Abdul El-Sayed Wins Primary and Takes On Mike Rogers

Welcome to Potsade of America. I'm John Favre. I'm Dan Fifer. So we were going to record a reaction to Tuesday's election results last night, but the Michigan Senate race was much closer than all the polling suggested. So here we are today. Abdul El-Sayed is now the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate race in Michigan. With more than 95% of the vote in, he defeated Hailey Stevens by one point, 48.5% to 47.5%, and will face former Republican Congressman, current Florida homeowner, Mike Rogers. On one hand, Poles had Abdul ahead of Hailey by anywhere between 10 to 19 points, and his team's confidence heading into Tuesday certainly matched that margin. On the other, we have a very progressive Muslim candidate who took on the entire Democratic establishment in DC in Michigan was outspent 11 to one by $60 million in outside spending, including a $32 million APAC spend that's more than any group has spent in any Democratic primary this cycle, and Abdul still won. Hailey Stevens very graciously conceded, and Mallory McMorrow, who had also been in the race, actually introduced Abdul at his victory event Wednesday morning, where he previewed his argument against Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers is a guy who will do anything Blue Cross Blue Shield wants him to do, including raise your rates. Mike Rogers is a guy who introduced legislation to increase the flow of opioids. He did that while I was in high school. Mike Rogers is a guy whose politics and vision and perspective are old. Mike Rogers is a guy who has never shot away from a corporation he could do a favor for. Mike Rogers is a guy who, believe it or not, went back to Florida so he could lick every single boot Donald Trump owns to beg for his endorsement. I'm so sorry if you want a senator who's going to lick some boots. Fine, go vote for Mike Rogers, but if you want a senator who's going to stand up to Donald Trump, then you've got your option right here. Michiganers are sick and tired of BS politics coming in to divide us when there's so much more we can unite to actually guarantee if we're willing to come together around it. So if all Mike Rogers got is that his name is Abdul, and my name is Mike, you're going to be surprised how many people are going to be like yeah, but that's the Abdul who wants to bring down the price of my groceries and gas and stop ascending money abroad and make sure that I got health care. So yeah, I like that Abdul over your Mike from Florida. All right, we'll get to that message in a bit, but let's start with the closer than expected results. What do you make of that and what happened with the polling? What happened with the polling? That's a great question. And a very hard one to answer because we don't have exit polls in this race. It's hard to measure what the pollsters expected in terms of primary composition to what actually happened, but I will say that Michigan is a very hard state to poll. It always has been. It doesn't have a in-state pollster that is incredibly well regarded and it doesn't. And in the most well regarded one, the epic poll which came out a few weeks ago that had, he always even up 10. So no one seems to know what no one really knew what this lecture was going to look like. Best guess is it people over sampled highly engaged college educated voters who overwhelmingly voted for Abdul hence the margin under sampled. Taylor's oldest. More work. Yeah, we've seen it happen naturally. We're now having happening in democratic politics. I was talking about this more on pollicoster that's which is coming out on Thursday. We're diverse to check out. But it's actually the opposite polling error that happened in the 2025 group and Torah races. Were they under sampled? I think it's voters. Well, I mean, it's they were mean. That's right. So it's it's all very confusing. Let's put all the points of a side because the polling stuff only really matters here in one regard, which is it has everyone and mess with everyone's expectations. If the polls have been tied or had shown Haley Stevens up a few points going into election day and Abdul one by one, this would be the shot heard around the world. It would be as you point out, this incredible victory of a Muslim man named Abdul El Sayyid beating the entire democratic machine, beating APEC, beating Chuck Schumer, beating Gretchen Whitmer and winning and it would be this incredible victory. But because our expectation was he was going by a lot and that expectation was magnified by the fact that the first counties that came in showed him dramatically outperforming what people expect as margins to be. The expectations got messed up. What ended up happening here is that Abdul had the typical coalition of a very progressive candidate in Michigan and nationally, which is a lot of young voters and a lot of college educated voters and struggled with the rest of the coalition and Haley Stevens maximized the rest of it and you ended up with a very, very close race. Yeah, someone pointed out that Haley Shulton, who represents a Western Michigan district, was a big Haley Stevens supporter. Abdul won her district, but Haley Stevens won Rashida Taleebs district. Yeah, they're like, what's going on there? It's like, well, Hillary Shulton's district is a suburban district, heavily white, college educated and lefty progressive candidates do well with those voters and Rashida Taleebs district is much more diverse, black voters, especially, and that's how, you know, more moderate Democratic candidates tend to do well in those places. I think in a place like Michigan, yeah, if you have, combining college educated white voters, Arab American voters, Muslim voters, which there's obviously a significant bigger than any other state, a bigger portion in Michigan than any other state, and younger voters, and all the colleges around Michigan, that's probably, that's the, I would guess that's the coalition that Abdul assembled to get him over the top. