Name: WSJ Opinion: Abdul El-Sayed Narrowly Wins Michigan Democrats. Can He Pivot to November?
Uploaded: 2026-08-06T22:22:00Z
Duration: 22 min 37 s
Description: Abdul El-Sayed Narrowly Wins Michigan Democrats. Can He Pivot to November? The insurgent progressive sneaks past Rep. Haley Stevens, amid big polling error, prompting new debate on socialism and the future of the Democratic Party. But his appeal beyond his base remains untested, and GOP nominee Mike Rogers is battle tested.

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Abdul El-Sayed Narrowly Wins Michigan Democrats. Can He Pivot to November? The insurgent progressive sneaks past Rep. Haley Stevens, amid big polling error, prompting new debate on socialism and the future of the Democratic Party. But his appeal beyond his base remains untested, and GOP nominee Mike Rogers is battle tested. Photo: Christopher Arbisi

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Abdul El-Sayed Narrowly Wins Michigan Democrats. Can He Pivot to November? The insurgent progressive sneaks past Rep. Haley Stevens, amid big polling error, prompting new debate on socialism and the future of the Democratic Party. But his appeal beyond his base remains untested, and GOP nominee Mike Rogers is battle tested.

WSJ Opinion: Abdul El-Sayed Narrowly Wins Michigan Democrats. Can He Pivot to November?

Abdul El-Sayed narrowly wins the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan amid a big miss by Pollsters. And despite his baggage, the Democratic Party is already beginning to rally around him. But there's plenty of political opportunity here for Republicans, including Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers.

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Welcome. I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleagues on the WSJ's Opinion Pages. Jack Butler, the deputy editor of the Free Expression Newsletter, and columnist Barton Swain. The Pollster said it would be a blowout, predicting a El-Sayed victory over mainstream Democrat Haley Stevens by double digits. The voters though disagreed. The result coming in narrowly on Wednesday morning, El-Sayed defeating Stevens in the end by something like less than a percentage point, 20,000 votes or so. Despite the narrowness of that victory, it sparked new debate over the future of the Democratic Party, Mike Johnson saying on social media that voters need to protect the greatest nation in the world from being overrun by many Mamdanis. Here to respond at a Wednesday press conference is New York Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

He ran a campaign where it was best described by his words of money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all. And if those simple commitments and beliefs are what drives Representative Johnson to these kinds of conclusions, I think it shows you how deeply out of touch the Republican Party is with the concerns of working class Americans. Because what we have seen is despite him facing more than $60 million in outside spending, he was able to prevail with a focus on a cost of living crisis and the way in which healthcare is exceedingly out of reach for those who have helped to make this country what it is.

Also responding to this victory by El-Sayed, Vice President J.D. Vance on Fox News.

So interestingly, as much as the media will pull this guy out as a socialist, as a guy who's trying to stand up for the working man, where did he do the best? He did the best among wealthy white liberals and among new immigrants to the United States of America. He basically represents the modern Democratic Coalition, which is self-hating white liberals united to people who just came to the country for the first time and don't actually have the sense of appreciation for it that they should. Those are the people who are voting for Al-Sayed.

Jack, in your newsletter item on Wednesday before the race was called and Al-Sayed had declared victory, you wrote this, "So much for an unblemished triumph for Abdul Al-Sayed," but you went on to say that even a narrow victory would be a big deal for the far left faction to which Mr. Al-Sayed belongs. Why do you say that?

Well, because we're in this ongoing debate about what the future of the Democratic Party is going to be. And at the end of the day, the scoreboard is the scoreboard. Abdul Al-Sayed is already acting like the all-conquering hero that he was presenting himself throughout his campaign, especially in the last month. Now, I just wanna say it's so exciting sometimes as an observer of politics to be wrong. We talked about this earlier this week. We treated this race as a foregone conclusion based on all of the polls, totally wrong. I had the enjoyable experience of staying up pretty late on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, hoping for some certainty about the race before I went to bed. And it was much different from how it was supposed to be. So maybe this means that the debate over the future of the Democratic Party is more up in the air than I though it was, than many of us had thought it was before. At the same time, this is an outcome that would not have been even close to likely as recently as a couple years ago when Abdul El-Sayed was running for other offices in the state. So that faction has succeeded in shifting the Overton window, but Haley Stevens did a much better job of holding the ground of her part of the party than I expected her to. I guess people really liked the Michigander accent overdrive she did in the closing weeks of the campaign. I sure did, but maybe that's just me.

