Shane Goldmacher, a national politics reporter at The New York Times, got his analysis of the Michigan Senate primary exactly backward in a post at the Times live blog this morning.
One thing that has to have Michigan Democrats excited even as the Senate race remains uncalled is the turnout for the contest. The Democratic Senate primary has more than 1.5 million votes counted as of early Wednesday. The competitive Republican primary for governor had around 930,000 votes.
It's a good "conventional wisdom" take, of course. It shows voter enthusiasm, which should be a strength in the upcoming general election, right?
Right? Democrat Party voters crawled over glass to get to the...mailbox, actually, since most of those were mail-in votes, but you get the idea. They turned out in huge numbers, so that must be good!
Yeah, no, probably not. Almost every one of those voters came out either to vote for or vote against Abdul El-Sayed with great enthusiasm, and they were split almost down the middle. Sure, Haley Stevens got some voters who were enthusiastic about her (for some reason), and a few who had a hard time deciding, but it's easy to see that at least half or more of her voters cast their ballots against Abdul El-Sayed, not for Haley Stevens.
Final tallies aren't in, but in the Democrat primary alone, almost $81 million was spent, and for every one dollar spent to get El-Sayed elected, 11 were spent to get him defeated. I can guarantee you that enthusiasm for Haley Stevens had nothing to do with her charisma, her platform, or her lackluster campaign; it was all thrown in there to get El-Sayed out of there because he is an Islamist.
The fact that he won is a potential disaster for the Democrats, and all that money was spent to stop his momentum.
Much will be said about the dramatic failure in the polls, and no doubt all the criticism that gets thrown at pollsters will be justified. El Sayed was up by high single to low double digits, but the race split down the middle. That's egg on the faces of pollsters, and they deserve that egg dripping down their shirts.
But consider this: the unexpected surge of Haley Stevens voters might have a source that isn't being considered: her voters might have turned out in greater numbers because they wanted him defeated; the polls of voter preferences might have been closer to right than it appears, and the difference is that anti-El-Sayed voters turned out in greater numbers than expected.
In other words, El-Sayed is like a magnet: attractive to some polarities and repulsive to others, and the number of voters to whom he is repulsive, even in the Democrat Party, is higher than a candidate should be able to survive and win, at least in any normal election cycle.
Black voters don't warm to him, and obviously Jewish voters aren't going to flock to him. El-Sayed's base is affluent white liberals and a collection of misfits, and no doubt he will pick up a large number of voters who can't imagine doing anything but vote for Democrats.
But there will be an awful lot of this:
@SRuhle @Lis_Smith @BasilSmiklePhD @stuartpstevens Fk Abdul and your DSA frauds. I will never vote for him in the general or any DSA fraud. He’s not a Democrat, Get your own fkn party. 👇 https://t.co/PsPR3oN4Z2
— Lisa (@LisaCameBack) August 4, 2026
Nope, I'm not voting for El-Sayed.
— Motor City Liberal returns (@MotorCityLib) August 5, 2026
I don't much like disagreeing with you, my friend, but under no circumstances would I vote for El-Sayed. Not after the damage he's done and the people he's stepped on.
— Talia T (@upperleftwino) August 5, 2026
But mostly because his supporters would never vote for Stevens if she won. And we all know it.
AP: A Haley Stevens voter says he’ll vote Republican in the general if Abdul El-Sayed wins the Democratic nomination
— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) August 4, 2026
David Salama, 48, is an anesthesiologist from West Bloomfield.
“I would vote for Haley in November if she were to win today, but if Abdul wins today, I will vote… pic.twitter.com/TzyyZLmPqs
AP: A Haley Stevens voter says he’ll vote Republican in the general if Abdul El-Sayed wins the Democratic nomination
David Salama, 48, is an anesthesiologist from West Bloomfield.
“I would vote for Haley in November if she were to win today, but if Abdul wins today, I will vote for Mike Rogers in November,” he said, noting, “In the extremes lie trouble.”
