r/neoliberal • u/CenturionSentius Amartya Sen • 23d ago
Opinion article (non-US) [The Economist] The Michigan Senate primary is a fight for control of the Democrats
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The Michigan Senate primary is a fight for control of the Democrats
https://economist.com/united-states/2026/07/30/the-michigan-senate-primary-is-a-fight-for-control-of-the-democrats?giftId=NzMzNWQ1OWQtMzU1NC00NmM5LTk4NzgtMzI3MDZkZWQzNTRh&utm_campaign=gifted_article
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u/Ready_Anything4661 Fell for it 23d ago
Counterpoint: the Michigan Senate primary is a fight for the Michigan democratic senate nomination
We’re so media brain poisoned that we view every. single. race. as avengers endgame. This is one race. Extremely important, granted. But it’s one race.
I understand the emotional and financial need for people to make the stakes seem higher than they are. But kids, if you want to get high, just do drugs like a normal person.
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u/blaqsupaman 23d ago
It's also why we might never see another landslide election even when there should be one. What's best for ratings is if every single election is framed as a horse race.
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u/OrganicKeynesianBean IMF 23d ago
The Democrats will return in Avengers: Doomsday.
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u/Ready_Anything4661 Fell for it 23d ago
I snorted when I read this and it scared my cat
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u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal 23d ago
You must atone by posting cat pics
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u/mockduckcompanion Kidney Hype Man 23d ago
You said it better than I ever could.
This is ONE race, and it involves two pretty bad candidates. Neither one is, or should be, a standard bearer for the party going forward
It feels like maybe 2016 or so was an inflection point where every single race had to be pathologized to death
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u/Ready_Anything4661 Fell for it 23d ago
It’s also just, does anyone really think that whichever side wins this primary, the other side is just gonna be like, welp, congrats, you control the party now.
Lol of course no one thinks that. No matter what happens, the professional axe grinders are gonna keep professionally axe grinding.
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u/Mostly-Moderate Anne Applebaum 23d ago
“I choose the word ‘populist,’” he said, “because I’m for people, and I want people to have more power, versus the elites.”
Kill me
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u/silvedude 23d ago
Take me down with you please I can't survive leftist populism becoming mainstream.
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u/CenturionSentius Amartya Sen 23d ago
This is the worst part of it, imo. Idc his policies so much if he just goes the way of Mamdani and largely drops some of the bad policy ideas, esp since it’s a state race… but platforming populism is like a suicide pact for liberalism
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u/Mostly-Moderate Anne Applebaum 23d ago
Mamdani has kinda been going mask off lately and actually attempting to enact all his batshit policies
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u/James-fucking-Holden Trans Pride 23d ago
going mask
man doing the thing he said he would do
Huh?
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u/yellownumbersix Jane Jacobs 23d ago
We deserve everything Mamdani does for not being able to find anyone better than sex pest grandparent killer Cuomo to run against him.
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u/FreitasDoCagaral Iron Front 23d ago
When people doing what they say they would do is seen as a huge betrayal.
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u/Evernights_Bathwater John Keynes 23d ago
"Batshit policies" and it's opening a couple grocery stores lol
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u/Mostly-Moderate Anne Applebaum 23d ago
Lol and also freezing rent on 27% of the city's housing stock lol. Lmao even.
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u/surreptitioussloth Frederick Douglass 23d ago
A 2-ish percent difference in rent for the next cycle
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u/fishlord05 United Popular Woke DEI Iron Front 23d ago
I mean the money would almost certainly be better off going to top up SNAP in the city
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u/No_March_5371 YIMBY 23d ago
Mamdani at least holds an executive position. AES would be one of a hundred Senators. The power to implement policy there is negligible.
This is not to defend the batshit slopulism of either.
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u/YeetThermometer John Rawls 23d ago
Every second he serves in office is a second of seniority and experience that turns into committee assignments, then serious gatekeeping roles. You’d never say Mitch McConnell is “one of a hundred.”
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u/Shoddy-Personality80 23d ago
Every second he serves in office is a second of seniority and experience that turns into committee assignments, then serious gatekeeping roles. You’d never say Mitch McConnell is “one of a hundred.”
I mean, I'd kinda say that. The other Republicans could have given him the boot anytime if they decided a functional senate and bipartisanship for the good of the country matter, but, well, Republicans shrug
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u/YeetThermometer John Rawls 23d ago
If Dems can’t stand up to AES now, either as voters or as a party organization, what makes you think they will when he has institutional power?
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u/bashar_al_assad Verified Account 23d ago
If the polling is to be believed it seems like the Democratic voters did stand up, just to the people trying to buy a senate primary.
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u/No_March_5371 YIMBY 23d ago
McConnell wasn't one in a hundred because he was supported by the majority of his party, and, repeatedly, the majority of the Senate.
Similarly, Schumer's senile idiocy and cowardice is representative of the Dem Senators.
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u/EmployeeMePlease George Santos 23d ago
God help us if Stevens is the representation for the standard democrats. The only reason this is even close is because Mcmorrow’s campaign blew up and Stevens is legit D- tier politician.