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And you can't understate the importance of the Muslim population, particularly in Dearborn, which Abdul won essentially 82. Yeah, yeah. And that makes you nervous. And just to your point on college educated voters voting for Abdul, is that Haley Stevens only won her own district by four points? Yeah. I love for someone to do some analysis of, because there's not, like you said, there's no exit polls, just some like county by county analysis, because Haley Stevens did really well in a lot of rural counties, smaller towns, medium-sized towns, which is not unexpected, but then like Abdul did well in some northern rural counties and other places. So, you know, we're sort of over generalizing just based on certain counties here and there, but I'd love to see a more detailed analysis. Let's just talk about APAC for a second. Do you think in the end, APAC spending was a net positive or negative for Haley Stevens? Because like, I went into the race when, you know, the expectations were that Abdul will win by a lot, saying that it is clearly a negative, because not only did they not help her win the race, but also they provided maybe the most effective argument for her opponent. Now, you could argue with the other way now that it was only a one-point race, but I don't know what do you think? Yeah, it's a somewhat complicated argument, because being associated with APAC, being the APAC candidate was bad for Haley Stevens. APAC has a negative 37 percent favorability rating among Democrats in Michigan. It also made her the candidate of big money in politics, because the APAC ads were so ubiquitous, APAC spent north of $30 million in this race. And so in that sense, it definitely hurt her and made her an establishment candidate in an anti-establishment environment. However, Haley Stevens was not a great fundraiser, you know, according to ad impact data of the $60 million to spend on her behalf, 97 percent of the ads were paid for by someone other than the Haley Stevens campaign. So absent that financial support, it's hard to see how she is this competitive. Conversely, a candidate who did not have that I think net negative impromotor of being the APAC establishment candidate might have fared better than Stevens did in a one-on-one race with Ebbel. Yeah, I was trying to, like, doing a thought experiment, because I think other Democrats who were more pro-Israel have to contend with this at some point, which is what if Haley Stevens had said, no, I don't want, I don't want APAC's endorsement, I don't want the outside spending. My views on Israel are what they are, I'm not going to change those views, but I just don't think this outside money is worth it, we shouldn't have outside money in politics and I don't want APAC's endorsement because I disagree with the Netanyahu regime, whatever it may be, whatever she could say without completely flip flopping, which is, you know. I think she could have, I mean, her best move would have been a completely flip flop, or at least have a more nuanced position to put her on aid to Israel with conditions, perhaps, that put her more in the mainstream of the current Democratic Party, but the cost of that would be $30 million of APAC money, but she also got north of $10 million in spending by another super PAC that was essentially, I think, a vessel for DSCC donors and people and established in the Schumer world who wanted Haley Stevens similar to the spending that happened on Josh Turks behalf in Iowa. Yeah, I was thinking about that because I listened to Sarah Longwell's Focus Group podcast with Jonathan Cohn who knows Michigan really well and they talk to Michigan Democrats and I was surprised by, I mean, first of all, you know, it's always good to listen to voters because the way they viewed this primary was so different than the national discourse on what you see online. Like, a lot of those Democrats, like they love liked both Stevens and Abdul. And to the extent that there were negative things that about Hailey Stevens, so many of these voters brought up APAC and outside spending and money in politics. And it's just, you know, it really broke through not only her ads that, you know, APAC ran on her behalf, but the idea that she was a candidate that was taking all this outside money. - And one of the polls that came out from, Kerem, which one it was, that was not the Emerson poll, but one of the polls in the final stretch did a word cloud. Now this is obviously overly poor Abdul polls, so take a grain of salt, many grains of salt, but they did a word cloud of things associated with Hailey Stevens and APAC as like giant in the middle of that and money and like money. I think it's the other very big word in that word cloud. So it definitely impacted her candidacy. It's just it's very, it's just very hard to say how she, could she have raised the money? Absent, all this support from APAC, enough to compete with Abdul, who's an excellent grassroots fundraiser. Could she have, was there a way in which Schumer at all could have funneled more money to her through a non-APAC vehicle? Hope I'm in question. But I think you generally, I cannot see based on these results, a 2028 candidate accepting, soliciting, accepting, or courting APAC to either endorse them or run ads on their behalf. And if you are a more pro-Israel candidate in 2028 on the