Moderate Democrats are asked to unify behind candidates they dislike and don’t get the same grace when they win. Democrats can only expect more of these heated primaries to further fracture the party.
Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Democratic Senate primary
Abdul El-Sayed defeats Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.
Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Michigan Senate, but by much less than anticipated. After weeks of running an arrogant campaign that alienated Rep. Haley Stevens’ voters, his campaign is now pivoting to unity.
The irony is that for years the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, including El-Sayed, has made it clear their vote cannot be counted on when moderates win.
Moderate Democrats are asked to unify behind candidates they dislike and don’t get the same grace when they win. Democrats can only expect more of these heated primaries to further fracture their party.
El-Sayed was expected to win big in the weeks leading up to the primary, and he ran his campaign like it. Instead, he won by less than a percentage point. Rather than bring the other side into the fold, he treated Stevens and her supporters as if he didn’t need their votes, or as if their concerns with his candidacy didn’t matter.
“She votes to send our money abroad while Michiganders struggle,” El-Sayed said of Stevens on X July 17. “She’s bought by DTE (Energy), Blue Cross, Big Tech, and Big Pharma who pick our pockets.”
Ironically, that rhetoric was part of a message meant to rein in unkind personal attacks from his supporters against Stevens, but that doesn’t make it any less divisive. El-Sayed also called her “the least capable candidate in America” during another podcast appearance.
Abdul El-Sayed calls for unity now that he needs Haley Stevens’ voters
That kind of rhetoric is extremely divisive for someone who won his primary by less than a point and didn’t even win a majority of the vote. Compare it with how El-Sayed talks about Stevens now that he needs the support of her voters in November.
“She is one of the most committed public servants that you’ll ever meet. She loves democracy, like I love democracy,” El-Sayed said of Stevens on Aug. 5, after his victory. “Whatever differences that we might have had in the primary, they pale in comparison to what unifies us.”
El-Sayed’s campaign surrogates have made the situation even worse for him. Hasan Piker, the antisemitic Twitch streamer and friend of El-Sayed, dismissed anyone acknowledging El-Sayed has work to do mending bridges as “unbelievably Islamophobic pieces of s—.”
Even if El-Sayed wasn’t already a divisive candidate, his campaign proxies are only driving a further wedge between him and the moderate Democrats he needs to win in November.
If Stevens won, would El-Sayed give her the same benefit?
Both Stevens and El-Sayed have made a concerted effort at amends now that the primary is over. The two rivals hugged on stage at the Michigan Democrats’ “unity breakfast,” an event planned before the primary had even ended.
The Michigan primary was uniquely contentious and was the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history.
However, I’m not so sure Democrats could have expected the same unity had the outcome been flipped. El-Sayed and his base have a history of undermining establishment candidates once they win the nomination.
In the 2024 election, El-Sayed was a loud advocate for the “uncommitted” movement, which urged Democratic voters upset with Israel’s military actions in Gaza to vote uncommitted in the presidential primary.
Although El-Sayed later endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden dropped out, and the organizers of uncommitted ultimately urged supporters to “vote against” Donald Trump, the movement had already done its damage.
Trump went on to win Dearborn, Michigan’s majority-Muslim district, due in part to the fact that 20% of voters there cast their ballot for someone other than Trump or Harris. He also carried Michigan statewide, a state Democrats had counted on and could ill afford to lose.
Compare that with 2020, when Biden won nearly 75% of the vote in Dearborn and Michigan overall.
El-Sayed still can’t extend an olive branch to moderates, and holds the same arrogant attitude looking ahead.
“I’m happy to show you around so long as you want to get money out of politics, put money in our pocket and pass Medicare for all,” El-Sayed said of potential 2028 presidential candidates visiting Michigan. “If not, I’m going to dog you up and down the state.”
That’s how someone who won a landslide talks when they want to be a political kingmaker, not how a plurality primary winner should sound.
Democrats may be comfortable with these contentious primaries as they work through their soul-searching as a party. But any compromises moderates make to back progressive candidates shouldn’t be expected in return when the results go the other way.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.