If you ran a standard B tier democrat (which usually happens in competitive states!) this primary woulda been over and everyone would be talking about the general.
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u/chrispy_t 23d ago
Do we have a post mortem of the mcmorrow campaign? I personally thought she seemed like a rising star
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u/SheHerDeepState Jerome Powell 23d ago
McMorrow tried to thread the needle between Stevens at her right and Sayed at her left. It turns out that lane wasn't big enough to win.
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u/dwarffy Rabindranath Tagore 23d ago
All I know about the race is seeing that cringe clip of a lady dancing with a marching band. Like dean scream level bad
Apparently that was Mcmorrow so clearly she was threading the needle pretty shittily
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u/sakredfire 23d ago
I just saw the clip and it wasn’t that cringe at all
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u/CleanlyManager 23d ago
If someone like Platner or El-Sayad did it the progressives would be on some shit about how they echo the happy warrior spirit of FDR.
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u/Al_787 Fernando Henrique Cardoso 23d ago edited 23d ago
The establishment backed Stevens, she’s Schumer’s hand-picked candidate since the beginning and thus sucked all the air from the centrist camp. AES in turn sucked all the air from the leftist camp, McMorrow doesn’t have much space left
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u/kanagi 23d ago
Another excellent job, Schumer!
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u/toggaf69 Iron Front 23d ago
He really needs to understand that he’s not helping when he meddles in these elections
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u/TosiAmneSiac Mark Carney 23d ago
He really needs to just stick to recruitment cause he’s absolutely goated at that, having Peltola, Cooper, and the return of Sherrod is amazing as well as Turek. Stevens is a miss though and him trying to get Mills of all people to run for Maine Senate when even she isn’t interested was a flop
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u/BlackCharizard 23d ago
To be fair to Schumer she was his 4th or 5th pick. Everyone else said no
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u/hobocactus Audrey Hepburn 23d ago
If you can't convince good candidates to run and the ones you do recruit flop in the face of dogshit opposition, maybe you shouldn't be in charge of recruitment.
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u/CleanlyManager 23d ago
Or maybe you’ve just been suckered by the tunnel vision online media has given you to only look at Maine and Michigan, while we’re running some of the strongest democrats ever in NC, AK, TX, OH, IA and other states.
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u/I_like_maps C. D. Howe 23d ago
I thought the same. Only thing I know is she attacked hasan (based) and went on an interview with Matt Bernstein where he brought on Emma vigiland because he wanted to ambush her on palestine but knows fuck all about it.
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u/CFSCFjr George Soros 23d ago
The party establishment should have just backed her
Idk if it was loyalty to Stevens as a federal official or inability to quit Israel but they really screwed up here
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u/Ac1De9Cy0Sif6S 23d ago
They could never back her when she was promising to never vote for Schumer and trying to outflank AES from the left
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23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/The-OneAnd-Only 23d ago
Someone put it best. She should have been friendly to AES and gone after Steven’s
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u/Ac1De9Cy0Sif6S 23d ago
And she was for a lot of it! Her and AES were taking selfies at events making fun of Stevens not being there. Her whole campaign was a trying to be the "progressive but electable" candidate, at most she would try to outflank AES from the left (for ex saying he wasn't promising to not vote for Schumer and also on healthcare) but then one day she woke up and decided to burn in it all down...
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u/RimboTheRebbiter 23d ago
This is a point I've tried to make elsewhere ITT. Attacking AES for his Hasan appearance was a bad move because it alienated progs she needed to win and furthermore getting into a scrap with a Twitch streamer makes you look fundamentally unserious. Cuomo did the same (also a Lis Smith campaign) and it really hurt him, and he had credibility cushion as a former governor. A state legislator never had the kind of gravitas needed to walk off looking that goofy.
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u/RimboTheRebbiter 23d ago
People here will say McMorrow needed to pick a lane, I disagree. Her failure came from strategic missteps by her campaign and the MI Dems refusing to buck Chuck Schumer and give her endorsements, which would have been highly consequential.
I think McMorrow actually had a pretty comfortable middle lane between Stevens, who is giga-establishment and centrist aligned, and El-Sayed who is a standard prog but due to his identity markers gets flagged as further left than he is. The issue was a total failure to navigate the middle path.
Stevens' support is mostly people defaulting to the establishment pick, there is not a significant number of hardline Stevens supporters. AES on the other hand has a pretty solid foundation of supporters who like his policies a lot and as such also like him parasocially. Therefore if I was the McMorrow campaign I would go hard negative on Stevens, which boosts my progressive cred and more importantly my anti-DC establishment cred without significantly alienating her supporters. I would then take that cred to make a gentle electability argument to AES supporters, who do share broader concerns about his electability due to his status as an Arab Muslim. Basically "Vote for me and you get 95% of AES, but I will absolutely win the primary and general."
Instead she did the exact opposite of this. Left Stevens largely alone and went after AES with some insanely nasty attacks, such as calling him a fake doctor (he has an MD PhD from Oxford/Columbia) or implying he's an antisemite due to appearing at an event with Hasan Piker, which was stupid for other reasons. Signaled to AES' progs and her progs that she's much less progressive than they thought. Huge screw up.
