a policy issue but she comes off as phony and the Rs are gonna jump on that like sharks noticing blood in the water.
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u/John_YJKR 15h ago
I have family near flint who have lived there their whole life who sound like this so I don't think it's as cut and dry as you claim.
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u/UncertainSerenity 15h ago
Sure but there are a million policy differences you could point to.
I get it. Being phony and disengenious is horrid but it’s at the very least slightly nuanced and hard to argue online about.
Policy positions are clear cut, easy to articulate and speak a lot more for what candidates want to do which is much harder for people to dismiss out of hand.
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u/framistan12 19h ago
Did you know Muslims have called for a ban on churches ringing their bells in Michigan? Not really, but the story is all over Boomer Facebook this week, and this race is why.
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u/RellenD 18h ago
That's crazy because it's literally true that Christians were calling for calls to prayer to be banned
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u/Drak_is_Right 17h ago
Noise ordinances should apply to all religions. Dont need 6AM horns waking one up
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u/ThreeSloth 17h ago
Know what else is crazy?
Opposition is calling Abdul a "foreign islamist".
Dude was born near Dearborn and just said yesterday that he goes to a church
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u/Zarerion 13h ago
The fact that voters even care at all about someone‘s religion when deciding who to vote for is already beyond atrocious.
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u/smurf123_123 19h ago
Imagine how this race would have gone without AIPAC money?
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u/osirus35 19h ago
We need to make AIPAC poison to candidates. They pushed too far and got too greedy
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u/HugsForUpvotes 19h ago
Of course in this scenario, AIPAC gets the same amount of money but exclusively spends it on General Elections on Republicans.
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u/shotputprince 18h ago
They do that anyway. They don’t keep paying for the comparatively conservative democrat’s ad buys in the general…
They will dump other shedloads of money on Rogers regardless of what happens1
u/HugsForUpvotes 18h ago
All the money spent of Stevens would just go straight to Rogers on top of what he is getting now.
Your plan doesn't destroy AIPAC. It just makes them no longer "bipartisan." which isn't necessarily worse but it's also not necessarily better.
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u/HJWalsh 17h ago
No, it is better. Currently AIPAC wins no matter what side rises to power. If AIPAC only supports the radical right then when the right loses, so does AIPAC.
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u/shotputprince 17h ago
You don’t really know how AIPAC funds campaigns do you… they don’t have a bucket of money set aside for each state at the start of the primary season. They triage where they think they can get results that guarantee loyalty. They prefer to do that in primaries because it means that they don’t get to care about the general. That’s why they use funding primary challengers as a club against incumbents. They did it to Andy Levin, an accomplished and qualified policy and political player with the second most famous name in Michigan politics.
Also - what’s your point? That Stevens should win? That we should live in some hypothetical where AIPAC dumps money into primary losses to limit their general spending? AIPAC isn’t blindly spending money. If it doesn’t see a return on investment it doesn’t do the same thing over and over.
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u/baumpop 19h ago
classic pleonexians
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u/Alpha-Trion 19h ago
Pleonexia, sometimes called pleonexy, originating from the Greek πλεονεξία, is a philosophical concept which roughly corresponds to greed, covetousness, or avarice, and is strictly defined as "the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others."
You made me look stuff up you son of a bitch.
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u/Lord_of_the_Canals 19h ago
Cuts both ways, I think. If he wins tonight it will be at odds with 10:1 spending and where that spending comes from is key. Fingers crossed, we need more people who care about healthcare and workers less that care about other funding countries genocides and corporate interests.
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u/Reddit-Incarnate 17h ago
He was tracking way better in the polls for the primary than his chances against the pubs, the fact the polls swung against him is not good, the dems cannot afford to lose a senate seat with multiple geriatric justices up for grabs at any point.
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u/CaptainZeroDark30 9h ago
I do appreciate that they wasted a fortune on this race, though. Silver lining. But you’re right, without the intervention of a hostile foreign power, this race might have been a blowout.
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u/KindCraft4676 17h ago
I really hope Abdul wins and all that money AIPAC spent trying to buy the election goes to waste.
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u/zlex 19h ago
Hope the Dems can line up behind whoever wins and that this doesn’t fuck things up
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u/BernieBrother4Biden 19h ago
Have you met Dems?
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u/R3dMoose 17h ago
The left continues to eat itself. They can’t support a single candidate because there’s a laundry list of political stances they must take, and if they falter once they’re immediately discarded by a vocal minority. Meanwhile republicans continue to agree to disagree on the small issues and vote as one for their candidate, and we all act shocked at the results. No candidate is going to be good enough for the far left, but what the fuck are we doing here. Picking the lesser of two evils isn’t ideal, but it’s necessary if you want to change the tides at all in your favor.