scale, you're like on whatever the scale is for 2028 candidates. And APAC starts running the United Democracy Project, whatever it's called, or one of their shadow packs where it's going to be off. You have to go like, to hold a press conference in front of APAC demanding they take it down. That's sort of how it's getting. It'll hurt you. Yeah, okay, that's, that was my thought too, but wanted to see what you thought. Any of the thoughts on the primary race and results before we turn to the general? I mean, there's been a lot of, just this morning, you know, Abdul has a lot of work to do. And the whole Democratic Party does just sort of bridge the divides from this pretty bruising primary. I think they were off to a really good start. Yeah, Haley Stevens graciously conceded, had a nice post, and Mallory McMurrow, she introduced Abdul and Abdul was saying all the right things. So everyone seems to be saying all the right things this morning as of Wednesday morning, which is great. But how big of a challenge do you think it will be for Abdul to unite the rest of the party? It does not appear like it's going to be a challenge to unite the political establishment nationally and in Michigan. Everyone seems to understand the urgency of the task. I have really, you know, I've been pretty critical of how Abdul has talked about his opponents in this race, especially when it appeared. And he certainly believed he was winning. Yeah. It was not always the most gracious, but he did the exact right thing here. I think his tone was right both last night when he went on spoke to voters before we knew the results. And then this morning he responded to Haley Stevens's tweet, supporting Abdul in a very gracious way. Gretchen Whitmer immediately endorsed Abdul this morning. The Senate majority pack, which has been rooting pretty extensively, I imagine, as a Chuck Schumer vehicle for Haley Stevens to win, had a video out this morning supporting Abdul. So I think that part is going exactly as planned. This is a conversation that you've been to the general is, it's just, can the voters in the coalitions come together? I think the activists, even the people who have been the biggest people fighting against Abdul on Twitter, national democratic activists types, this morning were like, Abdul's our nominee, go support Abdul. Here's how you give to Abdul. I was a Malimic Moro supporter throughout this race. I donated to Abdul this morning. I encourage everyone in my newsletter to do it. I think people are doing the right thing here, but can you get the voters who just heard $60 million of arguments against Abdul to come and support him? And that is the challenge in the general election. Pots of America breaking news is brought to you by Zipper Cruder with everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal. Someone going just one extra step can be huge. Like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results instead of sending them electronically, they came back positive for gay. It makes me feel like a human being again. If you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on Zipper Cruder as a way to stand out from others in the pool. And Zipper Cruder has a new feature showing you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you can meet the right people faster. 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He joined a sex offender and a murderer to demand the mass release of dangerous prisoners. And when his ally claimed America deserved 9/11. - America deserved 9/11, dude. - Al-Sayed refused to disavow. - I'm not here to disavow. - Abdul Al-Sayed, too radical, too dangerous. Wrong for Michigan. - Welcome to the general. Thoughts on the air. - Kicking the teeth this morning, I'll tell you that. - Yeah. - I like the day combined. I really like the mix of dangerous scary Muslim extremist with, inhale, raise taxes. - It's not as dumb as it sounds. - No, I know. But it's just like, it's not as dumb as it sounds. And I will say, Democrats do the exact same thing, but it is the consultant polster admaker brain, which is like, this is tests on popular, this tests on popular, let's jam them together. It doesn't matter if they're jammed together in a compelling way or not. - I think this is, we can, I don't know if you want to talk about, Abdul's argument about Mike Rogers first and then get to this, but I think this ad is better than a lot of people online think. And I think the combining of it actually makes sense. - Yeah. Why do you think that? - Because when you say that someone wants to like raise taxes on seniors, you need to prove, that is a very hard thing for anyone to imagine. So you have to prove that they are so radical that they'll be willing to do that. And by all the other stuff leads to the idea that he has someone so radical that he would do that. And so I do think they, this is the argument. It's he has this incredible radical that he will do these other things that affect you, 'cause a person who cares about affordability, if they believe, if 2024, for example, if they believe that Abdul, I mean, they're good, they're gonna discount a lot of this stuff 'cause of political app, but they think that he's a little too extreme. Maybe he says some things in the past, but they think he's actually gonna lower his cost. Donald Trump's election proves people will tolerate a lot for someone who will lower their cost. You have to make them believe that he will not lower your cost and the way to do that is to make him seem so radical he's willing to do that. It's not the best version of that ad, but I understand the argument. - I think you gotta pick one. I think if I was going to try to persuade people that he's too