Aug
9
El-Sayed’s Win and What This Means for Republicans
“A Michigan flip here almost guarantees the GOP will retain control of the Senate.” — Matt Vespa, Towhhall
This past Tuesday, Progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed got roughly 1% of the vote more than centrist Democrat Rep. Haley Stevens, thereby securing the Democrat nomination for Michigan’s Senate seat. He will go on to face Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the November general election.
El-Sayed campaigned with House “squad” members Omar (D-MN), Tlaib (D-MI), and Pressley (D-MA), and was also endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). He “advocated for parts of the Democratic Socialists of America agenda, such as ‘Medicare for All,’ increased government spending for social programs, ending the war in Iran, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” He also refuses to condemn Muslim terrorist actions for fear of “upset[ting]” some of his voters. (Prudent or cowardly? You decide.)
The general election could be a close one, and some are projecting El-Sayed will win. This is concerning to many, because the race “could be key to determining which party holds the majority in the Senate in the 120th Congress.” On the other hand, as Pedro Rodriguez reports in the Daily Signal,
“Trump celebrated El-Sayed’s victory on Truth Social. ‘Great news for the Republican Party,’ he wrote. ‘El-Sayed, a Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel, is the projected winner in his race.’ The president believes El-Sayed will have a tougher time winning the general election in November than Stevens. The president attributed the intensifying ‘far-left policies’ of the ‘dumocrats’ as the reason for Republicans potentially flipping the Senate seat in Michigan in November. Recent polls have shown that El-Sayed trails by double digits when matched up against Rogers.”
Suzanne Bowdey, editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand, has written an opinion piece in which she lays out “five areas where the president’s party might have an unexpected edge.” With brief quotes from the article added, those areas are:
1) Fundraising
“Even The Washington Post admits that the Republican Party has ‘a lopsided cash advantage’ down the home stretch, thanks in part to the movement’s super PACs. Right now, the GOP is sitting on a $300 million-plus advantage over their Democratic counterparts, Axios reports, ‘and that doesn’t include the $400 million sitting in Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC.’ Add that to Elon Musk’s latest announcement that he’s getting off the sidelines to help the GOP in the midterms, and Republicans are almost certainly striking fear into Democratic headquarters.”
2) Polling
“The political party in power, especially the one that holds the White House, tends to go into the midterms with a big disadvantage,” Breitbart‘s John Nolte warns. “The reason for this is simple: the voters who lost the White House two years earlier feel motivated to register their displeasure, while those voters who won the White House tend to be pretty satisfied with things and therefore not as motivated to vote.”
That said, the Democratic Party is wildly unpopular right now. “A staggering 63% of voters now view the Democratic Party UNFAVORABLY, while just 33% still hold a favorable view. That’s nearly two-thirds of the country.”
3) The Rise of Democratic Communism
While the DSA has had a surprising amount of success in primary and mayoral elections, their appeal is only in the deepest of blue states. And the traditional Democrats know it. They’re panicked by leadership’s public indifference to the pendulum swing….
[Speaker] Johnson couldn’t help but underscore the [DSA] crisis. “By my count, we’re up to, I think, 29 of these people,” he told [FRC’s Tony] Perkins. “And they espouse crazy, radical, un-American views. They want no borders. They want no prisons. They want to eliminate entire institutions like the U.S. Supreme Court. They want to remove the presidency. They want to pack the Supreme Court. They think the House itself should run the whole government, which, by the way, they want to assume all the power or control over production. And it’s madness.”
4) Redistricting
“Now, a year into the Republicans’ efforts to do away with the unfair race criteria of the Voting Rights Act, they’re finally reaping the rewards. That unique arms race, as it was coined by so many reporters, did ultimately result in a congressional map that’s more favorable to Republicans heading into these midterms.
Ten states have new district lines, which has radically reshaped the GOP’s odds for November, Cook Political Report notes. This week, in an updated look at 2026, the highly-respected outfit released a report with the caption, ‘Re-Redistricting Yields a More Republican, Less Elastic House Map.'”
5) Time
“Three months is a lifetime in politics. A lot could happen — especially in the Iran war, which is the nexus of a lot of angst about the economy, the president’s priorities, etc. Between now and then, the GOP plans an unprecedented midterm political convention, which could make a dent in the Republican base’s enthusiasm and also help outline the clear contrasts between the two parties’ very different values.”
Very good points. Let’s hope it is enough to keep even the Leftist Michiganders from putting El-Sayed into the U.S. Senate.
Bowdey’s full article can be found here.