Barton, your column in Thursday's newspaper is also on the Michigan Senate race under the headline, "El-Sayed's Deflected Bigotry." What is the argument you're making?

Well, I think it'll be pretty familiar to listeners. I interpret El-Sayed's kind of obsession with Israel and APAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, as a sort of stand-in for Jews in the Jewish state. Now, he wouldn't agree with that, but look, go down the list. He refuses to acknowledge that the Jewish state has a right to exist. He talks constantly about APAC. I mean, it's highly unusual to just keep bringing up a single outside group backing your opponent as often as he does. Like it's one of the main criticisms he has of her. He will condemn an outright terrorist attack like the one in West Bloomfield, Michigan. But then he sort of softens it by saying, you know, "Well, you know, hurt people do hurt people." Things like that. And worst of all, El-Sayed has really palled around in a public and very open way with this noxious podcaster called Hasan Piker. Because he's not running for office, he can say whatever he wants about Israel and has said some really nasty things about the Jewish state and about Orthodox Jews and so on. He sort of justifies the Hamas attacks of October 7th and so on. So I think it's telling that more Democrats did not endorse El-Sayed earlier than they did when it looked like it was going to be a blowout. Remember Whitmer endorsed Stevens, but very late in the race. And that was all because it looked like it was going to be, you know, El-Sayed was gonna walk away with it. It turns out they were completely wrong, and I think most Democrats don't, I'm sure most Democrats don't embrace the sort of extremism on Israel that El-Sayed represents. And it's really too bad they didn't have more courage and back Stevens earlier and with enthusiasm.

One thing I wanna say about the APAC obsession, if I recall correctly, Abdul El-Sayed called a poll that had him losing either the general or the primary, said it was an APAC-funded poll, which there's no evidence for that. But who was pushing all of these polls then that had him way ahead in the primary?

It's a great point.

Is there some malefactor who was responsible for those wildly inaccurate polls? Who knows?

I think that's consonant with a lot of the way that El-Sayed approaches this campaign and approaches politics. For example, he said he favors abolishing ICE because ICE is not about immigration. It's about normalizing paramilitary force on America's streets. In one debate against Stevens, he promised that he would stand up to the monopolies and oligopolies that are picking our pockets. You know, part of the approach here is kind of populist left conspiracy theorizing that there is some, you know, shadowy they that is holding you back, that is the reason that you are not getting ahead, that is the reason that the United States and President Trump, the Trump administration is at war with Iran. It's a very conspiratorial way of approaching politics. Jack, you mentioned the polling myths here, and I think that's also interesting just to give a sense of the recent polls. Here's the last five or six in the RealClearPolitics average. El-Sayed plus 14, plus 15, plus 10, plus 16, plus 13. So it was across the board almost. And in fairness, the Pollsters did get the outcome right. El-Sayed is the winner here. But I've sometimes wondered what politics would be like in an era before this kind of constant opinion polling or accurate opinion polling. In recent years, the opinion Pollsters have had a mixed record. There was one some years ago where one of the Pollsters, I think, almost nailed one of the polling averages, the aggregators, almost nailed most of the races in November. But I wonder whether the Haley Stevens faction feels like they were done a disservice here, that some of their supporters who thought, "You know, maybe I'm not gonna drag myself out to the ballot box today because look at the polling, she's behind by 10 points anyway." I mean, it does... Sometimes there is an effect. By measuring the race, you affect the race.