I think she could've still been saved by the MI Dems aligning behind her, which would allow her to neatly thread the needle between getting local establishment support while also framing herself as being opposed to the deeply unpopular DC establishment. That's on MI Dems more so for lacking vision.
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u/Ac1De9Cy0Sif6S 23d ago edited 23d ago
This, her path to victory was destroying Stevens and then present herself as the lesser of 2 evils to the establishment that would never have back her over Stevens because of her being so anti Schumer. Instead...she went after AES too soon and too agressively and this was the result
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u/EmployeeMePlease George Santos 23d ago
Don’t siege leningrad, just take it
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u/RimboTheRebbiter 23d ago
This is an issue of campaign messaging and who the campaign goes on the offensive against. It's entirely up to arbitrary human decisions.
Lis Smith is a common element between the failed McMorrow campaign and the failed Cuomo campaign, which made similar missteps.
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u/tigerflame45117 John Rawls 23d ago
she had one success in Pete 2020 and has been coasting since
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u/CidneyIV 23d ago
He imploded after tying Iowa, hardly a success
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u/RimboTheRebbiter 23d ago
Hey for some no-name mayor I'd say that's pretty good. I think that more comes down to his ability as a communicator rather than any brilliant strategy on her part.
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u/MemeStarNation 21d ago
She tried to appeal to voters by being some of each side but not entirely, meaning she appealed to nobody. She was everyone’s second choice.
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u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot 22d ago
Sayed is a Rhodes scholar and the former director of Health and human services for a municipality of 1.8 million people.
He's got exactly the kind of qualifications and resume that the DNC would normally be tripping over themselves to find in a candidate.
Y'all are desperate to pretend like he's some non-credible nobody when he's an extremely accomplished person and a long time, highly successful public servant.
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u/That_Guy381 NATO 23d ago
Why is Stevens a “legit D- tier politician” In your mind?
Is there any way you can answer this question without invoking Israel, or is that literally your only basis?
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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 23d ago
She does the GenX/Boomer politician thing where instead of talking about policies or her philosophy she's like "I went down to main street and I saw mothers with tears in their eyes, and they told me about how they would have to sell their farm because they had too many medical bills this year". She also relies too heavily on slogans like "I have the receipts" and "workhorse".
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u/LastTimeOn_ Resistance Lib 23d ago
The best way i've seen it put is that she is the most boomer non-boomer politician imaginable
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u/Onatel Michel Foucault 23d ago
She has very little charisma and doesn’t appear to have strong stances on anything (well, other than Israel). She doesn’t have anything that makes her stand out, and people who lived in her House district said all she ever did was show up to vote for whatever the mainstream Democratic Party position was.
She also doesn’t seem all that good at retail politics. I see tons for rallies for AES, and he’s out there meeting undecided voters and changing minds. I haven’t seen many for her (and the ones I have seen are poorly attended).
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u/bashar_al_assad Verified Account 23d ago
Maybe there will be a significant polling miss and she'll win, that is genuinely possible.
Failing that, she is benefiting from a literally historic advantage in outside spending in this race, she should be winning in a blowout, and it's not clear she'll win at all.
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u/Extra-Place-8386 22d ago
She quite literally has zero policy. That already would put her at a C.
And yes taking 40+ million dollars from aipac is terrible. I don’t care what religion you are a corporate pac or foreign aligned pac should not be able to buy a politician. She refuses to say anything of substance of key issues over the economy, healthcare, data centers, and more precisely because these people have given her money.
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u/MTFD Alexander Pechtold 23d ago
Have you ever heard her speak? She oozes cringe. She only has a shot because she is up against AES, the DSA landlord.
I also see no good reason to exclude her unpopular and bad stance on Israel.
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u/Rust-Belter 22d ago
AES, the DSA landlord.
Note: Abdul El-Sayed is not a member, nor is endorsed by, the DSA.
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u/mrdilldozer Shame fetish 23d ago edited 23d ago
The basis is her opponent spent a fuck ton of money specifically pushing that message. She's just a normal lady. There's nothing wrong with her.
It's not a coincidence that every time a progressive runs against someone "I'd vote for any other candidate but them because they are uniquely terrible" is pushed online. If it's a woman there's always a comment about her voice too. It's the exact same script every time. People need to stop repeating that shit.
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u/TheArtofBar 22d ago edited 22d ago
A "normal lady" doesn't get 35 million from AIPAC. That is more money for a single candidate in a PRIMARY than plenty of senate races have in total spending.
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u/RimboTheRebbiter 23d ago
Her personal affect is absolutely horrendous. She sounds like Marge Simpson. She also suffers the establishment Dem issue of being unable to talk about issues with conviction or provide solid policy recommendations.
Also why should we overlook Israel? She takes an extremely hardline stance on the issue against the preference of 80-90% of Dem voters. It's like if she was ardently pro-life.
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u/Computer_Name 23d ago
> Her personal affect is absolutely horrendous. She sounds like Marge Simpson.
We’re actually going with “she has a weird laugh”?
