Wonkette Endorses Abdul El-Sayed In Michigan, We Think We Said That Already Right?
May this goddamn fucking primary please end *correctly*.
Michigan Democrats will vote in a primary election next Tuesday to pick a candidate for US Senate to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D). The two remaining Democratic candidates, podcaster and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed, and US Rep. Haley Stevens, held their fourth and final debate Monday night, clashing over outside campaign funding, the direction of the Democratic Party, and who’s more “electable” against presumptive Republican nominee Mike Rogers, the former congressman who came very close to winning against Elissa Slotkin in 2024.
The other major D candidate, progressive state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, for whom Yr Editrix hosted a fundraiser last fall, dropped out of the race July 5 but hasn’t endorsed either Stevens or El-Sayed, unlike Wonkette, which is endorsing El-Sayed if we haven’t already, we can’t remember, honestly. With her departure, the primary is now a clearer choice between the progressive El-Sayed and the moderate centrist Stevens. Stevens has the backing of the Democratic establishment, about which your Editrix is making a mean-mad face right now, including endorsements from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (GRRRR) and from Peters (HMPH), while El-Sayed is supported by your lefties like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the practically a Reagan Republican (we have been told) Wonkette.
As in so many other races this year, control of the Senate will hinge on Democrats holding on to the Michigan seat (and picking up four new seats), and for all their real policy disagreements, both El-Sayed and Stevens agree that Rogers would be little more than a sock puppet for Donald Trump, yecch.
Here’s the full video of the hourlong debate, moderated by Fox 2 Detroit reporter Roop Jah.
You can also use the button below to donate an amount of your choice at Paypal, or we have a Patreon too.
El-Sayed brought up Stevens’s PAC funding several times, calling her out for her history of accepting funding from the corporate PAC for DTE (formerly Detroit Edison), the big utility that everyone’s mad at for high electric bills and constant weeklong outages. Stevens tried to sidestep that by insisting she’s not taking any money from DTE or the other Michigan utility, Consumers Electric. As Michigan Bridge reports, DTE’s PAC has given Stevens a total of $40,000 over the years for her previous House campaigns. She explained after the debate that she isn’t taking any of their money for her Senate campaign, so she’s able to take on DTE and high utility costs, OK?
Stevens has also been helped out to the tune of $30 million in spending from a super-PAC with the bland name the “United Democracy Project,” which is actually funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which is for some reason not terribly popular among some Michigan voters.
El-Sayed called out that support in the debate, saying, “Just last week, our friend here voted to send $3.3 billion of your tax dollars to a foreign government. That is the pro quo that comes with the quid of $30 million spent by AIPAC.”
That would be fact-check true, also according to Michigan Bridge, which explains that Stevens was one of only a few House Democrats who opposed an amendment that would have blocked the aid. That amendment failed in the Republican-controlled House. Stevens generally tries to sidestep questions about the big AIPAC donations, saying that she supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine as the way to peace, although the current Israeli government has opposed a Palestinian state for ages now.
For her part, Stevens claimed that El-Sayed is trying to be a celebrity and big-time podcast influencer, not an advocate for the people of Michigan, as if the two were mutually exclusive.
“My opponent here, Abdul — he is such a talented guy. He’s written three books. He’s had 300 podcasts. You know, he’s had all this attention,” she insisted, suggesting that writing books and interviewing people are unserious things. “But the deal is, is we don’t need a celebrity candidate. We don’t need a celebrity senator. We need somebody who’s committed to six years of hard, unglamorous work that’s going to stand up to this junk that is wreaking havoc and causing chaos right before our very eyes.”
El-Sayed shot back that his podcast, which ended last year, was actually not a bad thing at all, because it addressed very non-trivial policy matters: “Congresswoman, if you enjoy podcasts about public health, I welcome you to take a listen. You seem very concerned about that. I’m more concerned about the fact that people can’t pay for their gas, they can’t pay for their groceries.”
The two also clashed over ICE and Donald Trump’s mass deportation/ethnic cleansing agenda, with Stevens saying she wants to redirect ICE funding to better uses and to put in place reforms to end the agency’s human rights abuses. El-Sayed has constantly said that ICE can’t be reformed, and that it must be abolished altogether. He criticized Stevens for voting for a bill that “thanked ICE” and said that anything less than abolishing ICE is “exactly the kind of cowardice that we don’t need from Democrats.”
Wonkette, again, agrees.
Stevens also tried to make hay out of a recently disclosed recording of a phone call between Republican Mike Rogers and supporters, in which Rogers said his campaign was in “pretty good shape overall,” and speculated he could have an easier time if El-Sayed were the Democratic nominee: “If he wins, I think we’re in good shape,” Rogers said. “I mean, I think he’s so radical. […] I think we’ll do well if he in fact is the nominee.” That might seem like a potential drawback for El-Sayed, at least until you remember that whoever wins the primary, Rogers and Trump will be calling them a communist traitor who’s bent on destroying America, regardless of what the two said about each other before the primary.
Also, the debate cleared up one of the sillier recent kerfuffles of the campaign, giving El-Sayed the chance to clarify once and for all that he was talking about Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) when he told donors on a Zoom call that “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message.” That remark had been seen by some as a call for Democrats to purge moderates like Stevens, although even Politico’s initial reporting on the Zoom call identified Fetterman as the target.
El-Sayed said in last night’s debate that he was “referring to a guy named John Fetterman, who’s a senator from Pennsylvania, who has done terrible things, got elected on a set of values, and is now completely throwing those values in the mud.” Stevens has seized on the remark to suggest that El-Sayed is more interested in seeking the spotlight for national political ambitions, instead of focusing on how to help Michigan. But she did at least offer him one of the goofier kumbayah moments in recent campaigning, conceding, “Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t call me an ogre.”
At least that’s settled, and we can all agree that Fetterman sucks, OPEN THREAD.
[CNN / Bridge Michigan / Politico / NYT]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you’d like to make a one-time (or recurring) donation, you can click this here button.
Just sitting here abusing a little alcohol, but in control. Going to start playing my sadness playlist in a while and shut off all the lights.
Wanted to be servicey in memory of my youngest son who committed suicide on this day 15 years ago. If you're having suicide ideation or if you know somebody who is, get some help. Talking will help. Not going to preach. Talk to somebody who's qualified to help.
And here's a few other crisis lines that might help too:
Suicide and Crisis Hotline: 988
Crisis Text Line: Text Hello to 741741
(You can text 741741 in the US or UK, or 686868 in Canada)
YouthLine: Text teen2teen to 839863, or call 1-877-968-8491
National Domestic Violence Hotline: Text “START” to 88788 or call 1-800-799-7233
National Deaf Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-855-812-1001
RAINN: 1-800-656-4673 (rape, abuse, incest)
The Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678678
Trans Lifeline: 1-877-565-8860
SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357 (alcohol, substance abuse)
The Fukui Memorial Edition of the Monthly San Francisco Wonk Meet Up will be on Friday, August 21st.
6:00PM
Eclipse Restaurant in the (spectacular) atrium of the Embarcadero Hyatt Regency. This is a venue that Fukui selected, and it's in High Anxiety.
We sit behind the bar. Look for a woman in a wheelchair. That's me. I'd love to see you there. And feel free to repost this info, or to send people my way who are wondering how to get there.