Are Dems making the same mistake Republicans have made in recent years? Choosing ideological purity over electability? That’s the question I kept thinking about while reading Kevin D. Williamson’s latest piece. His argument is that Michigan should be one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities given Trump’s economic baggage, but instead they’ve nominated a candidate he believes appeals more to the activist base than to the broader electorate. Two points really stood out to me: first, that voters are still feeling the effects of tariffs, inflation, and rising everyday costs, yet those “kitchen table” issues risk taking a back seat; and second, that winning statewide elections usually requires bringing in voters outside your party’s base, something Williamson argues Abdul El-Sayed is unlikely to do. Do you think parties win more often by nominating their most passionate candidates, or by choosing the ones with the broadest appeal?
AmericanDadWeeb on
He was more charismatic (by a lot) than Stevens and STILL almost lost.
~~Luckily for us, the GOP primary there is just a mess~~
Thinking of a different one… oh boy….
jjgm21 on
They certainly didn’t help their case by throwing support behind Stevens. What the hell were they thinking? McMorrow was right there.
Tritainia on
They did this when they pushed Stevens instead of McMorrow
Frozen_Solidly on
One thing that kind of concerns me is that primary polls massively underestimated white rural voters. If that’s happening in their general polls too, it could actually mean that AES is also being overestimated there, and considering he’s already consistently losing general polls…
knishioner on
I don’t agree with this take. Michigan voted for Trump twice. A “run of the mill” Democrat with a milquetoast record who was reluctant to take bold stances would not inspire the swing voters or those who are desperate for any change, good or bad.
I am ambivalent on El Sayed (I actually would’ve voted for McMorrow had her campaign not imploded), but it’s a foolish take that he will have a harder time winning the general than Stevens would have. Slotkin won by less than 1% in 2024 and she is a moderate. General elections are much different than primaries and we shouldn’t look at this race results as an indicator of anything that will happen in November. We need to vote blue no matter who, that includes if a progressive wins the primary.
The voters decided. Plus the party apparatus has already fully endorsed El Sayed, including Stevens, Whitmer, and Schumer. It will be just as tough of a race as any standard Democrat, and arguably the hardest “hold” of the cycle, more than Georgia.
“Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review”
Get this man the fuck out of here.
RuthlessMango on
Folks the primary for Michigan is over… it’s time to back the candidate who won… please please vote blue no matter who and stop giving the right ammunition.
upvotechemistry on
I generally like KDW, but I think he is misreading El Sayed. Thr guy is a talented communicator and has generated a lot of energy despite views that may seem to beltway watchers to be “radical”.
He was ahead of abolish ICE, when it was “bad politics”, and that should be a boon to him now. The Israel stuff he always weaves back to the money taxpayers are sending so Israel can commit atrocities – that we should outraged WE are paying for this war.
I just dont think the policy matters as much as the vibes and ability to communicate to voters. He was the best communicator in this race. It should be no surprise he won
EinhanderPS on
Do we really need to read what every hack conservative writer thinks about this election?
Corrective_Actions1 on
>Kevin D. Williamson….. spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review
So he’s a complete moron.
trypan0s0miasis on
Vote blue no matter who
Joltizer on
I don’t get why every few weeks have to re teach all the usual suspects that progressive populist losers like Sayed are less popular and less electable than moderate dems
ThatOneDumbJagoff on
I understand it’s been less than 24 hours but can we please just move the fuck on and vote blue no matter who? You don’t have to be a fan of AES but if you think the alternative of having a Republican for a senator is better then you were never a liberal to begin with.
God I’m not even a huge fan of the DSA but this incessant bitching is tiresome. Let’s see him win and then criticize him if he takes stances as a senator if they detract from this sub’s views. You know, like we expect in a functional democracy.
FCKABRNLSUTN2 on
Blue no matter who isn’t a fucking joke. I’m not in love with sayed but he’s better than literally every republican. He would get my vote if I lived in Michigan
Al_787 on
Can homeless ex-Republicans stop telling Democrats how to run their party? Maybe progressives are not true Democrats™️ and are here to hijack the party. But wait a minute, you’re not either?
It’s been 10 years since the disaster that is Trump fell on us. And we don’t like to admit it but he ran circles around Democrats, in the sense that we became merely reactionary rather than advancing our initiatives. Joe Biden was the embodiment of that kind of reaction, and his 4-year presidency turned out to be not that much of a reprieve from Trump. The fucker effectively ran a shadow presidency while facing dozens of criminal charges that came too little too late.