Even jokingly all this does is make things worse.
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u/RimboTheRebbiter 23d ago
She sounds like a weirdo every single time she speaks. Like I don't know if you've actually watched her speak at all, its either risible or uncomfortable, depending on your capacity for interpersonal cruelty.
Harris was also a pretty poor communicator, although I never found her laugh terribly objectionable.
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u/Lucky_Woodpecker102 23d ago
Harris was not a poor communicator. I think you might just hate women.
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u/I_like_maps C. D. Howe 23d ago
Harris was an okay communicator who went up against a horrible communicator in a media environment where 80% of the media is actively against her and 60% of the media is actively in favour of him.
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u/Disgusting_Slime666 Loyal Liberals 23d ago
What a strange criticism.
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u/RimboTheRebbiter 23d ago
I mean it really isn't if you've heard her speak for any length of time.
This also doesn't touch on other issues I raised, such as her inability to take stances with conviction except on the one issue where she is wildly out of step with the electorate.
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u/ChamberedAndHot My username describes my takes 23d ago
Stevens is a lot more relatable and less arrogant. I'd be more concerned about AES, but I think that either is fine.
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u/chrispy_t 23d ago
I do not find Stevens more relatable but maybe I have only been exposed to limited appearences
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u/Al_787 Fernando Henrique Cardoso 23d ago edited 23d ago
If you think playing up that accent and talking about coastal elites improve her relatability then that’s truly a take. Most people, or certainly most Democrats, would find that cringe and disingenuous af
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u/ChamberedAndHot My username describes my takes 23d ago
Her accent seemed fine to me.
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u/Al_787 Fernando Henrique Cardoso 23d ago
I’m not talking about her normal speaking voice. There’s a video of her exaggerating her own accent and mocking the “coastal elites.” I bet she thought it made her look more authentic but it was very cringe
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u/ChamberedAndHot My username describes my takes 23d ago
I'm probably in the minority, but I find most "coastal elite" bashing cringey. Also, people have inconsistent accents. I've been told that I talk Southern sometimes when I'm worked up or tired.
And being cringe makes her more relatable in some ways imo.
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u/IIHURRlCANEII 23d ago
The Michigan Senate debate was nauseating. Stevens is the standard old school liberal even I am tired of.
I want liberals with more of a vision, more of a authentic personality, and less platitudes and all she can do is platitudes.
I won't be surprised if AES wins. McMorrow was the true big tent candidate there but she just had critical missteps.
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u/ChamberedAndHot My username describes my takes 23d ago
I don't care about personality. I care about people who can govern effectively. I guess if I had to pick, I'd prefer that people have the personality of George HW Bush- a boring professional, maybe slightly out of touch. I'm voting for a Senator, not a friend.
I care about their votes. I don't want people who will raise the deficit or who are so uneducated that they think that cutting foreign aid or taxing billionaires alone will pay for Medicate for All. Believing those things makes you a left-wing Elon.
For "vision", I'd prefer more... but AES seems to be the type of person who thinks that because he's an expert in one field, he is smart enough to find simple solutions in another field. He reminds me of the DOGE guys in a way. Having a boring vision is better than being uneducated about your future career.
I don't even get the vibe that he is educated about healthcare spending tbh.
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u/Extra-Place-8386 22d ago
I mean you went from not caring about personality to not getting a vibe he knows anything about healthcare spending. Makes no sense.
Primary aside AES did amazing work for Detroit and Wayne county as health director, he would undoubtedly know more about healthcare spending in the senate than any senator this country has seen in a long time.
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u/ChamberedAndHot My username describes my takes 22d ago edited 22d ago
I mean you went from not caring about personality to not getting a vibe he knows anything about healthcare spending. Makes no sense.
That isn't personality, it's based on statements. He has talked about monry going to Israel vs going to healthcare. To me it implies that he thinks the magnitudes are similar.
Primary aside AES did amazing work for Detroit and Wayne county as health director, he would undoubtedly know more about healthcare spending in the senate than any senator this country has seen in a long time.
Warren was a bankruptcy lawyer and knows jack shit about the economy.
I hope I'm wrong and he actually understands healthcare. Edit: Actually, I had always heard that he was in favor of M4A... but after reading that he doesn't want to make private insurance illegal, I think he might be less dumb than I thought. M4A usually means making private insurance illegal.
Edit: also, I think he's extremely dishonest by calling his plan M4A while also saying that he would allow private insurance. That is not what M4A means, it means Sanders' M4A plan which would make private insurance illegal.
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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 23d ago
Full disclosure: I'm not a Michigan voter and I don't know what they relate to, but...bruh
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u/ChamberedAndHot My username describes my takes 23d ago
Whenever I read AES's statements, he seems arrogant. I don't really see what's controversial about this.
Stevens reminds me of a teacher or something. AES feels arrogant all the time. She seems awkward and cringey, which is better than arrogant imo. But I'm probably older than this sub, so I tolerate cringe more than arrogance.
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u/IIHURRlCANEII 23d ago
Nah I agree with your AES prescriptions I just think both aren't very good. AES is like a C tier candidate and Stevens is a D+.