extreme, and he's so extreme that he would raise seniors taxes. Here are all his plans. He wants to spend this amount of money. He needs this much taxes. He loves government-controlled health care. I would go, if he's gonna be a socialist who's gonna raise your taxes, you gotta make him left on that, which I'm sure that'll be coming. And then they'll of course have another track that is the scary Muslim extremist track. - I guess the way I would think about this ad is, it is a preview of an asignal to donors of what the larger argument will be. This will all, of course, the campaign manifests itself in some ads that are only about Hassan Piker and things he has said in the past, darkening his skin, using his full name, and there will be ads about affordability. My argument would just be, is that those things are more connected than I think a lot of Democrats naturally assume we are a, our ad making is very siloed, and there is an economic argument, and there's a radical argument. And I think in voters' minds, you were softening the ground for the economic argument by showing someone to be extreme. And the candidate who has viewed us more as less extreme, tends to win elections in these last few elections. And in Donald Trump being seen as less extreme, then Kamala Harris was a real warning sign that he was gonna win that race. - Well, so then let's talk about Abdul versus Mike Rogers, because I do not think, personally, he's going to be able to make voters believe that Mike Rogers is extreme, but it sounded like from his opening message there, and what he's been saying about Mike Rogers, that he is going to try to convince voters that it's not about who's the more extreme candidate, but who's fighting for you and who's corrupt, and that he's gonna make Mike Rogers the more corrupt candidate. - Yes, I think his argument there too was also his, let's just unload the full clip and see what sticks, because there is a, there's a combination of, he's corrupt, there's a combination of, he's pro data center, there's a combination that he is pro-corporation, and then there is, he is a bootlicker for Trump. I think all of those individually are good arguments, and I think that they can go together. We can discuss the, whether that's the, whether he's doing that in the right way or not, but you know, I think, look, this is a state that, is a 50/50 state in 2024. It's a plus six and a half to eight point democratic state, this time around depending on exactly what you do. exactly how the generic ballot looks and Donald Trump's approval rating is under 40 in some polls in Michigan. So it's like, sometimes we overcomplicate the fucking simple around here, a vote for microadgers, a vote for Donald Trump and Donald Trump to control the Senate. You know, is the, and underneath that is a vote for higher costs for you, a vote for more powerful corporations, vote for tax cuts for billionaires, all of that is part of it. But that, I don't think convincing people that microadgers himself is corrupt is going to be the argument this is necessarily going to play. I think this is what he's contending with, and this is a microadgers specific problem, is microadgers has been representing Michigan for a long time, or he's been in Michigan politics for a long time. I think that a lot of voters to the extent that they know who microadgers is probably remember him as a more moderate Republican, who might, who's, there's plenty of clips of him speaking out against Donald Trump. And I think a dual has to make people realize before he just says that microadgers is going to be a vote for Donald Trump, that microadgers has changed. Because otherwise, I don't think you can go right to a microadgers, like I know everyone wants to do, and we talked about this in the main Senate race too, everyone wants to just do like, nationalize the race, make it about the Senate, make it about control of the Senate. Yeah, I agree with that to an extent, except when you have candidates like Susan Collins, like a microadgers, who the voters in that state know and think of as more moderate and more willing to buck Trump, than your typical Republican. And I think in those instances, you've got to do some work on their character to like persuade people that something has changed about them, that they have either, like, they've been there too long, they've become corrupt, they only care about themselves and their money, they're now willing to do whatever Trump says, just so they can keep their jobs and keep their money and all that kind of shit. Like, you still have to have Trump be part of it, but you have to do some work on the person's character. The microadgers thing is interesting, because I have, as I have been arguing for a long time that this is a very hard race because microadgers is not a mega buff in the eyes of the voters. Right. A mega buffoon, like a Dr. Oz or a Herschel Walker, or some of these other candidates, the Democrats benefit from in 2022. There's also no evidence that he is Susan Collins. He underperformed Trump in 2024. The people in microadgers district know microadgers, he was there for a very, for 18 years, I think. We know microadgers because we watch CNN in the 2010s, and he was always on, and he was a very prominent Trump skeptical voice in the 2016 world. I don't know, it's unclear to me how many Michigan voters know that. You absolutely have to do work on his character, for sure, to make, to make people understand why the attacks work. But Susan Collins is a very unique proposition in a way in which microadgers is more like running as the New York Republican. I guess also it's tying to microadgers, tying microadgers to Donald Trump in the same story, which is if