“I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election…We need to win this Senate seat, because Elissa Slotkin deserves a partner like Abdul in the U.S. Senate.”
Thank you for doing all this legwork. At this point I am not caring at all -- I just want all Dems voted in. There seem to be some good people not winning, though, and I hope there are places for them to do good too.
“Congressional candidate Amir Hassan, whom President Donald Trump endorsed last month, appears headed for defeat in the Republican primary for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, as he trails rival Thomas J. Smith, who suspended his campaign and endorsed another candidate less than three weeks before Election Day,” Newsweek reports.
So ... is there even a candidate in that Keystone Cops race?
Or is the Democratic challenger (and there better be one; Howard Dean has been right about 50-state strategy this whole time) going to be running unopposed?
Nessel says she won’t attend Michigan Dems convention over safety concerns
At a roundtable discussion with Jewish leaders and community members from around the state, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she will not attend the Michigan Democratic Party’s nominating convention in August because she does not feel safe to be there.
“I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” she said at the Thursday event. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She criticized party leadership for not responding to concerns she said she has raised about members who have harassed her in the past, and compared the rise of antisemitism on the political left and in the Democratic Party to the proliferation of neo-Nazi organizations in far-right fringe politics.
“I will speak as a member of the Democratic Party here in Michigan, that some things have changed,” Nessel said. “This cannot continue, and the fact of the matter is, we have to be able to be a society where we can have intelligent discourse and debate about ideas without people being threatened, and certainly without people carrying out those threats.”
To me it’s very bizarre that when our side talkes about putting an age limit on politicians whether it’s been Biden, Pelosi, or Feinstein…how come Bernie Sanders who is 84 is never brought up in that conversation?
I see no reason to have an arbitrary age limit, but like a driver's license, there should be periodic competency testing. I have known people in their 90's who were mentally sharp and physically fit and people in their 60's who could not stay awake during an afternoon meeting.
“Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, faces Representative Haley Stevens, who has served four terms and is a centrist backed by the party establishment. The race has highlighted starkly different visions for the future of the Democratic Party.”
Is it really “starkly different”??
Whales and a pile of coal tar is starkly different.
Moderates and progressives are not.
Also does anyone remember the Tea Party described as starkly different from the GOP?
One thing to note is that the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers, ran unopposed, so I'd hesitate to say that primary turnout is going to mean anything for the general.
She is young. She needs to spend a decade in the House and then one in the Senate first and she would make a kick ass President who knows how to get shit through congress unlike Carter, Clinton, and Obama who were clueless.
I keep telling people this: there is no such thing as unelectibility. Centrists made up the concept to to discourage progressives from running for office.
Humans fear change, but nobody likes the status quo except the oligarchs.
Hence we have a party that is trying to balance the desire for people who will fight the status quo for them and people that fear radical change and offer what's familiar.
I don't know if this is the right balance yet. I think we need to swing further left, but I also thought Americans weren't so stupid that they'd reelect That Man, so what the fuck do I know?
And when she tried, like "Weird" - the "consultants" told her to just stay the course Biden had set. I think the same happened with Hilary - status quo + lady parts.
You need to give the people HOPE and status quo aint it.
I cannot say this enough. When it comes to Democratic Party politics
FUCK BERNIE SANDERS INTO THE SUN & BEYOND!!!!!!!
This painfully white old man Senator from a painfully white fly-speck spec state who can't move legislation to save his life depends on the attention he gets from pontificating on stage & screen the Evils of his closest allies. Without it, he's just grouchy Old Man yelling at Oligarchs easily ignored.
Bernie doesn't give two shits about the damage he does and the Rethugicans he gets elected is because HE IS NOT A DEMOCRAT!!!! His modus operandi is parachute in, anger up the youngins with stirring My Way or the High Way rhetoric, then when his chosen candidate loses (which they do a lot) he leaves behind a gaggle of angry, resentful, even conspiratorial Bernie Bros who sit on their hands in the General election.
Excuse the mixed metaphor but Bernie is a show pony with no dog in the fights he instigates.
