It’s kinda ironic that perhaps the most stark example of exactly how divided a party that desperately needs unity is transpiring in real time in the only state that is physically separated into two distinct parts. CNN’s Ethan Cohen is live-blogging as we type:
The sun is coming up over Washington, DC, and the Michigan Democratic Senate primary remains unresolved. Abdul El-Sayed holds a 19,400-vote lead over Rep. Haley Stevens as of 6:30 a.m. ET. More than 1.5 million ballots have been counted, blowing past the turnout record for any non-presidential Democratic primary in Michigan going back to at least 1998. The primary is coming down to outstanding ballots in Wayne County, home to Detroit and the state’s largest and traditionally slowest-counting county.
CBS NEWS’ Joe Walsh accurately framed the drama accompanying this countdown in his most recent update:
The race between the progressive former health official and Stevens, a moderate congresswomen, has served as an increasingly bitter proxy fight between the national Democratic Party’s ideological factions. The race — which was left open by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’ decision to retire — could prove pivotal in determining which party controls the U.S. Senate next year.
A closer look at where these candidates’ support is specifically coming from, per Walsh, is at first blush somewhat surprising:
With more than 95% of the statewide vote counted, El-Sayed led by double-digit margins in Kent County, home to Grand Rapids, and Washtenaw County, home to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. He also had leads in Kalamazoo County and Ingham County, where most of the state capital of Lansing is located. Stevens, meanwhile, has an edge in the state’s most populous county, Wayne County, which is home to Detroit and many of its suburbs. She also leads in neighboring suburban Oakland County and Macomb County, as well as Genesee County, home to Flint.
That’s fueled the fire of those who have been championing the rise of declared Democratic Socialists throughout numerous other primaries conducted earlier this year, buoyed by the support and increasingly visibility of the new iteration of America’s Mayor, Zohran Mandami. The fact that El-Sayed is winning in what are far less populous and distinctly less urban areas than the isolated congressional districts of Manhattan or even the quite blue areas of Colorado where this party has already achieved disproportionately loud wins is fueling the fires of the extremely vocal supporters of an ideological movement that inexplicably believes that niche wins somehow translate to statistical majorities.
It’s being further amplified in real time by media outlets that have adopted this as a cause celebre. The NEW YORK TIMES’ Shane Goldmacher dropped this mere minutes ago:
El-Sayed, appearing on MS NOW on Wednesday morning even as votes are still being counted in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, is attempting to pivot toward November, saying that NBC News has declared him the winner. (The Associated Press and The New York Times have not yet called the race.)
His colleague Theodore Schleifer added this:
El-Sayed is trying to turn the day after the primary — typically one of the biggest fundraising days of a campaign — into a fundraising bonanza. “We won,” reads a fundraising email sent by his campaign Wednesday morning. “We just fought through the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history, and we spent everything we had to win it. We start the general election on empty. (Republican nominee Mike) Rogers starts it loaded.
But Rogers also starts it with something that El-Sayed and for that matter Stevens do not–a unified faction within his party. With all due respect to the spin that the party is attempting to make with the relative size of the turnout, the fact of the matter is that even based on the aggressive projections of NBC News political guru Steve Kornacki more than 45 per cent of Michigan democrats will not be casting any vote at all, and that no matter who eventually wins that total will fall short of the 930,000 Republicans who chose to vote even though their state standardbearer ran unopposed.
There is also still the very distinct chance that there are enough lagging votes out there for Stevens to pull a Nithya Raman and pull out a narrow win that may indeed get her on the November ballot but doesn’t do much to quell the concerns of those who adamantly don’t want her. It will no doubt rankle the feathers of Rogers’ supporters and his national amplification who will yet again scream bloody murder about how elections are conducted and once again give a lane for the farter-in-chief and his minions to bitch, moan and complain and even reignite the belief that maybe there shouldn’t even be a November election. We are still technically in wartime, and don’t think that the protracted “negotiations” going on with those toadies doesn’t have situations like this motivating their pacing.
I get that there’s a generational shift clearly in a demographic direction that I do not represent that champions values that at least in theory have some validity. I can’t argue with the basic concept of promising health care and support for those truly in need. But we are seeing exactly how that playbook is going in New York City so far, and I can tell you that despite whatever posturing is coming from the Mandami camp tangible, measurable results are still pending. And if they can’t make it there, can they hope to make it anywhere?
Let’s go back to our Michigander friends. The El-Sayed margins are heavily influenced by the Muslim-centric suburb that includes Dearborn. Spend a minute there as I recently did and one will encounter more Halal markets than in Riyadh. Substantially fewer than one might find in Ann Arbor, Lansing and Grand Rapids. Areas where Michigan’s Republican minority are heavily concentrated. And where a signifcant amount of the one-sixth of the state that identifies as independent reside. The votes that will really matter going into a competitive and consequential election.
Then there’s this datecdote that Goldmacher unearthed in the midst of the potentially premature El-Sayed victory lap and money grab:
Mallory McMorrow, the Democrat who dropped out of the Michigan Senate race a month ago, has received more votes than the gap between the leading candidates, Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens. With more than 1.5 million ballots counted, McMorrow had nearly 61,000 votes, while El-Sayed was leading Stevens by less than 20,000.
Does this sound like the sort of united front that is absolutely needed to combat and deliver on the supposed Job One goal of usurping as much of the iron grip Fat Orange Jesus and his minions have on a statistically significant and blindly committed sect that literally will die for their cause?
Question One from this outsider to the El-Sayed camp: If somehow Stevens does rally and get the nomination, will you even bother to vote at all in November, let alone for her? Even if he asks you nicely without immediately attempting to put his greedy little hands in your wallets BEFORE he actually has the nomination?
I’ll grant you I’m pretty far from Michigan so I’ll defer to those closer geographically and/or emotionally for your specific take. But as someone who is faced with the choice between Raman–effectively Mandami in a dress–and the odious Karen Bass as my choices this fall to lead the city I still grudgingly call home, I can tell you that while I will indeed vote the likelihood of me voting for whatever equivalent of a McMorrow remains on the ballot is far more likely than casting a compromise vote for anyone whose platform–assuming it’s even theirs–represents radically different thoughts than those I am most comfortable with.
Tell us, Democratic Party–especially those who now want to retroactively rebrand yourselves as “Social Democrats” because no one in charge thought the word “socialist” was overly polarizing until recently. Do you seriously think this is gonna work out the way you think it will?
I don’t, and the NUMBERS back my dubiousness up many times over. Celebrate whatever win you may think you already have or will soon officially get. But from this vantage point, you may have won a battle but you’ve made far larger strides toward losing the war.
Until next time…