Our Best Stuff on Abdul El-Sayed’s Primary Victory in Michigan
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Unlocked Dispatch Weekly Our Best Stuff on Abdul El-Sayed’s Primary Victory in Michigan Can progressives and democratic socialists reshape the Democratic Party? Rachael Larimore / August 8, 2026 Loading Abdul El-Sayed addresses supporters at his election night event at the Majestic Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, on August 4, 2026. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images) Abdul El-Sayed addresses supporters at his election night event at the Majestic Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, on August 4, 2026. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images) = 3 && ageInMonths 3 months old . Some information may be outdated.'; } else if (ageInMonths = 6 && ageInMonths 6 months old . Some information may be outdated.'; } else if (ageInMonths = 12 && ageInMonths 1 year old . Some information may be outdated.'; } else if (ageInMonths = 12) { const ageInYears = Math.floor(ageInMonths / 12); this.message = `This post is more than ${ageInYears} ${ageInYears === 1 ? 'year' : 'years'} old . Some information may be outdated.`; } } }" { this.tooltipOpen = false; }, 200); } }" class="relative" Audio Turn any article into a podcast. Upgrade now to start listening.
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What happens when an uber-progressive candidate who has a cozy relationship with Hamas-supporting, Mao Zedong-admiring influencer Hasan Piker wins a Senate primary in the heartland? Now that Abdul El-Sayed has won the Democratic nomination in Michigan, we’re about to find out.
El-Sayed defeated the more establishment-leaning Haley Stevens in Tuesday’s primary and will face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in November. He was endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ro Khanna, and “the Squad”—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar—among others. Stevens, meanwhile, had the backing of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and senators such as Catherine Cortez Masto, Jeanne Shaheen, Ruben Gallego, and Chris Coons.
In Boiling Frogs , Nick Catoggio dived into what the race says about the divisions within the Democratic Party. He drew a parallel to the Republican Party circa 2016 and the rise of Donald Trump.
For democratic socialists, Michigan is just one battle in a wider war for control of the Democratic Party. The more liberal Democrats leave the party in disgust at the viability of postliberal candidates, the more postliberal the party’s primary electorate will become by subtraction. And the more postliberal that electorate becomes, the more the Democratic establishment will evolve to resemble it.
That’s been the story of the Republican Party since 2016. The Trumpist right kept nominating nuts, even after some of them were crushed in general elections , because doing so cemented its control over the GOP. Some classically liberal Republican voters drifted out of the party as their contempt for the right’s postliberal direction grew, leaving postliberal voters behind to dominate primaries.
And lo and behold, 10 years later, the Republican establishment is now completely in hock to postliberalism.
The Democrats’ progressive wing is certainly loud and enjoying a moment. And that’s all fine and good in the primaries. But will any of this translate to victory in November? Carroll Doherty is not so sure. Citing polling that shows that some Democrats are unfamiliar with democratic socialism and that independents and conservatives abhor it, he wrote : “There’s no avoiding the fact that democratic socialism just isn’t very popular, except among those Democrats who occupy the far-left quadrant of the ideological spectrum.”
Given all that, and pointing to El-Sayed’s extreme positions on Israel and Hamas, immigration, and policing, Kevin Williamson argues that the Democrats have committed an unforced error:
El-Sayed is not the kind of candidate you run if you really care about winning a majority in the Senate—or if you care about being a majority party in general. He is precisely the kind of candidate you run if you are treating politics as a therapeutic exercise or an expression of tribal affiliation. Michigan voters at large are not thinking very much about Gaza , and neither are American voters at large. Stevens is a more or less normal person with a track record of winning elections in Michigan—that and $5.65 will get you a gallon of diesel.
We are not completely through primary season: A handful of states have elections on August 11 and 18. But as we approach November, the storylines are solidifying. In what direction is the Democratic Party headed? How will inflation and the ongoing Iran war affect Republicans’ chances? And is anyone going to focus on the affordability issues that many Americans cite as their topmost concern? Stay tuned! Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend.
Arguments All the Way Down Jonah Goldberg / August 5, 2026 American politics is suffering from a disease. Partisans, activists, and a great many voters suffer from a delusion that our constitutional mechanisms and/or various shadowy powerful forces are conspiring against the popular will and the common good. They think that if they lose an argument—and that’s all elections are, arguments about which candidates and which parties should prevail in a specific contest—it must be an indictment of the system. But our system was designed for arguments. People talk about democracy in romantic, almost magical, terms. They think elections are profound expressions of the national will or spirit. They’re not. They’re arguments about who should have a job for a defined period of time. If they get the job, they don’t have a mandate to do things. If they have any kind of mandate at all—beyond faithfully doing the job assigned them—it is to argue for their position persuasively. This is obviously the case for legislators. Their job is to persuade other legislators to pass laws. They can’t force their…
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