we were to talk about Donald Trump right now, we'd say, you know, in his second term, he's fucking out to lunch corrupt, only cares about himself. It's a smashing grab. He's made everything more expensive while he got rich. And you know, they've in the primary Abdul has a website like pricehike mic.com, I'm sorry, Abdul didn't do it. The Michigan Democratic Party did pricehike mic.com and they have some great mic Rodgers quotes in there. He talks about coffee prices. He goes, oh my gosh, coffee went up. You know, horror like being sarcastic and on tariffs, he said, well, the shoe's gonna pinch every once in a while on gas. He said, we're going to be fine. We got plenty of oil on a $50 annual physical. He said, that's probably okay, right? And then he said, uh, he said, uh, anyone voters who blame Trump for high prices are nuts. Like those are the kind of, I think those are the kind of quotes that both link what you're talking about, which is like, he's just like Trump, but also the guy's way out of touch and he like moved to Florida has no idea what people in Michigan are going through anymore. Yeah, I agree. Okay. Um, so, uh, anything else that Abdul needs to think about ahead of the general? So much. He was a message box on this. I did 1700 words on no sleep. Um, the, look, Abdul's win is incredibly impressive when you put in the context of everything he was up against. But it is, when you look at the coalition that he won with, it is a coalition that does not vote great for the general election. He overperformed with youth. He overperformed the college educated voters. He underperformed in rural areas. He underperformed, in most rural areas on all of them, but he underperformed with working class voters and he really got his clock clean with black voters. Um, and the electorate, you can survive in a primary like that because in Michigan, because it's almost 50, 50 college educated and non-college educated voters in a typical primary. Like we don't have a lot of dad on it, but I went back and looked at the 2020 primary between Biden and Bernie, because they had exit polls from that. And it was 53 non-college 47 college educated in that primary. And probably in a midterm, it's closer to 50, 50 or, or majority college educated. In a general election, if you look at 2024 exit poll data, it's more, more than 60% non-college educated. It is significantly older. The number of percentage of voters over 65 I think goes up nine points. And so all the voters that Abdul struggled most with are disproportionately, a larger portion of the electorate in 2020 in the general election. And I think we, you know, he once again, this is another progressive candidate running on a working class agenda who did not win working class voters. And you can't, there's no other way to win Michigan, right? So I think like I wrote a bunch of things for Abdul to do. I'll just give you a couple of them here. The first one was Unify and sort of a, you know, win with grace. And he has done that thus far, that, I think that's going in the right direction. The second thing was he has to really think about how to not just do better with black voters, but to make increased turnout with black voters for him. You know, and you can argue that millions and millions of dollars of ads that misleadly suggested that Barack Obama had endorsed Hillary Stevens contributed to this. And I'm sure it did. Yeah. But also historically candidates with Abdul's profile of sort of this progressive candidate do poorly with black voters. And so he's got worked, I think, he's got work to do there. I hope he calls Barack Obama today. Yeah. And starts to think about how he can be helpful in other, in other Michigan Democrats, others who can help him in that community. He can be validators in that community. He's got to be, I think the lesson here is he needs to think really hard about how to make himself more broadly appealing. Like he just, there is a, he is going to, I think his campaign was, I found so much of it inspiring and exciting. And like from a communications and messaging perspective, it was really masterful in a lot of ways. But I really, the vibes you got was a really like my way or the highway. You're with us or you're against us. And he now has to go out and persuade a lot of people. Some of them we voted for, Hayley Stevens, some of them who are just middle of the road independent voters who have not thought about politics once since 2024 to support him. Many of those people are going to disagree with him on Medicare for all on some of the things he said in the past. They're going to disagree with him on Israel. There's real work to do with Jewish Democrats in Michigan. And you have to, you have to be willing to seem like you are open to listening, opening to understanding, opening to agree to disagree and open to compromise. Yeah. And if you, and if you looked at the way that his primary, his primary campaign was entirely centered around, and this was an effective strategy because he won, maximizing his base, rallies with Bernie. Many of the final ads had AOC in them. She's a very, very popular Democrat. And they worked. But he did very little to try to show himself to be different than the caricature of himself as this sort of prototypical leftist candidate. You didn't see he was either unable to get or did not seek out endorsements. They would be counterintuitive. A moderate Democrat who endorsed them, a business leader who would endorse him, a former Republican or something like that, or putting the, like, he talks all the time and I know this happens of these triple Trump voters who are going to, who supported Abdul in this primary, because Michigan is open primary. Why