Evan, as a member of the Michigan diaspora (50 years of gutting the auto industry caused us to disperse, like Okies in the Dust Bowl), you have to understand that Michigan elections, like Michigam weather, are notoriously difficult to predict. A lot is predicated on grudges. Feuds and resentments go back to the Civil War, and Michigan has former (and current) KKK members from the 1920s (read autobiography of Malcolm X), progressive isolationist abolitionist Republicans who vote for the GOP because great grandpa did, UAW members who remember the Battle of the Overpass as though it was yesterday, old black people who look like John Lee Hooker who think Coleman Young is still alive, Dutch Calvinists who wash the streets in wooden shoes in May, Roman Catholic Irish who play hooky on St Patricks at the Old Shillelagh Bar, Polish Roman Catholics and Polish Jews who both make great potato pancakes (lathkes), French Canadien drug smugglers, Italians and Germans and Asians (Vietnamese boat people) and Syrians and Lebanese and Mormons. Right now, there are a lot of Libertarian Republicans who think Justin Amash got shanked by MAGA, and there are a lot of Democrats who think Andy Levin, of the Sander and Carl Levin fame, got shanked by AIPAC. (Carl was a very proud Zionist, Sander worked on Civil Rights in like 1962, when it was poisonous, and Carl was on the Detroit City Council for 8 years before going to the Senate, and both were great friends with Coleman Young and Leonard Woodcock. No one was great friends with Jimmy Hoffa, currently residing in the foundation of the Rennaissance Center. Michigan plays for keeps.) Haley Stevens tried to play a race card on Dr El-Sayed, not just with the Jewish population of Southfield, Royal Oak, and West Bloomfield, but with the Congressional Black Caucus. As M has been at pains to point out to me, the Blacks of Detroit, Lansing, Flint, Benton Harbor, Jackson, and Grand Rapids are not a monolithic block of sheeple. They are highly intelligent, enough to factor in endorsements, and to make up their own minds. Kamala Harris got shanked by Uncommitted, and Blacks show up to vote. That is why the polls were so varied, because some pollsters didnt factor in how much of the Black vote would show up, and how much of it would vote per the endorsements, and how deep the grudge was. Luckily for Dr El-Sayid, he showed up, a lot, in a lot of Black Churches, and talked about issues that Blacks care about, like health care, jobs, the price of food and gas. (No one is talking about crime and guns, which Blacks also care about. A lot of Blacks are armed for self-defense, and they back the blue, if the blue arent KKK targeting them.) Black voters saw Dr Abdul, figured he had what it takes, knew he would show up when Civil Rights got debated on the Congressional Floor (and that Hilary Clinton wouldn’t, because Hilary only cared about foreign policy), and the split appears to have been about 60-40. And Dr Abdul carried Grand Rapids by a 70-30 margin. (That made the difference.) El Sayed carried the rest of the state, and Stevens carried the Southeast corner.
Takeaways for political wonks: religious prejudice in Michigan is complicated. There is more division between Protestants and Catholics than between Christians and Jews, or Christians and Muslims. Same for racism. It’s there, especially Anglo v Latino, but there are other grudges that complicate things. And all those grudges make for close elections. But Mike Rogers is going to run totally on grudges, MAGA, God, Guns, Anti-Abortion. Dr El-Sayed is going to run on Medicare for All, Affordability, and Jobs. It will be close, although 1.3 million votes were cast for Democrats and 1 million for Republicans.
I live in a part of Illinois that gets saturated with Missouri political ads. The Wesley Bell ads I saw showed him working with and for constituents, and stressed that service. Testimonials, even! The only Cori Bush ads I saw were anti. She never passed a bill. Misused campaign funds. Was out of touch. The usual.
@MeidasTouch 25m
A gracious concession from Haley Stevens:
“I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election…We need to win this Senate seat, because Elissa Slotkin deserves a partner like Abdul in the U.S. Senate.”
Thank you for doing all this legwork. At this point I am not caring at all -- I just want all Dems voted in. There seem to be some good people not winning, though, and I hope there are places for them to do good too.
THIS IS VERY GOOD NEWS
Especially since Zeteo has coverage of at least 19 ways Republicans plan to cheat in the midterms
https://xcancel.com/i/status/2084719307808776222
And Texas GOP - and North Carolina GOP - has/have already started
https://xcancel.com/i/status/2084719307808776222
lol!
Trump Pick Loses to Candidate Who Quit Race
August 5, 2026 at 7:02 am EDT
“Congressional candidate Amir Hassan, whom President Donald Trump endorsed last month, appears headed for defeat in the Republican primary for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, as he trails rival Thomas J. Smith, who suspended his campaign and endorsed another candidate less than three weeks before Election Day,” Newsweek reports.
So ... is there even a candidate in that Keystone Cops race?
Or is the Democratic challenger (and there better be one; Howard Dean has been right about 50-state strategy this whole time) going to be running unopposed?