Yeah, that's a principle in quantum mechanics, I believe, that is now applying to our politics. But yeah, certainly in a race that ended up being this narrow, you can look at any number of factors that may have ended up deciding or determining the outcome. And to drill down on this even further, it may have been the case that the reason the polls ended up so wrong in this race is that the respondent bias was in favor of the kind of voter the Vice President in that clip just mentioned forms the Abdul Al-Sayed base. Highly motivated, wealthy people who are happy to answer their phones and tell a pollster, "Heck, yeah," or can I do my best Michigander? "Heck, yeah." No, I'm not gonna try. I'm not from there. That would be cultural appropriation. They're happy to respond to the phone call and say, "Yes, I'm going to vote for Abdul El-Sayed." Whereas other people are harder to reach, harder to poll, and that shows up in the outcome. So I don't know, that seems like a good lesson. You do need as a candidate and as a political observer to look at the polls, but you get a better sense of things if you try to drill down into what's actually happening on the ground as best as you can.

Barton, to your point about the choice that Democrats now have interestingly, Michigan and Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had endorsed Stevens, has now said that she is rallying behind Al-Sayed. And it does speak to the political pressures of this moment, the partisan pressures of the moment that we're in, that so many politicians on the left and right would rather have a figure from their party, even if they really dislike that person, even if they don't agree with that person across a range of issues, than somebody from the other party. They would rather have a figure like El-Sayed than a Republican in that seat, given everything that is at stake in the Senate.

Yes, I think it's an unfortunate part of our politics that we are so evenly divided that desperation drives people to support candidates they would otherwise loathe. I think it will show up in the enthusiasm with which some Democrats support El-Sayed. It's interesting, we often hear about this war between the establishment Democrats and the Progressives. And I don't see that much evidence of a war unless it's a one-way war. The Progressives are castigating the establishment wing of the party at every turn, whereas the establishmentarians won't say anything about the left-wingers. El-Sayed himself has endorsed Chris Van Hollen to be majority leader instead of Chuck Schumer and says things like, "If you're Chuck Schumer, I'm dangerous," and whatnot. Whereas Schumer is going to endorse El-Sayed. So, yes. Now, could I say, I am very skeptical that El-Sayed can win statewide. The lesson here, I think, will be that, yes, extreme candidates can knock off a Democrat in a blue district or in a blue state and go on to win or at least compete in a general election. But can that happen in a state like Michigan which Trump won twice? He lost once. Can it happen in a purple state? And I'm just not sure that we are ready for that. El-Sayed could maybe win like in the Sixth District around Ann Arbor, but I don't see him winning statewide. He supports Medicare for all, abolish ICE as you mentioned, massive expansions of welfare. He supports a wealth tax also. In the past, he's dabbled with defund the police language. He posted these things to social media, which he deleted, but of course, the internet is forever. And the Mike Rogers campaign and Republican Alliance Super PACs can be counted on to bring those posts back to life. And I mentioned the Piker association, which I think is a real mistake going into the general. So I doubt, I have my doubts that he can win statewide against Mike Rogers, who seems like a pretty capable candidate.

Let's listen to a clip of El-Sayed in an interview with CNN after his victory.

How did your call with Chuck Schumer go today?

Well, you know, at this point, I'm the only Democrat standing to come to the inside of the US Senate, and I think we we had a good, meaningful, heart-to-heart conversation about what it takes to win in a state like Michigan and what needs to be done to defeat Mike Rogers. So I'm looking forward to partnering alongside him to win the Senate majority, to win back and to keep the state of Michigan, and to win back the gavel for Democrats so that we can start holding Donald Trump accountable. I can't wait to sit across RFK Jr. and actually grill him. Dude uses big words he does not understand, and I happen to go to medical school, so I kinda understand them. It is going to be a good time holding him accountable for all of the grift that he has pushed on the American public.

To Barton's point, notice that he said he looks forward to winning the gavel back for Democrats, not for Chuck Schumer. One Democrat who has been pushing back some at these leftist factions is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, but he is making himself, it seems, persona non grata in big parts of the Democratic Party as a result of that. And then on the point about Mike Rogers now and this race pivoting toward November and toward the general election, let's listen to a piece of Rogers on Fox News responding to the El-Sayed nomination.

This guy hasn't had a real job, I don't think, in his entire life. He's never gotten his hands dirty. He's a silver spoon kind of guy. Listen, like most socialists you know, Laura, they've come from pretty privileged lives, pampered lives. He is exactly that guy. And so we're not worried about any of that. I built Chrysler LeBarons on the assembly line here in Michigan. I am part of the Michigan fabric here that helped put America on wheels, and I'm very proud of that, and my blue collar roots. I love all of that. And so I had to say this to him, just that language that you heard, he wants to be mean, he wants to be divisive.