are those people in ads, right? You're going to have to do some things that have a much more broadly appealing. There's more that reaches, you have to actively reach out to people to not agree with you. And the last thing is, like, you really, we really have to think hard about, we know, he had a very economically centered message, money in your pockets. What is it that did not work with that with working classes of Democrats, let alone working class independence or working class dissolution Trump voters? Is it that it wasn't specific enough? Is it that people, because of the way the race played out, people thought that wasn't his top priority? And maybe it was, they thought his top priority was money in the politics, or eight to Israel? I was going to say, like, I, I think this, this whole conversation about working class voters in the Democratic primary has sort of, like, gotten out of hand, because we thought we did this with the Platinum thing in Maine as well. Like, just a few, like, Democrats have been doing poorly with working class voters for a long time, as you know. And that is true of moderate Democratic candidates. It's true of liberal Democratic candidates. It's true of progressive Democratic candidates. Like, we have been losing working class voters to the Republicans under Donald Trump. Trump especially, that is he has accelerated it and it used to be just white voters and now under Trump it was Latino voters in some black men as well, right? So it is a party-wide problem. The left says if you just like, you know, press the economically populist button hard enough, they suddenly you're going to win over the working class voters, that has not, there's not a lot of evidence that that is true. The establishment in center left Democrats are like, well, the left can't do this and they say that they're economically populist, but they can't get the working class voters. But it's like, you know what? The establishment candidates aren't really doing that much. There's not a lot of evidence that the establishment candidates are doing that much better with the working class voters that you would actually need to win in a close state. Yes, in a primary, Hayley Stevens' coalition is going to look more working class than Abdul's, but like in a general election, it's not like there is any Democrat you can point to in the last 15 fucking years who's really made inroads to the working class. In a way that would solve this problem, which leads me to believe, which is one thing you could take from this is it is not just about talking up affordability or the right affordability message or the right economic message. Like, there are cultural social concerns that the working class has, which is why they have moved away from the Democratic Party, that I think we all have to contend with here, because it's like, why is Jared Golden winning them in main two and is like as moderate as they come on a host of issues, but is not some like economically populist hero. I agree with your point here. I think if you're trying to win this race and you just lost in working class voters in a Democratic primary, and the core of your message was pro working class is we're taking a step back and trying to figure out what you need to do to at least perform better than Kamala Harris did with those voters in Michigan, so you can win. Yeah. I guess the way one way to think about it is we went through this in '08, right? Like we were in a primary with Hillary that lasted 45 years, and every single state she won working class voters and we did not. And the reason she won working class white voters, that's the, that's one giant difference here is the reason why Obama wins and Bernie and Bill Bradley and all these other regressives can't lose it's because Obama could win college educated voters and black voters at high numbers. Right. The rest of these voters are not doing that. But what we heard incessantly is Barack Obama has been talking about the working class as policies are geared for the working class, but it's just not working. It's just not working. Why isn't it working? And then, you know, he was, he still maintained that message through the general and one, meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was like the hero of working class voters in 2008 and then she runs for president again in 2016 and gets her clock cleaned with working class voters. Well, like these things are always suffer from small sample sizes, but the example for Abdul is Obama, which is we worked really hard to get those voters and we did it in a lot of ways that were counter to what a typically, a typical progressive Democrat would do based on the playbook. We spent a lot of time talking about the deficit and making sure people's taxpayer money was spent. Remember, we're going to have the guy from Dave. He was going to go through the budget, line by line. There, you know, Obama was very, spent a lot of time reaching out to voters who disagreed with him on abortion. This is, this is all I'm, this is what I'm getting at. That's what I was getting at. Yes. Yes. And I think there's a way in which Israel plays into this, which I'll get to in a sec. Look, you cannot be used, I don't not want to overlook the fact then both in Obama's case and Abdul's case race plays a role here. Of course. Right. The fact that he is that Obama was a black man and Abdul is a Muslim American, certainly plays a role. And that then puts a higher burden on you in that general election because life is not fucking fair. Yeah. To do some things that show, because of the ad we just saw, that show that you can relate to these voters culturally, that you're different than the caricature and you're going to