Photo taken by Conlan Houston of Abdul El-Sayed speaking at a campaign event
Edited by Amelia Cantwell and Rishi Chandra
The current state of affairs has positioned the 2026 midterms as the prime opportunity to capture an increasingly anti-Trump electorate and use the power of Congress to hold this presidential administration accountable for its transgressions. The United States of America is at war. The United States of America is in an economic crisis. The United States of America is led by a Republican administration which is arguably the most corrupt and unconstitutional in the history of the country. The Democratic Party has a five-course, five-star meal awaiting them in the midterms; however, despite this, the party’s leadership has elected to stuff themselves with the bread at the center of the table.
One fixation of these empty-calorie-loving Democrats is a Twitch livestreamer by the name of Hasan Piker. Following Piker’s appearance at a rally for Michigan Senate primary candidate Abdul El-Sayed, corporatist think tank Third Way manufactured a media offensive centering around inflammatory comments Piker has made over the years, especially those regarding Israel.
In the months since the Piker controversy, the true target of the media storm has become abundantly clear — El-Sayed, a doctor who served as the director of the Wayne County Department of Health from 2023-2025 and has built momentum in the Michigan Senate primary as an unabashed progressive. He has held a mostly unbroken lead in the polls since early May while employing similar messaging to that of James Talarico, Democratic nominee for the Texas Senate —namely, an emphasis on anti-corruption and affordability, epitomized in his slogan, “Money Out of Politics. Money In Your Pocket.”
Specific policy overlap between El-Sayed and Talarico includes Medicare for All, eradicating gerrymandering and corporate super-PAC spending from politics, halting military aid to Israel, and defunding I.C.E. These positions each appeal to the majority of Americans. These are also the priorities that have given Talarico a fighting chance to become the first Democratic Senator elected in Texas since 1988.
Unfortunately, El-Sayed faces an uphill slope in bringing similar anti-establishment representation to the Senate after outside spending injected a staggering $50 million into the primary, mostly towards the campaign of Representative Haley Stevens. Stevens is El-Sayed’s only remaining opponent and the candidate supported by most Democratic Party leadership, namely New York Senator and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Among Stevens’ accomplishments for Michiganders is voting for a resolution to thank I.C.E. officers. She is also one of the most unapologetic supporters of Israel in Congress, once proudly proclaiming in a 2023 speech, “Israel comes to me in my dreams!” More than half of her outside primary spending—over $28 million—comes from the United Democracy Project, a super-PAC primarily funded by AIPAC, the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the country.
Stevens’ campaign has made good use of the influx of cash, running ads that feature the candidate pictured with former President Obama, as well as the logo for the United Auto Workers’ Union. To be clear — Stevens has neither been endorsed by Obama nor the UAW. In fact, the UAW endorsed El-Sayed in June and has sent the Stevens campaign a cease-and-desist letter.
The ad with Obama has aired more than any other political ad in Michigan in the past year, and has coincided with a surge for Stevens, who now leads in some polls after trailing for months. These conditions developed despite El-Sayed maintaining a strong favorability advantage and nearly 80% of Michigan voters saying they would be less likely to support candidates who receive contributions from AIPAC.
Corporate donors have good reason to prefer Stevens over El-Sayed. Despite publicly positioning herself as anti-corruption, Stevens has been all-too willing to accept corporate-financed trips and campaign contributions from a PAC funded by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Her commitment to anti-corruption is flexible, at best.
Both candidates are favored over the Republican nominee, Congressman Mike Rogers. However, Kamala Harris led Michigan in some polls prior to the 2024 general election, and America knows the end result there. Stevens shares many similarities with Harris, including opposition to Medicare for All.
In 2024, Harris failed to sell a convincing enough vision to voters to defeat the man who has become the most unpopular president ever. With Stevens holding similarly unpopular positions to Harris, amidst a sweeping anti-establishment movement around the country headed by Talarico and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, it is no wonder El-Sayed’s “Money Out of Politics. Money In Your Pocket” had him as the front-runner in this race.
A July 6th poll by Data for Progress found that policies such as Medicare for All and increasing taxes on the rich were the most cited by swing voters as policies that could make them vote blue in the 2026 midterms. Despite this, corporate donors and Democratic leadership want to stifle the most vocal supporter of these policies in the Michigan Senate race.
The oligarchs are scared. A Democratic Party led by the El-Sayeds rather than the Stevenses of the world is a party controlled from the ground up, rather than by the top down. This is why they are attempting what is effectively a coup.
Corporate donors are hoping their deluge of dirty money—a 12:1 spending advantage in favor of Stevens—overwhelms the tides of public will. If Stevens is the nominee and wins over Rogers, then the message to Michigan voters is that their elections can be bought and sold—democracy is a lie. If Stevens is the nominee and loses, then the Senate majority, which is essential to curbing the abuses of the Trump administration, falls firmly out of reach—democracy is doomed.
The coup must be overcome and democracy must be allowed to run its course—Abdul El-Sayed must win this primary, held on August 3.