Jack, I don't know about Rogers' resume bullet points related to Chrysler assembly lines, but he was an FBI agent at one point, former head of the House Intelligence Committee. He ran for Senate two years ago and lost to Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic incumbent. But the margin was less than 20,000 votes in a race where there were 5.4 million votes cast. So he is a politician who is battle-tested, experienced. He knows how to run a campaign. He knows how to drive a message. I think Republicans are counting on that as they turn toward November. And I mean, I do think that Mike Rogers has plenty to work with here in El-Sayed's background to try to make the case to Michigan voters in the mainstream, in the center, independents, that El-Sayed is not where they wanna be.

Yeah, I think that Mike Rogers brings a couple of advantages to this race. One, he seems like a pretty authentic Michigan guy. That litany he just gave in the clip we heard, that seemed pretty sincere to me, and I've spent some time in the state. Two, you mentioned the other aspects of his resume. These are impressive. And I mean this as a sort of political compliment. He comes pretty close to being generic Republican, and generic Republican does great. Everybody loves a generic Republican. The problem is finding one. And I think we might have one in Mike Rogers. The third advantage that I don't know if he brings, but that Abdul Al-Sayed brings to him is Abdul Al-Sayed, this is a candidate who already views himself as a national figure with national aspirations. Michigan is kind of a secondary consideration. He's a guy who already wants to reshape the party. And he's a guy who believes that his base of really enthusiastic voters in college towns can be the fuel for that. And I think that Mike Rogers is right that there's a kind of disconnect between, as is often the case throughout history, between the wannabe spokespeople of the proletariat and the proletariat itself. And I think all of these things are going to, at the very least, set up a nail biter of a race in November. If not... Well, I'll just stop there. I think I've put myself as far out on the ledge as I'm willing to at this time.

Barton, we'll give you the last word, but one question remaining is how El-Sayed will respond to a general election contest. Often, candidates that are the most ideological are the least willing to do any sort of pivot toward the center. And in this primary, I think Haley Stevens was not really willing to push him on the aspects of his agenda that might be unpopular to voters in the middle, like Medicare for All. The Bernie Sanders Bill. Are you really gonna outlaw private health plans that people in Michigan are on through their employers? Abolish ICE. What does that mean for immigration enforcement? Does that mean we're not gonna have any immigration enforcement? Do you believe in having border security? All sorts of questions that I think throughout this Democratic primary, El-Sayed did not really have, was not really pushed to have to answer. If he gets into a debate with Mike Rogers, he is definitely going to be pushed on those things. I'm not sure whether he has it in him to say the kinds of things that Democrats who are able to win these swing states feel like they need to say in order to placate the voters that they need to get over 50%.

I think you're exactly right. I don't think El-Sayed has it in him to sort of tone it down. That's just not his brand. He's really laid into some of this left-wing stuff and in the most aggressive way. And he just does not strike me as a savvy enough politician to shift towards the center in any meaningful way. And I think it's really unfortunate that Stevens who ran, I mean, she ran a very poor campaign in my view, for the reasons you allude to. And I would add that even as she concedes that El-Sayed is an anti-Semite, she turns around and immediately says, "But I will support him in the general election." So I support the anti-Semite is not something I ever thought an American politician would say pretty much openly, but here we are. And I would also add, you know, APAC has been criticized for spending all this money on a losing candidate. But bear in mind that all those ads they've been running throughout this primary cycle have been seen by people who will vote in the general election. So I'm not sure that it was off or not just yet. In fact, APAC is considering backing Rogers in the campaign, which I suspected they will do. It'd be highly unusual for them to do it because it's a bipartisan organization. They don't normally throw in in a big way with candidates in general elections like this. And bear in mind that there are some significant minority of voters in this primary who voted for Stevens who will not vote for El-Sayed. There's some evidence of this already. So yes, I think it's gonna be pretty difficult for him to win the general.

Thank you, Barton and Jack. Thank you all for listening. You can email us at pwpodcast@wsj.com. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button, and we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of Potomac Watch.

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