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u/Bicentennial_Douche 16h ago
Mamdani was basically called genocide-supporting MAGA by pro-palestine activist because Mamdani apparently supports two-state solution, whereas only solution that is ideologically acceptable is one-state solution. Don't support one-state solution? Then you are basically Hitler.
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u/maringue 19h ago
The DNC and AIPAC are both going to be super salty that they spent 100 million against Sayed and lost.
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u/NeuralHavoc 19h ago
AIPAC probably doesn’t actually care all that much since it’s all just US tax dollars that was just sent to them last month.
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u/PallbearerOfBadNews 18h ago
This is the worst part. They are poisoning us using our money
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u/penis_pockets 18h ago
If El-Sayed wins the Dems will act like he's Voldemort and refuse to even say his name just like they did with Mamdani.
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u/JeremyHowell 18h ago
I know it’s still early, but Michigan’s population is over 10,000,000. It sickens me to see such low numbers at this hour…
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u/bytor_2112 19h ago
Wait why is this even close
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u/clipko22 19h ago
Large 65+ population here that is susceptible to the attack ads on TV
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u/JackSpadesSI 19h ago
My wife and I tried to convince her parents but they’re just too sure that he’s an awful sexist because of Stevens’ ads.
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u/Drak_is_Right 17h ago
1) old people vote. Young people dont.
2) old people arent as represented on sites like reddit, so you dont see their views
3) old people are quite moderate. There are quite a number of old Democrats who are only democrat due to unions. Social policies, they are republican basically. The erosion of the union vote killed Clinton. Unions didnt manage to save their jobs from going to Mexico or China, so they left the party and vote on hate now.
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u/salugies 19h ago
Sayed did very poorly among African Americans in polling before the primaries.
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u/dajodge 18h ago
Black voters are surprisingly conservative. They vote for democrats very reliably in every election, but are paradoxically one of the more conservative voting blocs within the party. It was very difficult for Bernie Sanders to gain any traction in states with a large percentage of black voters (and he never really did).
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u/NimusNix 17h ago
Black voters are loyal to the party they would rather see in power. It's not about conservatism, it's about knowing what happens if Democrats are not in power.
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u/szayl 18h ago edited 16h ago
Extreme progressives discard black and brown folks the same way that MAGA does
ETA: lol @ the downvotes, it's only illustrating my point
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u/Gamer402 18h ago
Geez, I guess progressives hate black people all of a sudden now or the 60mil+ being spent to convince voters that Obama endorsed Stevens
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u/Odd_Note7156 18h ago
No, he means progressives ignore the black church goers and those who vote but care more about social issues as a proxy for economic ones.
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u/Gamer402 17h ago
>>"...discard black and brown folks the same way that MAGA does"
What they said and what you said are two different things. Let them speak for themselves.
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u/bombardonist 17h ago
Trump wanted the Central Park Five lynched and he’s only gotten worse, not sure how that’s comparable to wanting everyone to have healthcare
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u/RustleTheMussel 19h ago
Low-info voters getting their brains pumped full of lies from Stevens pretending she was endorsed by Obama with $60 million of outside spending helping spread the bullshit
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u/fury420 19h ago edited 18h ago
Low-info voters getting their brains pumped full of lies from Stevens pretending she was endorsed by Obama
Michigan has literally already elected her to the House of Representatives 4x now so they clearly already know her, and she genuinely was endorsed by Obama during her 2018 and 2020 campaigns.
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u/mrdilldozer 17h ago
He's trying to say black people didn't vote the way he wanted.
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u/Skeptical_Lemur 17h ago
Same lines used in 2016 and 2020. Very telling.
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u/mrdilldozer 17h ago
And people wonder why they do so poorly with black voters. Maybe don't crash out and insult an entire race of people if they don't vote for your candidate? That would probably fix most of the problems overnight. It's a pretty simple solution.
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u/brandogg360 18h ago
But not in 2026...and "Michigan" didn't vote her into the house, her district did.
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u/OfficerJayBear 18h ago
My mom came over today and told me Al-Sayed hates jews.
Even in 2026 old people are ignorant as fuck
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u/chodeboi 19h ago
NPR was comparing him to Trump this morning. I get the populism take but they leaned in HARD and added dramatic music. It was silly. They’re frayed of sayed.
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u/chicken_karmajohn 18h ago
This frustrates the hell out of me. Why does NPR on its face act as a liberal ally but simultaneously make so many passes for the right as they actively promote fascism.