Lol... Holy Fuck, WaPo:
Breaking News banner top of masthead in red:
𝑩𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈: 𝑳𝒆𝒇𝒕-𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒏 𝑯𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝑴𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒔, 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔’ 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌
Insurgents? INSURGENTS?!?! So they're fair game to be shot now or what?
Wow. Language MATTERS WaPo. Are you intending to put targets on their backs?
This is deliberate. Like their hate-editorials against Mamdani. They're scared.
Communists have always been fair game, right?
Bezos pees in his pants! Read all about it!
Bezos pees on the produce at Whole Foods! Film at 11.
Nessel says she won’t attend Michigan Dems convention over safety concerns
At a roundtable discussion with Jewish leaders and community members from around the state, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she will not attend the Michigan Democratic Party’s nominating convention in August because she does not feel safe to be there.
“I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” she said at the Thursday event. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She criticized party leadership for not responding to concerns she said she has raised about members who have harassed her in the past, and compared the rise of antisemitism on the political left and in the Democratic Party to the proliferation of neo-Nazi organizations in far-right fringe politics.
“I will speak as a member of the Democratic Party here in Michigan, that some things have changed,” Nessel said. “This cannot continue, and the fact of the matter is, we have to be able to be a society where we can have intelligent discourse and debate about ideas without people being threatened, and certainly without people carrying out those threats.”
To me it’s very bizarre that when our side talkes about putting an age limit on politicians whether it’s been Biden, Pelosi, or Feinstein…how come Bernie Sanders who is 84 is never brought up in that conversation?
I see no reason to have an arbitrary age limit, but like a driver's license, there should be periodic competency testing. I have known people in their 90's who were mentally sharp and physically fit and people in their 60's who could not stay awake during an afternoon meeting.
You are kidding, yes?
If you're not kidding, it's because it's almost always bad faith bullshit.
Biden needed to go but Bernie who is older than him can stay? That doesn’t make since and it’s not consistent.
This was from the election page in the NYT
“Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, faces Representative Haley Stevens, who has served four terms and is a centrist backed by the party establishment. The race has highlighted starkly different visions for the future of the Democratic Party.”
Is it really “starkly different”??
Whales and a pile of coal tar is starkly different.
Moderates and progressives are not.
Also does anyone remember the Tea Party described as starkly different from the GOP?
Sorry, that’s rhetorical.
The TP were grass roots firebrands! The news told me so!
One thing to note is that the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers, ran unopposed, so I'd hesitate to say that primary turnout is going to mean anything for the general.
Cry Moar!
________________________________
@atrupar 1m
JD Vance: "We don't want the next administration, whoever -- god forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed in three years ... "
The one person I fervently hope it's NOT is YOU JD.
or Lil' Marco or ....
It's going to be President AOC, but OK then
She is young. She needs to spend a decade in the House and then one in the Senate first and she would make a kick ass President who knows how to get shit through congress unlike Carter, Clinton, and Obama who were clueless.
I love AOC but it won't be her because of VAGINA.
I keep telling people this: there is no such thing as unelectibility. Centrists made up the concept to to discourage progressives from running for office.
I am bitter I know. I love AOC and would vote for her in a heartbeat but I just don't believe anymore.
I never thought I'd ever see a Black man elected President.
Or a convicted felon, for that matter.
So I won't count anyone out.
If a brown Muslim socialist immigrant can become mayor of New York, then AOC can become president.
ok
Humans fear change, but nobody likes the status quo except the oligarchs.
Hence we have a party that is trying to balance the desire for people who will fight the status quo for them and people that fear radical change and offer what's familiar.
I don't know if this is the right balance yet. I think we need to swing further left, but I also thought Americans weren't so stupid that they'd reelect That Man, so what the fuck do I know?
And Harris was pretty much the ultimate status quo...
Especially considering she was Biden's VP, and did not differentiate herself in any way from Joe Biden.
And when she tried, like "Weird" - the "consultants" told her to just stay the course Biden had set. I think the same happened with Hilary - status quo + lady parts.
You need to give the people HOPE and status quo aint it.
There is a time and place for status quo, but it is not here and it is not now.
The AP has called it:
https://apnews.com/article/michigan-primary-senate-elsayed-stevens-60c79349b60ffbf24a34d60b76e130ed
🎉
"Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate primary in defining race for Democrats"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/05/michigan-senate-primary-results-abdul-el-sayed
I cannot say this enough. When it comes to Democratic Party politics
FUCK BERNIE SANDERS INTO THE SUN & BEYOND!!!!!!!