There are quite a few reliable Democrat Party voters, particularly Jews and some blacks, who simply won't vote for El-Sayed. The Democrat Party rush to the antisemitic left has shaken Jewish voters, and blacks quite rightly feel that they have lost their spot as the most influential voting bloc in the party, and they aren't so keen on the Muslims and DSA-types.
Abdul El-Sayed isn’t a Democrat so voting blue doesn’t matter.
— Tanja (@WeSee2024) July 30, 2026
He is a DSA aligned candidate that campaigns with Hasan Piker and William Lawrence.
He’s also an Islamic extremist with documented connections with Muslim Brotherhood and a pathological liar committing tax evasion.…
Abdul El-Sayed isn’t a Democrat so voting blue doesn’t matter.
He is a DSA aligned candidate that campaigns with Hasan Piker and William Lawrence.
He’s also an Islamic extremist with documented connections with Muslim Brotherhood and a pathological liar committing tax evasion.
He is being supported now by GOP because they think he’s easier to beat with all of his garbage.
Democratic voters aren’t obligated to vote for an extremist and can put country before party.
Abdul El-Sayed cannot enter the United States Senate and neither can Rogers. I never promote not voting, too many have died. But voters can write in, skip over it, and vote down ballot.
You can’t ask voters to vote for their own demise. Far left and far right racists on the ballot.
What’s going to be fun to watch is the DSA scum wanting Democrats and people like Obama to campaign for him after Abdul has bashed him and Michelle Obama.
Watching them beg for endorsements, whining, and bitching will be a treat! 😊
The whole General Election will be DSA and “YOU” going after Democrats.
As I noted yesterday, El-Sayed was quite confident of victory yesterday so he stumped for his most enthusiastic supporters to get to the polls, making his final pitch to them. (NSFW)
Hasan Piker’s message to Dems who didn’t vote for El Sayed: “You are all unbelievably Islamophobic pieces of shit.” https://t.co/xuncGrwsd8
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 5, 2026
🔥 @hasanthehun popped the fuck off here: "Everyone being like, 'Abdul has a fuck-ton of work to do mending bridges', here's the fucking take nuke for you: You are all unbelievably Islamophobic pieces of shit. You literally called the dude a fucking terrorist for months on end and called him a sexist, misogynist, terrorist, bad candidate, fake doctor when he has two fucking degrees. And now you're going to say sit there and be like, 'you really gotta come to me now.' What are you talking about? Do you wanna win or not? LOCK THE FUCK IN."
And his pitch was made with Hasan Piker, making the case that America sucks. His own voters eat that up, but the people who aren't on his bandwagon most certainly do not. Those voters understand very well that the DSA candidates aren't Democrats; they are trying to hijack the party instead.
Hasan Piker:
— Flacid Turkey Sausage (@Meme_murf) February 18, 2026
“In order to unlock the class consciousness of the American proletariat, you need to use whatever viable electoral machine you have to your advantage. Right now, you have tremendous opportunity with an incredibly weak Democratic Party.”
“It’s about using the party… pic.twitter.com/2ZX2HLUyST
“In order to unlock the class consciousness of the American proletariat, you need to use whatever viable electoral machine you have to your advantage. Right now, you have tremendous opportunity with an incredibly weak Democratic Party.”
“It’s about using the party and its platform to unlock the revolutionary potential of the proletariat.”
Put it all together, and you see that Goldmacher is dead wrong. The high turnout wasn't a good sign at all. It shows that the Democrat Party civil war is in full swing, with both sides fired up to take out the other.
It's certainly conceivable that El-Sayed can, as he says he will, but I doubt it. His supporters hate ordinary Democrats, and are happy to say so. They think Haley Stevens was a shill for AIPAC, and made that very clear. They believe in the Revolution, and think they are winning it right now.
It's going to be hard to make a soft, warm, and fuzzy pitch to those same voters and ask them to unite against Mike Rogers.
Editor’s Note: Every single day, here at HotAir, we will stand up and FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT against the radical Left and deliver the conservative reporting our readers deserve.
Help us continue to tell the truth about the Trump administration and its successes. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member