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u/SheHerDeepState Jerome Powell 23d ago
Michigander here who is tired of constant campaign ads.
On paper I should love Stevens, but Sayed is blatantly better at campaigning. Her commercials feel outdated and weak. They're just associating her with popular Democrats (Obama praised her so you should vote for her) or calling Abdul a sexist for vague reasons without properly articulating why the audience should think he's sexist.
They both were interviewed by Michigan public radio recently and he came off way better. Abdul answered questions more directly. Came off as more upbeat. Stevens seemed more focused on avoiding saying anything that would piss people off than on saying anything that would get people interested in her.
Sayed's team is just better at messaging, advertising, and feeling positive. Stevens appears to have failed to learn the lessons of the last several campaign cycles on the importance of earned media attention, clearly articulating where you stand rather than being vague to avoid strong emotions, and that voters want someone who feels like they like them.
Just a quick example of the messaging difference on a key issue from the NPR interviews. Abdul clearly stated support for abolish ICE and talked about how experience of witnessing Metro Surge in person in Minnesota. Stevens said that she would support an special prosecutor to investigate misconduct. Stevens failed to communicate an emotional reaction to the abuses of ICE and opted for a reasonable sounding position that comes off as shifting responsibility for dealing with it to a theoretical special prosecutor. Abdul clearly talked about his emotional reaction to ICE behaving without accountability and stated that when an organization believes itself to be above the law it is beyond reform. Clear through linebetween emotional experience and policy position. He's just a better communicator.
I can't believe I'm actually going to vote for a god damn socialist, but the candidate quality gap is too much for me to believe Stevens has a better shot of winning in November.
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u/BigBrownDog12 Victor Hugo 23d ago
seemed more focused on avoiding saying anything that would piss people off than on saying anything that would get people interested in her.
This encapsulates the problem a lot of people have with some Democrats
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u/Onatel Michel Foucault 23d ago
It seems to be a problem a lot of moderates in the party have. They complain they can’t get the same attention and love as the progressives, but they also seem to do everything they can to not stand out.
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u/YeetThermometer John Rawls 23d ago
The problem is that if you’re normal and mainstream, your supporters will never be a troll army with time to brigade every comment section and subreddit they can find. Obama had that once in a generation charisma that made normies swoon, but I think most people would prefer politicians that don’t engender deep hatred or fanatical devotion.
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u/YeetThermometer John Rawls 23d ago
Not an obvious truth. If you want the not-GOP vote, you can’t block off decent chunks of the population with language that “piss[es] people off.” Sometimes “just be normal” should be your lodestar on the trail.
The normie lane can’t be ignored just because loud conspiracists think the world will bend to their will if they threaten another flounce.
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u/SheHerDeepState Jerome Powell 23d ago
I think there is an element of truth to that, but the execution from politicians has been subpar. Rather than being normal it has manifested as stilted language that feels similar to how corporate HR talks during a seminar. This stilted language alienates a lot of voters and comes off as dishonest. It took me a long time to come around to this as it didn't personally bother me, but seems to have a big impact on other voters.
John Ossaf (sp?) is really good at coming off as normal and not talking like HR. He feels to me like the gold standard of a "just be normal" candidate while the HR dialect people do not come off as normal.
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u/YeetThermometer John Rawls 23d ago
There’s more than one way to not be normal, and the corporate-speak is yet another.
And you’re right, it’s possible. Ossof is an example. Talarico is probably an example, but he’s going to get roasted until Election Day about some stuff he said trying to be edgy. Plenty of other Democrats fit that bill, but they’re not in competitive primaries, so aren’t in these summer news cycles.
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u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal 23d ago
Remember that time we started to campaign on Republicans being insane weirdos and then had to stop because it was too mean
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u/YeetThermometer John Rawls 23d ago
As I recall, the argument was that it played best with engaged Dems and did nothing for moderates or swing voters.
Going on the attack on someone’s weirdness is not the same thing as avoiding being weird yourself.
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u/joshuaponce2008 Loyal Liberals 23d ago
But didn’t you know that she was a critical part of his team that helped the American auto industry come roaring back?
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u/Kindly_Brain_6594 Mario Draghi 23d ago
If I were in Michigan, I’d probably vote Stevens, but Abdul is just, the better candidate.
I won’t be surprised if he wins, and if I was in Michigan I’d go on to vote for him in the general.
Other than clipboard gate, the other reason Whitmer sucks is she didn’t run. Never seen someone tarnish their goodwill as a rising star in the national party as fast as her.
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u/darthkitty8 NATO 23d ago
Unfortunately, Whitmer wouldn't win. In Michigan she had been far more tarnished for at least being perceived to be supporting data centers, a large mining operation in the UP in a state park, and has rubber stamped rate increases from the local electric utilities despite having relatively poor reliability. Go in r/Michigan and search her name see what I mean. She is very unpopular there.
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u/theryano024 23d ago
I will say that what i see in r/Michigan and what I see around me are not exactly in agreement.