have to find some ways that are to use the favorite term of some of our moderate friends that is heterodox or counterintuitive. And the reason I want to bring Israel up here because some people will argue that he needs to moderate on Israel and eight Israel in particular to win. And he has done this. And if you actually really listen to what Abdul says and when he gets asked questions, he is very good at talking about, about reaching out to Jewish Americans who disagree with him. Right. But he has worked to do there, obviously, you know, and all the money spent against him does not, you know, is why he has a little bit of the stuff is it and some of his supporters, and his most promised supporters are why he has a bit of the stuff is it. But independent voters in Michigan and nationally agree with Abdul on eight Israel. Independents are basically some very similar Democrats on this issue. The issue that was once you moved to the general election and once you move down scale economically, the salience of the issue goes down. And so I can imagine that if you're a working class voter and you have just paid attention to this race and you hear what Abdul's talking about, you hear what's break, not just what he says, because you're not listening to his full speech, what's breaking through in media coverage or social media conversation, even in some male pieces is a pack in Israel. And that that, and that these voters who agree with them, dual, but think it is let, care much, but affordability is a much higher topic for them can believe that in his mind is prior priority wise that eight Israel on that basket of issues is higher on his list and affordability. And that hurts you with voters. And it's one of the things reasons Democrats have suffered with these voters is, you know, we saw this in the deciding to win report that Simon Baselon did last year or whenever that was because time is no meaning. And what voters think Democrats type priorities are is often not the economy. And when it actually is. I think there's a pretty easy way to square this circle. And I could see him moving towards the deal moving towards the state, which is just people are tired of their money going overseas to be spent on stupid wars like, like Israel is part of this. But like we're at war with the round right now that is a fucking disaster that Donald Trump is responsible for and Mike Rogers is supporting. And Mike Rogers just told Simon for the other day, oh, when I go around, no one talks about a run and the more blah, blah, blah, blah. But by linking affordability concerns to meanwhile you've got Republicans and if you put Mike Rogers in the Senate, they're just going to keep sending all your money overseas to fight stupid wars and to like, you know, when it should be here in Michigan, helping you afford things like, I think that's a good message. Yeah. First, that was one I would admit to bring that brother is that that pivot was notable in his remarks. And it's going to be interesting when you get asked what how it feels about A to Ukraine in this situation. Yeah. Yeah. That is true. Well, we're not providing much anymore. So there's, that's right, unfortunately there. But yeah, no, that is, well, and he's also been, because I saw him on MS now and someone was like, well, you talk about Israel the time, well, do you not like Egypt or other ethno-nationalist governments? He's like, no, no, I don't. I would not give aid to them either. Yeah. He doesn't believe in unconditional aid to any country, which is a very good and wise and I imagine quite popular position. Yes. Right. Okay. We should just talk about Michigan Senate was not the only notable primary last night before we go. In Michigan's seventh house district, which is a top target for Dems to flip. The lefty candidate will Lawrence, who's the Sunrise Movement co-founder, beat two more moderate Democrats who split the vote. In Michigan's thirteenth house district, DSA candidate Dunovan McKinney has defeated incumbent Democrat Sheree Thanadar by three points. In Kansas, the more progressive state senator Cindy Holtcher beat Democratic Governor Laura Kelly's pick to succeed her state senator Ethan Corson. But over in Missouri, incumbent House Democrat Wesley Bell crushed Cory Bush, who was trying to win her old seat back by 59 to 37. We got a moderate Senate Democratic candidate in Kansas, Adam Hamilton, whose primary victory there moves the race from solid R to likely R and elsewhere in Washington and yeah, I know it's something. We're in Washington and Virginia incumbent moderate established Democrats all won their races, despite some of them facing challenges from the left. Anything else I missed and any, any takes on the rest of the primaries from last night? No, I mean, this continues a trend we've seen with, with a handful of exceptions here and there of progressive anti-establishment candidates winning in races. It's, you can overstate these things. Lawrence won a three way race. So it would be interesting what would happen if he had a one on one with either of the two moderates. Maybe he's still one than two, but the anti- Lawrence vote was much larger than Lawrence vote in the shrieth on at our race. He is a particularly unpopular Democrat, but still impressive because incumbents don't get knocked off that much. Then you have the Wesley Bell Cory Bush one, which is the example of this, he was very, was supported heavily by APAC, Wesley Bell was, the APAC supported his victory against Cory Bush last time. There's a lot of baggage from why Cory Bush lost the first time, scandal stuff there that affected it. I think Bell, apparently I guess in the eyes of his constituents been an effective