By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
By the time the votes were to be tallied Tuesday night, it was widely assumed, mostly because of some iffy polling, that former public-health official and progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed was poised for a comfortable Democratic primary win in Michigan over Representative Haley Stevens. Turns out the race was much closer than expected. With votes still trickling in from always-slow-to-report Wayne County (Detroit), El-Sayed leads Stevens by just under one percent of the vote. NBC News has called the race for him, but other media outlets are holding back. It’s hard to see how Stevens wins, but final confirmation of the results could take a beat.
To be clear, expectations aside, an El-Sayed win by any margin is remarkable considering the overwhelming financial advantage Stevens enjoyed, with at least a 3-1 margin in total advertising. Indeed, the most important effect of the unprecedented $30 million-plus AIPAC-backed committees threw into this race was probably the excuse it gave El-Sayed to focus much of his campaign on anger at Israel and its long-standing alliance not only with President Trump but with the Democratic Establishment, represented by Stevens backers like retiring senator Gary Peters and Governor Gretchen Whitmer. This helped energize his youth, Muslim, and progressive activist base (with some help from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) while reinforcing his populist slogan: “Michigan is not for sale.” And thus El-Sayed joins Zohran Mamdani as a high-profile Muslim progressive who has defied the stereotypes about the depth and breadth of a progressive-led coalition. The Michigander is less sunny and arguably edgier; it’s hard to imagine him getting along with Trump as the New Yorker has managed to do on occasion. But in a federal election where unhappiness with both the Trump administration and the Democratic Establishment was palpable, El-Sayed’s pitch worked, notwithstanding a good closing kick from his opponent.