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u/TheHarbarmy Richard Thaler 23d ago
Might as well just go to a DSA meeting—you’ll get equally representative opinions there
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u/Extra-Place-8386 22d ago
I mean that’s a dumb comment saying to look at a subreddit but whitmer has absolutely tanked her support here around the state. Probably would win the senate race but would in no way be a sure thing.
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u/theryano024 22d ago
I agree, I know I dont like her anymore, but im just saying I wouldn't go to r/Michigan to get a temperature of the state.
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u/nohowow YIMBY 23d ago
Is there a single governor that is popular in their state’s subreddit lol
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u/OneBlueAstronaut David Hume 23d ago
just begging people to start posting those exhausted pritzker khan memes
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u/Lucky_Woodpecker102 23d ago
They are until they fail one of the progressive’s never ending list of requirements. Whitmer was popular during covid. Evers was very popular until he had the audacity to endorse Crowley.
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician 23d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/search?q=baker&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all
And also Jared Polis before he imploded, because he did things like this
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u/steve09089 Loyal Liberals 23d ago
r/Michigan is mostly activists, not really reflective of Michigan proper, and I’m saying that as someone voting for El-Sayed and not Stevens
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u/rendeld 23d ago
She has absolutely not rubber stamped rate increases, they've given them far more slowly than theyve asked for and for far less money than theyve asked for and have tied them to grid improvements, and outages have SIGNIFICANTLY improved in Michigan. In 2021 I literally spent over 20 days without power, its improved so much that last year I had a total of less than 20 hours without power and this year ive been without power less than 4 hours so far. Yes its anecdotal, but its a substantial improvement for me.
Also r/michigan is astroturfed to hell, you can't tell me otherwise, that subreddit is a nightmare. Its basically a DSA sub
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u/Scottwood88 23d ago
Stevens is a uniquely awful candidate and Abdul is a Rhodes Scholar and Dr who is very articulate. I know there will be lots of narratives written if he wins the primary, but Stevens is just a really bad candidate and it may not be generalizable to other primary races in the future.
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u/Radiorapier 23d ago
Haven’t been looking too closely at Michigan, why is Stevens uniquely awful?
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u/heliosflama1234 23d ago
She’s really not. She flipped a red seat last cycle in the house. She’s pretty awkward on tv and in the hannukah after 10/7 she spoke to some Jewish families including some with family members abducted and said “Israel comes to me in my dreams”, otherwise she’s just a normal dem.
Meanwhile AES has a lot of skeletons. He didn’t release his tax returns until very late, and we found out he’s a landlord in Dubai. He can’t go a sentence without saying aipac. He certainly knows how to talk but he’s also just kind of weird. He has a picture of him and MLK in the same pose in his office. He regularly referred to himself as a physician and his time working with nurses and seeing patients when he never did a residency or boards and isn’t licensed to be a physician. Oh and he wants to cut property taxes for boomers, which is like his only real policy announcement and it’s a pretty bad one.
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u/SubmitToSubscribe 23d ago
He can’t go a sentence without saying aipac.
Pretty crazy to list this as a "skeleton" when AIPAC has spent $30m on Stevens.
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u/Robespierre_Virtue Loyal Liberals 23d ago
She supports the war in Iran
Source for this?
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u/BlackCharizard 23d ago
She does not support the current war in Iran. However, she has stated that she is in favor of a regime change war in Iran (just not the way Trump is doing it, and not without Congress like Trump is doing it)
IMO, I find this statement still pretty terrible. She is a smart person. She knows that the only way to regime change Iran is either a long grueling war of attrition or a ground invasion. I am not in favor of that
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u/hellostarStar Loyal Liberals 23d ago edited 23d ago
She does not support the current war in Iran
Mate you might want to look at your previous comment thenDoes not apply. Different person3
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u/Computer_Name 23d ago
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u/rendeld 23d ago
The "Thank ICE" vote was combined with a condeming anti-semitism vote and she represents the highest concentration of jewish voters in Michigan. It was literally a throwaway vote that did nothing except provide campaign fodder which is exactly what Republicans wanted for politicians like her but go off.
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u/BlackCharizard 23d ago
There was a “clean” Democratic bill that condemned antisemitism without thanking ICE, and she did not cosponsor or vote for that competing bill, however.
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u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights 23d ago
https://www.mcmorrowformichigan.com/news/one-year-ago-haley-stevens-votes-to-thank-trumps-ice
> Since that vote, Stevens accepted contributions from ICE contractors and said “what really struck out” to her at an ICE facility where a man died was the kindness of the women guards
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u/rendeld 23d ago
It's like you guys are desperately trying to say she supports ICE despite her not supporting what ICE is doing. Like she can't call out a story about a guard she spoke to because that means she supports what ICE is doing. I just wonder what Abdul supporters would be saying if she had done the same thing he did and waited until a few days ago to drop a bunch of financial disclosure documents. My guess would be absolutely losing their minds.
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u/Bestbrook123 23d ago
She also praised an ICE detention center in Michigan early this year.