Whittling down the middle isn’t sensible and most importantly it does not work. It’s political cowardice. Progressives have presented a vision that has a lot of problems and upsets a lot of people, but at least they have one. When are centrists going to present theirs?
Maybe it’s time to be protectionist appeasers no longer and instead invest in people to help them remain the most competitive work force in the global free market? Maybe it’s time to accept that we may have to upset many single-family homeowners so we can build and actually give young people a chance? Maybe it’s time for the next great American project such as national high speed rail, and a policy environment for it to succeed, that will inspire generations to come? So many more that can help gain goodwill for mainstream Democrats for so long.
The last time Democrats advance a signature policy was Obamacare. You can’t claim to be a progressive (lower case L) force in society if you sit idle and merely respond to endless crises.
>El-Sayed expresses gratitude for having been given, during the campaign, “The opportunity to break bread with you at Seder, to worship with you at shul, to be embraced by you.”
We don’t eat bread on Passover. It would be quite trivial, since he cares about his Jewish “brothers and sisters”, to recognize that and ever-so-slightly adjust his language to at least feign a minimal amount of concern.
“Listening to sisters and brothers who said, ‘I want to join this movement because AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) doesn’t speak for me…
He’s specifically addressing the “Good Jews” who share his political beliefs, not all of us.
>because I understand that self-determination for one people does not require the quenching of self-determination for another people.
To the extent it matters, he’s a Zionist then.
>That unless all of us are free, none of us are free. I want to tell you the great gift that you’ve given me,” he adds.
Society only understands Jews through the lens of universalization. The only way to recognize Jews is to say “they’re just like us”, and there’s some larger morality that they can apply. The cherry on top is that he then gets to look great by praising Jews for having bestowed some great life lesson.
>“To all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith… I want you to know that… my commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.”
I don’t get the hate. I disagree with Kevin Williamson on a lot of issues, as I do with El-Sayed. I’m interested in democrats winning seats because Donald Trump wants to overthrow liberalism, limited government, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. So the question is one of political expediency, not substance. I suspect a more progressive candidate in a swing state will do worse against Mike Rogers than a more moderate candidate. “Throwing away the advantage” seems a little over the top, but I suspect this will be much closer now, and prediction markets still have democrats as the favorite.
justbuildmorehousing on
3 upvotes, 138 comments. I bet its wild in here
Glavurdan on
Let’s just ignore Schumer and Gillibrand throwing McMorrow under the bus.
Honestly, just because of that, I am proudly rooting for AES now
kaltevuus on
I’m just glad I don’t gotta hear politician Butters speak anymore
> El-Sayed does not endorse socialism, but he does support abolishing ICE, providing health insurance for undocumented immigrants who pay taxes, and making private health insurance “redundant and unnecessary.”
To be honest this isn’t a wildly bad set of policies. The bits on insurance are socialism-adjacent but sound more like Medicare for All than true socialized medicine. Admittedly it’s easy to imagine the GOP attack ad about an unchecked invasion of immigrants stealing American Healthcare.
> If El-Sayed runs an idiotic general-election campaign, he could put up sub-Bowman numbers and lose. But I assume he won’t do that, and the bar for success here is genuinely low. I saw a Mike Rogers A.I. slop ad where he has El-Sayed in a Trojan horse with Bernie and A.O.C. smuggling communism into Michigan. But if El-Sayed puts up an A.O.C.-scale electoral underperformance, Rogers will lose.
Democrats tend to moderate once they’re actually in office, so if El-Sayed can win once he’ll have plenty of opportunity to build experience and get positioned as a stronger incumbent for when reelection rolls around.
Ghost4000 on
Just wait till you guys see what we’re about to do in Wisconsin. Though maybe there will be an upset.
To be honest though I don’t know what Democrats needed to do, but it’s not exactly like they’re without agency in the rise of further left candidates.
But I’m also biased as a father left voter.
75dollars on
I still think the wave is blue enough to drag el Sayed’s loser ass across the finish line. But god fucking damn it we shouldn’t even be competitive to begin with.
