Before delving into the commentary, let’s give credit and congratulations to Democratic Socialist Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for his less-than-one-point victory in the Michigan Senate Primary over Pragmatic Progressive House Representative Haley Stevens, the candidate with an actual progressive voting track record.
A gifted politician who knows how to deliver speeches and strike many of the right knee-jerk reaction notes in his calls for getting money out of politics and Medicare for All, he now has the task of unifying the party among his, Stevens’, and Mallory McMorrow’s supporters so he can plow ahead and hopefully permanently retire Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers back to his retirement home in Florida.
The task, with him as the nominee, will be more difficult to hold the Senate seat for Democrats than with Stevens on the ballot.
That said, he is the winner and voters in Michigan will have to choose whether they want the Democratic nominee who will work for the people or the Republican one who embraces Trumpian Fascism.
Objectively, Michiganders really have no hard choice here.
That said, those who think the El-Sayed victory is historic and very impressive should remember this.
He did not break 50 percent with his victory.
Hayley Stevens would probably be the Democratic Senate Nominee today if Mallory McMorrow had withdrawn from the race before they printed the ballots. McMorrow earned four percent of the vote. Given her political leanings, it is reasonable to postulate that most of those votes would have gone to Stevens if her name was not on the ballot.
So Dr. El-Sayed should be sending lots of roses to McMorrow today.
Mainstream Democrats also shot themselves in the foot when they could not nudge one of their Pragmatic Progressive candidates out of the Michigan Seventh Congressional District race, which went to Democratic Socialist William Lawrence, who garnered just under 44 percent of the vote.
Mainstream Democrats are probably going to repeat this mistake in the Wisconsin Gubernatorial Primary Race.
Go to Missouri, and Wesley Bell, who ran without any mainstream opponent, trounces Cori Bush by over 20 points for the second time in two cycles.
So, to say there is a Democratic Socialist wave coming is probably premature.
Dr. El-Sayed has a lot of work to do.
He needs to make the Stevens/McMorrow majority wing of the party comfortable with voting for him.
That means gaining support among older voters, black voters, non-college-educated voters (the ones the pollsters apparently did not talk to), and Pro-Israel voters who think he is too one-sided on what is happening in Gaza.
One way he could do that is to publicly come out for a two-state solution, call for the arrest of any Palestinian and Israeli leaders and functionaries who committed human rights violations against Jews and Arabs in Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank, and cut off his bromance with the reputed Anti-Semite Hasan Piker.
He does all of that, and the path to victory probably becomes easier.
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