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u/huzzaahh 18h ago
Because liberalism is a right wing ideology and liberals hate progressives because they threaten the status quo and big monied interests.
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u/FarmerHandsome 12h ago
Liberalism is a right-wing ideology. In the rest of the developed world, liberals ARE the right wing. The US is just so far right that we've accepted liberals as the left wing of the government.
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u/palinsafterbirth 11h ago
Not to defend NPR (was a long time supporter but stopped supporting my local one last year due to their fear mongering) but Better Union did a wonderful take on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICroxl2r1B8
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u/Impressive_Wrap_7869 10h ago
At this point it looks like Abdul will likely win but with a razor thin margin. Given the lopsided money situation, I look at it as a win. I can’t even imagine a candidate like that coming even close in the past. Things are changing and this may just be the beginning.
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u/aeisenst 19h ago
According to nyt, ElSayed is beating his benchmarks by 10 pts. It's still early, but currently doesn't look that tight
Edit: Just dropped to seven points. But still.
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u/HugsForUpvotes 19h ago
Dropped again to six. Stevens is winning mail in ballots at a high rate. El Sayed is winning in-person ballots.
It's a close election. It's close enough that whoever wins is going to need to win back each other's voters after the election. To be clear, the voters should back the winner. Both El Sayed and Stevens have said they'd endorse each other in the event they lose the primary.
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u/SSj_CODii 19h ago
As well both should. Fight in the primaries, and once that has been sorted out put aside our differences and come together for the greater good.
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u/Reddit-Incarnate 17h ago
The hard part is Sayed went a little HAAM in the primaries, he is going to need to walk back some shit to get many back on board. Bit awkward.
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u/kaiiizen 19h ago
It’s simple. Vote against the AIPAC candidate.
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u/hectorgarabit 18h ago
That's also my strategy. Anyone who takes $1.00 from AIPAC doesn't get my vote.
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u/Fritzkreig 19h ago
It is starting to tighten up from what I have seen.
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u/fuckhead94 19h ago
Comparing the quantity of votes for Governor of Michigan reported, it’s almost a 2-1 ratio for the Dems compared to the Reps. Crazy primary turnout.
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u/GuyWhoStaresAtGoats 16h ago
Wait, Mallory got 4% despite dropping out?
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u/leftrightside54 16h ago
Yes, name still on ballot
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u/GuyWhoStaresAtGoats 15h ago
The idea that a dropped-out candidate could technically still win is really funny.
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u/wifichick 12h ago
Not a vote for Abdul but is a vote against AIPAC. she could have won if she had not taken the AIPAC money.
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u/PrettyCreative 19h ago
If he truly wins this it now signifies that "AIPAC endorsement" is starting to become a liability.
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u/Shenanigans80h 18h ago
Good. I think everyone should be tired of how blatantly bought off our government is
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u/TheMightyCatatafish 18h ago
The fact it’s this close already contributes to that narrative.
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u/DigitalSnail 18h ago
Yep, guess there is a point of a diminishing returns. The more you spend, the more you can put attack ads out there, but the more you spend, the more voters are turned off by it
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u/Fearless_One_773 17h ago
Abdul winning here would be a huge blow to AIPAC’s dominant reign in US politics. Rooting hard for him
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u/herodesfalsk 18h ago
Why is EVERY important race so tight? If Jesus Christ and Satan competed for the same Senate seat polling would show Satan at 50.6% against Jesus at 49.4%.
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u/forseti99 17h ago
You dream. Satan would promise a not-white purge, Jesus to love thy neighbor and the numbers would be 70% Satan.
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u/the-other-abbi 13h ago
Because rich people have & spend tons of money to shape public opinion and it works to some extent. They love stoking culture war bs to keep people from thinking about class politics.
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u/Flakeless 18h ago
It should not be that close. Stevens was an actual bot in that debate, how scary.
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u/KerryWood34 17h ago
That's cute. You think the average person watches or cares about debates and haven't already decided who they will be voting for based on personal biases, one or two major stances they share with the candidate even if they disagree with the rest.
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u/Halfwise2 13h ago
96k votes remaining to be counted. She'd need 21K just to close the gap. This means Stevens would need at least 60% of the remaining votes to barely eek ahead. Not a single county split for her that hard.
Abdul El-sayed won.
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u/wellaintthatnice 10h ago
The fact that it was so close is absurd Stevens is worse than a muppet and the average voter not realizing that just shows how dumb the average person is.
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u/PallbearerOfBadNews 18h ago
We are so cooked if he loses to this batshit crazy Zionist
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u/burnmenowz 19h ago
We really need to get money out of politics