26 Comments
Are Dems making the same mistake Republicans have made in recent years? Choosing ideological purity over electability? That’s the question I kept thinking about while reading Kevin D. Williamson’s latest piece. His argument is that Michigan should be one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities given Trump’s economic baggage, but instead they’ve nominated a candidate he believes appeals more to the activist base than to the broader electorate. Two points really stood out to me: first, that voters are still feeling the effects of tariffs, inflation, and rising everyday costs, yet those “kitchen table” issues risk taking a back seat; and second, that winning statewide elections usually requires bringing in voters outside your party’s base, something Williamson argues Abdul El-Sayed is unlikely to do. Do you think parties win more often by nominating their most passionate candidates, or by choosing the ones with the broadest appeal?
He was more charismatic (by a lot) than Stevens and STILL almost lost.
~~Luckily for us, the GOP primary there is just a mess~~
Thinking of a different one… oh boy….
They certainly didn’t help their case by throwing support behind Stevens. What the hell were they thinking? McMorrow was right there.
They did this when they pushed Stevens instead of McMorrow
One thing that kind of concerns me is that primary polls massively underestimated white rural voters. If that’s happening in their general polls too, it could actually mean that AES is also being overestimated there, and considering he’s already consistently losing general polls…
I don’t agree with this take. Michigan voted for Trump twice. A “run of the mill” Democrat with a milquetoast record who was reluctant to take bold stances would not inspire the swing voters or those who are desperate for any change, good or bad.
I am ambivalent on El Sayed (I actually would’ve voted for McMorrow had her campaign not imploded), but it’s a foolish take that he will have a harder time winning the general than Stevens would have. Slotkin won by less than 1% in 2024 and she is a moderate. General elections are much different than primaries and we shouldn’t look at this race results as an indicator of anything that will happen in November. We need to vote blue no matter who, that includes if a progressive wins the primary.
The voters decided. Plus the party apparatus has already fully endorsed El Sayed, including Stevens, Whitmer, and Schumer. It will be just as tough of a race as any standard Democrat, and arguably the hardest “hold” of the cycle, more than Georgia.
https://preview.redd.it/2eaz70zl5lhh1.jpeg?width=1320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f0c1ebe23bde844d07cce8a6d8b9be4ac58bcbd
“Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review”
Get this man the fuck out of here.
Folks the primary for Michigan is over… it’s time to back the candidate who won… please please vote blue no matter who and stop giving the right ammunition.
I generally like KDW, but I think he is misreading El Sayed. Thr guy is a talented communicator and has generated a lot of energy despite views that may seem to beltway watchers to be “radical”.
He was ahead of abolish ICE, when it was “bad politics”, and that should be a boon to him now. The Israel stuff he always weaves back to the money taxpayers are sending so Israel can commit atrocities – that we should outraged WE are paying for this war.
I just dont think the policy matters as much as the vibes and ability to communicate to voters. He was the best communicator in this race. It should be no surprise he won
Do we really need to read what every hack conservative writer thinks about this election?
>Kevin D. Williamson….. spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review
So he’s a complete moron.
Vote blue no matter who
I don’t get why every few weeks have to re teach all the usual suspects that progressive populist losers like Sayed are less popular and less electable than moderate dems
I understand it’s been less than 24 hours but can we please just move the fuck on and vote blue no matter who? You don’t have to be a fan of AES but if you think the alternative of having a Republican for a senator is better then you were never a liberal to begin with.
God I’m not even a huge fan of the DSA but this incessant bitching is tiresome. Let’s see him win and then criticize him if he takes stances as a senator if they detract from this sub’s views. You know, like we expect in a functional democracy.
Blue no matter who isn’t a fucking joke. I’m not in love with sayed but he’s better than literally every republican. He would get my vote if I lived in Michigan
Can homeless ex-Republicans stop telling Democrats how to run their party? Maybe progressives are not true Democrats™️ and are here to hijack the party. But wait a minute, you’re not either?
It’s been 10 years since the disaster that is Trump fell on us. And we don’t like to admit it but he ran circles around Democrats, in the sense that we became merely reactionary rather than advancing our initiatives. Joe Biden was the embodiment of that kind of reaction, and his 4-year presidency turned out to be not that much of a reprieve from Trump. The fucker effectively ran a shadow presidency while facing dozens of criminal charges that came too little too late.
Whittling down the middle isn’t sensible and most importantly it does not work. It’s political cowardice. Progressives have presented a vision that has a lot of problems and upsets a lot of people, but at least they have one. When are centrists going to present theirs?
Maybe it’s time to be protectionist appeasers no longer and instead invest in people to help them remain the most competitive work force in the global free market? Maybe it’s time to accept that we may have to upset many single-family homeowners so we can build and actually give young people a chance? Maybe it’s time for the next great American project such as national high speed rail, and a policy environment for it to succeed, that will inspire generations to come? So many more that can help gain goodwill for mainstream Democrats for so long.
