Moment of Truth for Democrats Tonight in Michigan

So this is it. Michigan Democrats vote tonight (Aug. 4) for their Senate nominee, and the result could well send shockwaves through the party and the entire political class. It’s a showdown for an open seat between establishment candidate Rep. Haley Stevens and uber-progressive Abdul El-Sayed, who would stand to become the first Muslim in the US Senate. But it’s not his faith so much as his fringe beliefs and close association with the infamous socialist influencer and virulently anti-Israel Hasan Piker that has Democrats fretting over what a triumph by El-Sayed would do to their party’s already tarnished brand. Among Piker’s most explosive remarks was that “America deserved 9/11.”

Will Michigan Follow Maine Down the Primrose Path?

The race is a virtual toss-up, with each candidate narrowly winning one of the two polls conducted in the last month. El-Sayed appears to have momentum on his side, but would Michiganders in the end nominate someone viewed in establishment circles as an extremist, knowing he would be less likely to beat the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers, who came within an eyelash of reaching the Senate two years ago and is widely considered a strong candidate? Well, let’s remember that, even after a string of startling revelations about his past behavior, 72% of Maine Democrats voted for the infamous Graham Platner before he was forced to withdraw from the race. So Democrats weary of being in the minority for the last two years under the presidency of the reviled Donald Trump have demonstrated that they are willing to take it to the limit to upend the wildly unpopular Democratic establishment. 

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The campaign has recently devolved into a debate about Israel, which Stevens evidently believes is a wedge issue that will favor her even in Michigan, a state with one of the largest and most concentrated Arab American populations in the country, estimated at more than 300,000. And Dearborn is famously the first city in the United States with an Arab American majority. Nevertheless, Stevens pressed the issue in a post on X last week, writing to El-Sayed, “Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.”

While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer backs Stevens, his was hardly a full-throated endorsement. This is likely because candidates he endorsed in Maine and New York were beaten or withdrew from the race. Despite being a self-described advocate for Israeli interests, Schumer has largely remained silent in recent weeks, fearing more egg on his face if El-Sayed wins. It is a testament to how powerless — and some would say cowardly — the top Senate Democrat and his counterpart in the House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, have become. 

In fact, El-Sayed has declared open season on Schumer. In one debate, he said, "If you want your politics dictated to you by AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) or Chuck Schumer, then I'm not your guy." On another occasion, he declared, "If you're Chuck Schumer, I'm pretty damn dangerous," and said he had "very little interest" in a meeting with the top elected official in his own party.

Establishment Shaking in Its Boots

Is the Democratic establishment shaking in its boots at the specter of Abdul El-Sayed representing their party in a crucial swing state that Trump won by 80,000 votes? In a word, yes, despite their happy talk about a “big tent” that is open to all comers, from moderates to communists, apparently. At the same time, they cannot afford to openly condemn one of their own candidates, so they leave it to the likes of crusty curmudgeon James Carville to say out loud what they are thinking in private. “I am not going to be in the same party with Hasan Piker,” Carville said during an interview with Fox News over the weekend. “I think that a majority — an overwhelming majority — of Democrats agree with me. But this idea that we’re going to seize the means of production and this –– just go look at the DSA platform,” he said in reference to the Democratic Socialists of America.

El-Sayed cleverly describes himself as “a capitalist who understands capitalism.” But it would be fair to label his agenda as DSA-adjacent, considering his support for terminating all aid to Israel and Medicare for All, his past support for defunding the police, and his close relationships with Piker, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez. The one Senate Democrat who publicly refuses to go along with this rising tide of socialism is Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, the progressive-turned-common sense moderate. He blames progressive godfather Sanders, who “keeps pushing these communists and these . . . awful anti-American people,” he argued after Platner’s debacle in Maine. 

Haley Stevens is little more than an establishment stick figure with a D next to her name, “a suit with a large AIPAC bank account,” according to El-Sayed. Her campaign style has been criticized as off-putting and even cringeworthy. But she is all that stands between the Democratic Party of old and a brave new world where socialists soar past local offices and US House seats all the way to the Senate, one step short of the White House. Will Michigan Democrats follow Maine down the socialist path or affirm old-fashioned liberalism? The nation will be watching.