Abdul Sticks It To 'Em
Bad night for big money in politics!
Oh boy, that was not supposed to be that close! Thanks pollsters again for your service, you still haven’t quite figured it out.
The AP hasn’t called it yet, and neither has the New York Times, but NBC News and Steve Kornacki’s saucy khakis got out ahead of the pack late last night and called the damn thing. With over 95 percent of the vote counted, Abdul El-Sayed maintains almost a 20,000-vote lead, and will be the nominee for Michigan’s US Senate race.
Congresswoman Haley Stevens hasn’t conceded yet, which El-Sayed acknowledged on MS NOW this morning, but he’s pivoted to the general: “We understand that she still wants to hold onto a path. We’re focused on trying to figure how we bring the party together to defeat Mike Rogers in November.” He expressed a similar sentiment in his speech to supporters: “Tomorrow, we begin to mend fences,” said the presumptive nominee. “Whatever happens tonight, we have a responsibility to assure that we unite to make sure that Mike Rogers never sees the inside of the US Senate.”
A lot can be said about last night, but wherever you personally landed on these candidates, it’s undeniable that, against approximately 75 gajillion dollars in outside spending for one candidate, the other one — the Arab Muslim progressive candidate — came out on top. Despite any narratives people try to put forth, that’s the story. (And if the pollsters hadn’t fucked it up yet again, that would even more clearly be the story in the media. Maybe if the PACs had just spent 150 gajillion bazillion dollars!)
But we want to share with you something we noticed about this race last night as we were watching returns, which we posted as a note on Substack and will now paraphrase for you. An alternate theory, if you will, to all the DEMS IN DISARRAY! narrative we’re supposed to be feeding on, an alternative to the quite frankly kind of worn-out narrative that’s been going since 2016 that everything in Democratic politics is progressive vs. moderate, outsider vs. establishment/AIPAC, and so forth.
What if that’s all bullshit, or at least more bullshit than those who set these narratives would like us to believe?
We saw Bernie Sanders say on NBC News last night that if Haley Stevens wins the Michigan Senate primary he’d certainly support her, even campaign for her if she wants it. Former candidate Mallory McMorrow was planning on endorsing the winner last night, whoever it was. We think it was supposed to be in person at a victory speech, but the counting didn’t allow for clean-cut victory speeches. She still made that endorsement, though:
That’s a lot of what we were hearing last night. Whoever wins, it’s time to get to work.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, who won her primary, wouldn’t even endorse beforehand. She was ready to support whoever wins, and wanted to immediately get to the work of pulling people together, come what may. (She also believed it was going to be a lot closer than the pollsters thought. Point: Dingell.)
But let’s glance quickly at another race that was decided last night, down in Missouri’s First District, where progressive democratic socialist Cori Bush (squad!) got her clock cleaned in her attempt to come back and retake her seat from “establishment” Rep. Wesley Bell, who beat her in 2024. Of course, Bell is also young and charismatic and seems incredibly well-liked by St. Louis voters, so this wasn’t “old guard” vs. progressive outsider or anything like that. It always seemed like there was a lot of corruption surrounding Bush, and what we’ve heard before from St. Louis voters — which we’ve also heard in the media — is that her constituent services were totally shit when she was the congresswoman. In congressional races, politics is indeed very, very local.
So Wesley Bell keeps his seat.
And that’s an entirely different result from another race in Michigan, where a progressive Democrat named William Lawrence, a Bernie-backed climate activist-type guy, won his primary in Michigan’s 7th. But it should be noted that Lawrence was facing two more moderate challengers, and that their totals together, in this Lansing district that’s considered a toss-up by the Cook Political Report, account for well over 50 percent of the primary vote. Had that just been one moderate, might have been a different outcome.
The results for Michigan’s 13th in the Detroit area aren’t final yet, but progressive Democratic socialist Donavan McKinney is holding on to a small lead there — and outperforming El-Sayed considerably — over incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar, a really weird congressman who himself used to be a DSA member but isn’t anymore. Big Crypto has dropped shitloads of money into that race, for Thanedar.
Looks like it could be another big win for outside PAC spending! Or the opposite of that.
Lots of different results in different races with different moving parts. No easy, perfect interpretations.
So again, back to our theory that what if maybe a lot of this DEMS IN DISARRAY! thing is, as per usual, bullshit, or at the very least overstated by the media and pundits, because of how if it bleeds, it leads, and also sex sells?
(DEMS IN DISARRAY! is a very sexy, yet gory story!)
We know we’re supposed to believe that there is a massive war between the Trojan Horse DSA vs. The Establishment, that the main character in every single race is AIPAC, yadda yadda. All that makes for really good TV and horse race coverage.
(The chyron for much of the night on NBC last night was DEMS NAVIGATE DIVISIONS BETWEEN PROGRESSIVES, MODERATES. From what we saw of other networks, it was similar.)
But what if it’s a lot simpler than that, and many people really are still largely voting for who they really really really believe will fight FOR THEM?
And what if that, more than ever before, is really the determining factor here, in this age of MAGA fascism? Because that theory could tilt things against incumbents and The Establishment, whatever that is in any given race. But not always. And as we saw in Michigan, there are lots of people who voted based on that metric who pulled the lever for Haley Stevens too! For instance, she did really well with Black voters in big city Detroit, whereas El-Sayed really cleaned up in mid-sized cities and college towns. Lots of voters on both sides told reporters they felt like they picked the one who would fight for them.
Admittedly, that doesn’t set up as clean of a divide as “Bernie vs. Hillary” or “progressive vs. centrist,” so it’s probably no fun for the horse race media.
What if it’s really more like “Fight the fascists” vs. “Say you’re fighting and then collaborate when it’s convenient and sometimes vote for Trump’s nominees and you can’t even say we should abolish ICE? Jesus, read the room.”
And yes, many voters really are pissed off about Israel/Gaza, and in any environment where politicians can campaign on “spending your tax dollars on bombs while you can’t afford food or healthcare,” that’s going to land punches.
Whatever it is, whatever is motivating voters, there are only a few primaries left, Wisconsin and Minnesota are coming, Tennessee is tomorrow, and otherwise we’re straight into the general, which is like 24 or 92 or 42 and a half days away or something.
It’s coming fast. And the fascists are still in charge.
Time to fight for all our nominees, whoever, they are, and be grateful that none of them is Max Miller.
Boy, that guy is a fucking creep.
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Yup. Time to put the knuckle-dusters and blackjacks away - the opposition is over thataway and that's who we need to be punching at.
speaking of MO: two bullshit constitutional amendments got hammered flat. one was to require that future proposed amendments require a majority in every congressional district (even now being ratfucked by the GOP) vs. the current simple majority. the other was to eliminate state income tax and replace it with underpants gnomes, er, increased sales taxes. now if only we’d stop voting for the people who proposed these.