The last time Democrats advance a signature policy was Obamacare. You can’t claim to be a progressive (lower case L) force in society if you sit idle and merely respond to endless crises.
Vote blue no matter who.
>[In his first public remarks after being widely declared as the winner of the Democratic primary in Michigan, progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed takes a moment to address Jewish constituents directly.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/after-winning-michigan-senate-primary-el-sayed-stresses-commitment-to-safety-of-jews/)
>El-Sayed expresses gratitude for having been given, during the campaign, “The opportunity to break bread with you at Seder, to worship with you at shul, to be embraced by you.”
We don’t eat bread on Passover. It would be quite trivial, since he cares about his Jewish “brothers and sisters”, to recognize that and ever-so-slightly adjust his language to at least feign a minimal amount of concern.
“Listening to sisters and brothers who said, ‘I want to join this movement because AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) doesn’t speak for me…
He’s specifically addressing the “Good Jews” who share his political beliefs, not all of us.
>because I understand that self-determination for one people does not require the quenching of self-determination for another people.
To the extent it matters, he’s a Zionist then.
>That unless all of us are free, none of us are free. I want to tell you the great gift that you’ve given me,” he adds.
Society only understands Jews through the lens of universalization. The only way to recognize Jews is to say “they’re just like us”, and there’s some larger morality that they can apply. The cherry on top is that he then gets to look great by praising Jews for having bestowed some great life lesson.
>“To all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith… I want you to know that… my commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.”
[After a man drove his car into a Michigan synagogue (with children at school) with fireworks and gasoline](https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/14/us/michigan-synagogue-attack-hnk), El-Sayed, against the wishes of his staff, [could only condemn the attack by contextualizing it through the lens of a war on the other side of the planet.](https://punchbowl.news/article/campaigns/el-sayed-statement/)
I don’t get the hate. I disagree with Kevin Williamson on a lot of issues, as I do with El-Sayed. I’m interested in democrats winning seats because Donald Trump wants to overthrow liberalism, limited government, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. So the question is one of political expediency, not substance. I suspect a more progressive candidate in a swing state will do worse against Mike Rogers than a more moderate candidate. “Throwing away the advantage” seems a little over the top, but I suspect this will be much closer now, and prediction markets still have democrats as the favorite.
3 upvotes, 138 comments. I bet its wild in here
Let’s just ignore Schumer and Gillibrand throwing McMorrow under the bus.
Honestly, just because of that, I am proudly rooting for AES now
I’m just glad I don’t gotta hear politician Butters speak anymore
[Johnathan Chait’s Atlantic article this morning](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/michigan-abdul-el-sayed-election/688181/?gift=fPhjk1IEN2MKVnr8Jai25r35gvSlPu3OWSU8HxszlE0) says the following about El-Sayed:
> El-Sayed does not endorse socialism, but he does support abolishing ICE, providing health insurance for undocumented immigrants who pay taxes, and making private health insurance “redundant and unnecessary.”
To be honest this isn’t a wildly bad set of policies. The bits on insurance are socialism-adjacent but sound more like Medicare for All than true socialized medicine. Admittedly it’s easy to imagine the GOP attack ad about an unchecked invasion of immigrants stealing American Healthcare.
[Matt Yglesias is a little rosier on his chances.](https://www.slowboring.com/p/republicans-are-in-too-little-disarray)
> If El-Sayed runs an idiotic general-election campaign, he could put up sub-Bowman numbers and lose. But I assume he won’t do that, and the bar for success here is genuinely low. I saw a Mike Rogers A.I. slop ad where he has El-Sayed in a Trojan horse with Bernie and A.O.C. smuggling communism into Michigan. But if El-Sayed puts up an A.O.C.-scale electoral underperformance, Rogers will lose.
Democrats tend to moderate once they’re actually in office, so if El-Sayed can win once he’ll have plenty of opportunity to build experience and get positioned as a stronger incumbent for when reelection rolls around.
Just wait till you guys see what we’re about to do in Wisconsin. Though maybe there will be an upset.
To be honest though I don’t know what Democrats needed to do, but it’s not exactly like they’re without agency in the rise of further left candidates.
But I’m also biased as a father left voter.
I still think the wave is blue enough to drag el Sayed’s loser ass across the finish line. But god fucking damn it we shouldn’t even be competitive to begin with.