legislator in this time, but if you want to, like, what happened last night is, I think, consistent with the theme we've seen all primary season, which is in races with the right candidates in the right situations, progressive anti-establishment candidates have the advantage in the primary against the more traditional candidates you would expect to win. I do think you're point about Michigan seventh where if there had only been one candidate facing William Lawrence instead of two, they very well, he who will very well could have lost. And I think for moderate Democrats who are worried about this, or worried about the sort of this progressive wave, like if you don't want a DSA candidate to win, like figure out one candidate to take on that person. - I mean, this is really hard because I look at that and I'm like, well, most people can be wrong, but the general, this is Michigan San Francisco that Trump won by one point. It's a list of slackens old district. Democrats should win at this time around. Most of the people whose job it is to try to win the house believe pretty strongly that either Bridget Brinker, Matt Mazden, would be favorites in that race. This is a toss up at best with Lawrence, whether that's correct or fair, I don't know. But so in one sense, you're like, well, why can't these people in Washington figure this should out and get one person on the race for the same thing? And we're like, hey, DSCC, stop endorsing in these primaries. - Yeah. - You know, why are you endorsing Haley Stevens and Janet Mills and all these other people and just let the voters decide? But I think there are some lessons here. Like, if the, not the people in Washington, but if the folks who really are focused on electing more moderates or more electable or more heterodox Democrats, whatever you else you want, do have to get their shit together. And I think what happened in Michigan seven and what happened in Michigan senate where most, there was a strong argument that Abdul was less electable than Haley Stevens. That's sort of a moot point right now. But is that there are a lot of people in the Democratic Party with the authority and the experience and the trust who tell Democratic primary voters how to think or even to tell candidates, which one of them should get out. And you end up in situations like these, where the candidate who in a normal election year might not have won will win this year because the establishment doesn't have the credibility to tell voters, if they can say who's more electable, the voters aren't gonna believe him. - Look, this is a conversation we'll be having for like the next year, two years. So we don't have to do it all now. But yeah, I think it's less, like I don't, I think the ability of some Democratic establishment to like move pieces on a chess board to get the right people that they want and races is like not the best strategy. But I do think it argues for compelling candidates who break out from the crowd who are also not like, like they don't have to be DSA candidates, but they can at least have, like there's plenty of, I think mainstream Democrats and tough races who I would say the left is probably fine with. John Assoff is an example, right? Like John Assoff has taken some votes that are, you know, pretty moderate votes or things that left these might be upset about. But like, people are generally fine with him because he is a compelling candidate. And now we're looking, you know, you look in Wisconsin right now. What's going on, right? Like in the governor's race. And they had a lieutenant governor who had to drop out 'cause of scandal. Mandela Barnes also drops out partially 'cause of scandal. Partly 'cause he didn't break through. We got David Crowley who you're gonna be talking to on Thursday show, who last minute got Evers endorsement and now they're trying, it's just like you gotta run candidates who can really break through and at least say, have a message and have an agenda that people who would normally vote for some of these DSA progressive candidates would still find appealing. The model here in the example is Josh Turk. Yes, who was a more moderate candidate, believed to be more electable, was supported by Schumer World and benefit benefit from $10 million in super backspending for that but was able to, you know, all the other, you know, Schumer's endorsement three races his candidate has lost or dropped out in two of the three. Turk's the exception. Turk is a very compelling candidate who even though he had establishment support does not read like an establishment candidate. Yeah. And now obviously he is a very unique bio, very unique profile, but the way for moderates to win is to find candidates who do not appear to be just like establishment totes, right? Ruben Gaiago in Arizona in 24, as is another example of that, right? Ruben Gaiago. It was a lock-in honestly. Yeah, same. Yeah, so. Different profile but you know and, but we're also in a different world now where everyone is going, almost everyone is going to face a primary and if you think there are a lot of primaries in 2026. Oh boy. Wait until 2028. All right. That's enough on the on Tuesday nights primaries. We'll see you guys soon and don't forget to please subscribe to Pazav America. Just hit the button right there. It's free. Subscribe to our YouTube channel so we can keep popping up in your algorithm and giving you great content. Pazav America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna Roberts and Ferris Safari with Reed Charlene, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heffko, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pelev, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East. [MUSIC PLAYING]