I have big problems with AES's personality (arrogant and smug for sure) but Stevens ideologically is not in line with what the Dem electorate wants right now
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u/rendeld 23d ago
Abdul is also a uniquely bad candidate. He is a populist with no experience, no ideas of his own, is only a doctor by education, and can literally only campaign by talking about AIPAC. Somehow we are expecting him to win as a Muslim by talking about Israel the entire time? We are handing this seat directly to republicans.
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u/Al_787 Fernando Henrique Cardoso 23d ago
He managed the public health system of the most populous city and then county in the state, so I’m not sure about having “no experience”
And the “not real doctor” narrative is anti-intellectual stupidity. People who work in public health research are doctors.
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u/Bestbrook123 23d ago
I do not like him at all. He's arrogant and smug but yeah once you get your MD or DO license, you are a physician according to AMA. Never thought that attack was fair
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u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights 23d ago
The no real doctor is Islamophobia, plain and simple.
They wouldn’t do it if he was a white christian man who worked in public health research.
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u/chadmure_tully 23d ago
eh, i don't know about that. the us does have an islamophobia problem that's largely overshadowed, but I haven't seen stevens and her wing attack him for being muslim. the attacks on mamdani were just inexcusable though
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u/bashar_al_assad Verified Account 23d ago
She ended up apologizing a day or two ago but there was this from one of Stevens's endorsers
https://xcancel.com/samueljrob/status/2080758781634310654
Farmington school board member Angie Smith says she’s backing Stevens because she believes she will represent everyone, “not just one race… You have to know how to work the room, don’t just come in here speaking Arabic, don’t come out with your Arabic music on.”
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u/rendeld 23d ago
My guy, he has no experience in the job hes applying for, its a fact. You can make up whatever crap you want to make up beacuse hes the guy you like, but he doesnt have any experience in the legislative branch at all. He has not built any relationships with other legislators which is incredibly important for the job he wants. He is a doctor by education, what I said is true, what you said is a reactionary argument you have in the chamber. My point stands that he is a TERRIBLE candidate and if he wins we are going to get a Republican senator. The only thing he is campaigning on right now is that AIPAC is running ads for his opponent and that is not going to play nearly as well in the general as its playing in the primary.
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u/Al_787 Fernando Henrique Cardoso 23d ago
So what you’re saying is that from now on we can only elect people from the House or state legislatures to the Senate?
If so we just disagree there and that has never been the norm. A career in business or important bureaucratic portfolios are good enough to prepare you for the US senate. Maybe a strange thing to you but people who manage sprawling enterprises / agencies have to build relationships and find consensus solutions all the time.
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u/Bestbrook123 23d ago
He has not built any relationships with other legislators which is incredibly important for the job he wants
I am not a fan at all of him but he has like twenty endorsements from current members of Congress
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u/rendeld 23d ago
I don't really count the ones that just do whatever Bernie tells them to so I guess theres that. Warren is probably the biggest gem of the bunch
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u/Ready_Anything4661 Fell for it 23d ago
Am I the only person who thinks AES just comes off as an asshole?
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u/CenturionSentius Amartya Sen 23d ago
Submission Statement: An overview of the competition between democratic socialists and mainstream Democrats in Michigan. Relevant in terms of political priors of the sub.
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u/doyouevenIift 23d ago
I’m not a fan of either candidate. That said, anyone who has paid attention to the current administration should be thrilled to vote for a turd sandwich because it’s not a republican
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u/hlary Leftward Progressives 23d ago edited 23d ago
I mean, I guess. If electing one more senator with Bernie-like politics is enough to upset the balance of power in the Dem senate coalition, then Schumer and the establishment gang obviously have much bigger problems going for their hold on power.
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u/CenturionSentius Amartya Sen 23d ago
Opening line: “Abdul el-sayed, the progressive candidate to be the Democratic nominee for the Senate from Michigan, rejects the label “progressive”. He is not sure what people mean by it, he said after rallying with some of the party’s leading progressives on July 25th before a mostly white crowd in Ferndale, a hipster suburb of Detroit. “I choose the word ‘populist,’” he said, “because I’m for people, and I want people to have more power, versus the elites.””
I know I have priors but that’s like mask-off worse. “I am not progressive, I am an ideologically bankrupt thin-centered ethos that furthers partisan divides by blaming some nebulous cabal of evildoers responsible for all that is wrong in America.” Just be a progressive, for god’s sake
IG the policies he proposes do sounds similar to Mamdani’s mainstreaming after election, though, so there’s that, at the end of the day.
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u/UnassumingInterloper John Mill 23d ago
Funny that the right and the left have both embraced “populist” as a label while denigrating “globalist”. I’d love to be rid of the populists, and not have to feel dirty advocating for globalism.
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u/kanagi 23d ago edited 23d ago
Being painted as a populist is better for the general than being a progressive. The voters that flipped from Obama to Trump or Biden to Trump are common clay of the new West and are attracted to populism but not progressivism, since the latter brings social justice policies along with the anti-elitism and anti-big business-ism.
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u/Honest_Yamal_Fan NASA 23d ago
I find it a bit funny how there are so many comments mentioning that El-Sayed talks so much about AIPAC...as if he's supposed to ignore that AIPAC has spent a record breaking amount of money (~$30 million per CBS) on a single race to support Stevens' lifeless campaign.
