After 11 hours of counting, the Michigan Democratic Senate primaries held on Tuesday still have no definitive winner. With more than 95% of the votes counted, the progressive candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, is leading with 48.6%. He is emerging as the winner, but nothing is yet definitive in a race that reflects how close the battle is and how divided the party is between its two souls.
If El-Sayed secures the definitive victory, this 41-year-old doctor, son of Egyptian immigrants and representative of the progressive wing of the United States Democratic Party, will have made a strong statement in the debate about the future of the opposition to Donald Trump by defeating Congresswoman Haley Stevens, with 47.3%, who had the support of the party heavyweights.
The vote demonstrates that the rise of young leftist (or even socialist) politicians is not confined to liberal strongholds. The wave started last year by Zohran Mamdani with his victory in New York threatens to spread in a state like Michigan, one of those called swing states because both Republicans and Democrats can win there. El-Sayed’s victory would confirm that Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s party is entering a new era in which the old rules no longer apply.
Even if the victory is confirmed, El-Sayed still faces the hardest part. Because after defeating the centrist Stevens, he will have to prove in November that a man like him, Muslim and defender of ideas considered radical until very recently, can beat the Republican candidate in the midterm elections. If he succeeds, he will become the first Muslim senator in United States history and will join names like Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Mayor Mamdani on the list of leaders who are changing the face of the Democratic Party.
El-Sayed does not define himself as a socialist, but champions causes most linked to the left. He has triumphed in Michigan with ideas such as ending unconditional aid to Israel — which he directly accuses of genocide in Gaza — or promoting universal public healthcare. He mixes this discourse with a personal magnetism that, always dressed in a tight black t-shirt, he shows in videos where he lifts weights in a gym or dances with a cowboy hat to Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me. His campaign managers must have paid close attention to how Mamdani’s videos went viral in the campaign that took him to the New York mayoralty last year. Now, another progressive has found the key to convincing voters again.
El-Sayed wants to defeat the party leadership in Michigan, headed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senator Gary Peters, who supported his rival. He also tries to defeat the Israeli lobby, which has invested about 30 million dollars in this campaign. It is the largest amount ever allocated to a single race. And now it is clear that it has served no purpose.
Accusation of antisemitism
In the final stretch of the campaign, Congresswoman Stevens launched a timid accusation of antisemitism against El-Sayed — “Everyone understands that you want to blame Jewish Americans for all your problems” — and accused him of seeking in his political career only “fame and, probably, money.” But it was already too late. El-Sayed had managed to impose the idea that he represented a breath of fresh air, that he cares about the real problems of people and about ending the influence of dark money in elections versus the old way of doing politics embodied by Stevens.
Primaries were held this Tuesday in states such as Virginia, Missouri, Kansas, and Washington. But all eyes were on Michigan, perhaps the most relevant battle of all the preliminaries to the elections that will define the second half of Trump’s term. The attention was intense for several reasons. First, because they are held in an important state, which is neither completely Republican nor completely Democratic, so it serves very well to measure the moment a country as vast and diverse as the United States is going through.
Second, because the seat at stake is key if the donkey party aspires to take the majority in the Senate from the Republicans. It is not mathematically impossible, but if the Democrats lose Michigan, the prospect of taking the upper chamber would be very, very complicated.
And third, because El-Sayed’s victory confirms another trend that was already evident: the growing distancing of Americans from Israel.
All these signs had already been perceived in other territories, but are now confirmed in Michigan, with repercussions that will have to be assessed in the coming days. The Democrats will have to show unity so that El-Sayed, if his victory is confirmed, is elected senator in November if they truly want to mount a serious opposition to Trump from Congress. But for that, many will have to defend someone they until recently considered a radical. A bitter pill that we will have to see if everyone is willing to swallow.
Read more A new beginning for packaging