This painfully white old man Senator from a painfully white fly-speck spec state who can't move legislation to save his life depends on the attention he gets from pontificating on stage & screen the Evils of his closest allies. Without it, he's just grouchy Old Man yelling at Oligarchs easily ignored.
Bernie doesn't give two shits about the damage he does and the Rethugicans he gets elected is because HE IS NOT A DEMOCRAT!!!! His modus operandi is parachute in, anger up the youngins with stirring My Way or the High Way rhetoric, then when his chosen candidate loses (which they do a lot) he leaves behind a gaggle of angry, resentful, even conspiratorial Bernie Bros who sit on their hands in the General election.
Excuse the mixed metaphor but Bernie is a show pony with no dog in the fights he instigates.
Fuck him
That's okay, let it all out. Once you're through and you're feeling better, work to elect Democrats and retake the government.
Evan, as a member of the Michigan diaspora (50 years of gutting the auto industry caused us to disperse, like Okies in the Dust Bowl), you have to understand that Michigan elections, like Michigam weather, are notoriously difficult to predict. A lot is predicated on grudges. Feuds and resentments go back to the Civil War, and Michigan has former (and current) KKK members from the 1920s (read autobiography of Malcolm X), progressive isolationist abolitionist Republicans who vote for the GOP because great grandpa did, UAW members who remember the Battle of the Overpass as though it was yesterday, old black people who look like John Lee Hooker who think Coleman Young is still alive, Dutch Calvinists who wash the streets in wooden shoes in May, Roman Catholic Irish who play hooky on St Patricks at the Old Shillelagh Bar, Polish Roman Catholics and Polish Jews who both make great potato pancakes (lathkes), French Canadien drug smugglers, Italians and Germans and Asians (Vietnamese boat people) and Syrians and Lebanese and Mormons. Right now, there are a lot of Libertarian Republicans who think Justin Amash got shanked by MAGA, and there are a lot of Democrats who think Andy Levin, of the Sander and Carl Levin fame, got shanked by AIPAC. (Carl was a very proud Zionist, Sander worked on Civil Rights in like 1962, when it was poisonous, and Carl was on the Detroit City Council for 8 years before going to the Senate, and both were great friends with Coleman Young and Leonard Woodcock. No one was great friends with Jimmy Hoffa, currently residing in the foundation of the Rennaissance Center. Michigan plays for keeps.) Haley Stevens tried to play a race card on Dr El-Sayed, not just with the Jewish population of Southfield, Royal Oak, and West Bloomfield, but with the Congressional Black Caucus. As M has been at pains to point out to me, the Blacks of Detroit, Lansing, Flint, Benton Harbor, Jackson, and Grand Rapids are not a monolithic block of sheeple. They are highly intelligent, enough to factor in endorsements, and to make up their own minds. Kamala Harris got shanked by Uncommitted, and Blacks show up to vote. That is why the polls were so varied, because some pollsters didnt factor in how much of the Black vote would show up, and how much of it would vote per the endorsements, and how deep the grudge was. Luckily for Dr El-Sayid, he showed up, a lot, in a lot of Black Churches, and talked about issues that Blacks care about, like health care, jobs, the price of food and gas. (No one is talking about crime and guns, which Blacks also care about. A lot of Blacks are armed for self-defense, and they back the blue, if the blue arent KKK targeting them.) Black voters saw Dr Abdul, figured he had what it takes, knew he would show up when Civil Rights got debated on the Congressional Floor (and that Hilary Clinton wouldn’t, because Hilary only cared about foreign policy), and the split appears to have been about 60-40. And Dr Abdul carried Grand Rapids by a 70-30 margin. (That made the difference.) El Sayed carried the rest of the state, and Stevens carried the Southeast corner.
Takeaways for political wonks: religious prejudice in Michigan is complicated. There is more division between Protestants and Catholics than between Christians and Jews, or Christians and Muslims. Same for racism. It’s there, especially Anglo v Latino, but there are other grudges that complicate things. And all those grudges make for close elections. But Mike Rogers is going to run totally on grudges, MAGA, God, Guns, Anti-Abortion. Dr El-Sayed is going to run on Medicare for All, Affordability, and Jobs. It will be close, although 1.3 million votes were cast for Democrats and 1 million for Republicans.
I live in a part of Illinois that gets saturated with Missouri political ads. The Wesley Bell ads I saw showed him working with and for constituents, and stressed that service. Testimonials, even! The only Cori Bush ads I saw were anti. She never passed a bill. Misused campaign funds. Was out of touch. The usual.