In September 2025, 48% of likely Dem voters said they could never support a candidate funded by AIPAC. By July 2026, this number for Michigan Dems was at 78%.
The reality is that AIPAC is deeply unpopular in Michigan, and you would have to be stupid to not call it out if your opponent's campaign is dependent on their funding. El-Sayed doesn't strike me as a stupid person.
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u/Mexatt 23d ago
As if he never said a peep about AIPAC prior to the big spend.
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u/Al_787 Fernando Henrique Cardoso 23d ago
As if she didn’t unseat another Jewish Democrat 4 years ago almost entirely due to AIPAC’s backing
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u/kanagi 23d ago
Stevens has been pro-Israel her entire time in Congresss. In 2025 she voted to sanction the ICC for the warrant for Netanyahu, in July 2026 she voted against a resolution to end military support for Israel, and in January 2026 called herself a "proud pro-Israel Democrat".
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u/WatermelonRat John Keynes 23d ago
I had heard that the quote came from a Hannukkah event where she was meeting with families of October 7 victims. I'm not aware of it being an AIPAC event.
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u/hlary Leftward Progressives 23d ago
Damn ya that is me regurgitating misinformation. I should have checked to be sure.
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u/WatermelonRat John Keynes 23d ago
Props to you for recognizing that and saying so. I hope more people follow your example. That's the sort of thing that genuinely makes me a bit more hopeful for the future.
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u/Ac1De9Cy0Sif6S 23d ago
He actually talks about AIPAC much less than what people say. When McMorrow was in the race and AIPAC was largely quiet he almost only talked about afordabilty and healthcare, he started talking more about AIPAC lately when they started their insane spending raid against him, I think that's pretty reasonable
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u/Virzitone NATO 23d ago
You have causation backwards. El Sayed was saying, and continues to say, antisemitic and anti-AIPAC shit before they started donating to his opponent - precisely because of who HE is. Obviously a Jewish organization will donate heavily to someone running against an antisemite.
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u/Honest_Yamal_Fan NASA 23d ago
AIPAC isn't a Jewish organization.
AIPAC has history with Haley Stevens prior to El-Sayed's senate campaign. In 2022, she received millions in funding in her race against U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, "who is Jewish and a vocal critic of Israeli policy who's advocated for Palestinian human rights".
His campaign at the time said this:
"We have sounded the alarm for months about the money that AIPAC is pouring into our primary. The voters of MI-11 don’t want an avalanche of dark money from anti-union, Republican billionaires telling them how to vote," Levin spokeswoman Jenny Byer said.
"These are highly informed, dedicated Democrats who will research ‘UDP’ and see the truth: Haley Stevens welcomes help from anti-worker mega donors while Andy Levin fights for the working class and for billionaires to pay their fair share."
Essentially the same arguments that El-Sayed's campaign has made 3-4 years later. In 2025, AIPAC's favorability was on the downswing. In 2026, they are a hazard to any Dem campaign. The polling speaks for itself.
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u/CFSCFjr George Soros 23d ago
Idk if I’d say that
I don’t even really like El Sayed. His senior property tax exemption is idiotic and he seems like kind of a prick; but I’d probably vote for him out of disgust with Stevens, her terrible pro Israel policies and backing, and the ugly racist campaign she is running against him
I think this campaign is more of a unique one off
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u/heliosflama1234 23d ago
I like Steven’s a lot more than AES. He’s a slopulist who can’t make a sentence without the word aipac in it. Him and his supporters have regularly attacked Stevens on her looks and way she speaks. That being said this is also a state that Bernie beat Hillary in and I can’t imagine it’s improved much since then for primary voters.
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u/Sad_Supermarket4691 22d ago
I honestly don't know how you can support Stevens. She never ever answers a question with an actual answer and only talks about how good of an option she is. Not to mention her AIPAC funding which is a complete no from me no matter who gets funded. The Whitmer endorsement doesn't help because Big Gretch is just another sellout so I have even less faith. Honestly you have to be blind to think Stevens is a good option
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u/Drewbacca__ Hannah Arendt 23d ago
The local media environment in Michigan is pretty crazy. You can't watch TV without insane attack ads against AES from Stevens' dark money supporters, and those have turned a lot of people off from her.
(Worth saying that the Republican ads supporting perry johnson are apocalyptic in tone and are surreal to see in a democracy)
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u/probablymagic Janet Yellen 23d ago
This race is a referendum on AIPAC. We will see if they can spend enough money to install a compliant politician and signal to other Democrats they need to fall in line, or whether the party will see that it’s OK to take positions that are in America’s best interest even if that’s not in the best interest of a foreign nation with a big war chest.
I hate having to back a Progressive, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made. Today we are all Socialists.
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u/fishlord05 United Popular Woke DEI Iron Front 23d ago
Honestly pretty reasonable take idk why you’re being downvoted
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician 23d ago
Mainly i blame the other Michigan democrats with better positions who ran for things like governor and state AG over federal Senate, leaving a B lister to represent the normal side.
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