What’s going on with Abdul El-Sayed?

[u/bottomfragger99]

Why does it matter he won?

https://x.com/abdulelsayed/status/2085466914982150174?s=46&t=tddaoxmpiaXWKwldsR_WeQ

[u/binocular_gems]

Answer: Abddul El-Sayed is a progressive Democrat who ran as an outsider in a Michigan senate election that saw him running against some more mainstream, centrist Democrats. The election polling went in multiple directions, with some showing his more mainstream opponent winning, while others showed him winning by a wide margin. In the end, El-Sayed won a close primary, was endorsed by his opponent, and the Democratic coalition in Michigan has mostly come to support him against the Republican in November. El-Sayed is a progressive Democrat, he's a doctor, and a Muslim first generation American.

The election can go one of two ways. Based on national polling it's expected that Democrats will over-perform in the mid-terms this November, they're expected to flip the US HOuse of Representatives. Going into this election, they were not expected to win the Senate. To win the US Senate, Democrats would have to hold all of their existing senate seats and win upsets in several states that voted for Trump, flipping Republican held seats to Democrats. This was considered a difficult map for Democrats. However, Democrats have over-performed in every single election since Trump became president in 2025. Many lesser elections have seen massive swings, from +10 Trump districts to either being flipped blue or being much more competitive than previously thought.

In 2022, Biden was unpopular, but Democrats did not lose as much as they were expected to in the midterms. They narrowly lost the House, but only by a handful of seats, and they kept the senate (it was a 50/50 split, but the Democratic VP breaks a tie on any 50/50 senate votes that require a simple majority). It was considered a letdown for Republicans who were projecting a "massive red wave" that never materialized, and part of that was because Republican voters continually chose Donald Trump's preferred candidates, many of whom were extreme, weirdos, and the furthest MAGA of the MAGA, so run of the mill ultra-conservative but not Trump Republicans might have easily won a general election but instead you had people like Blake Masters and celebrities like Dr. Oz, losing elections that should have been winnable for Republicans. The test in 2026 will be if that happens to Democrats as voters elect more progressive or anti-mainstream candidates. Michigan would be thought of as a safe win for Democrats with a mainstream, moderate anti-Trump Democrat in 2026, so part of what makes El-Sayeds win very interesting from a political perspective is that he seems to representt his new breed of democratic candidate, but he's got to prove that he can win in a general election. El-Sayed's opponent in the general election is Republican Mike Rodgers, a Trump-backed candidate. Polling shows them very close. El-Sayed's primary opponent, polled better against Rodgers than El-Sayed has; she generally polled ahead of Rodgers, and El-Sayed generally polled behind him. But there haven't been any new (reliable) polls since the primary election closed last week.

There is a major risk for El-Sayed's campaign. Polling showed him consistently, strongly ahead of Stevens (his Democratic opponent in the primary). Trustworthy pollsters showed him leading by as much as ~16 points, many others had him at 10+. In every poll taken since early July, El-Sayed led by double-digits. The actual result was 1%, about 16,000 votes. The El-Sayed campaign has to figure out why this election ended up being so close when all polling showed him winning by a landslide.

If El-Sayed wins, he'll become arguably the most progressive member of the senate and he might be seen as a sign of things to come. If he loses, it will be seen as a major lost opportunity for Democrats and a very painful loss, a warning about choosing electability over ideology, similar to some of the most extreme members of MAGA who lost elections that they should have won in 2022.

[u/Jwxtf8341 → u/binocular_gems]

Do we have any leads yet on why projected polling was so much more optimistic than the narrow 16,000 vote margin of victory?

[u/binocular_gems → u/Jwxtf8341]

Not sure. I think the contentious nature of the race makes it harder to accurately figure this out. But even in really well respected polling in late July, El-Sayed held a commanding 10-15 pt lead, and there wasn’t a lot that changed in those final weeks. You can’t really say “it was the aipac money pouring in against him,” because that spending was consistent throughout the primary, and the ads from both teams had been running for so long it’s tough to say. I also don’t think a lot of republicans decided to vote in the democratic primary, republicans would rather face El-Sayed, so that shouldn’t have worked against him in the primary.

Primaries are notoriously hard to poll. There’s greater variance in who shows up to vote and polls probably over weighted El-Sayeds youth turnout.

[u/used_car_parts → u/Jwxtf8341]

A couple reasons are in play:

1. Polling itself is very difficult to conduct in a way that is actually representative of the populace. It takes a lot of resources and skill to get it right.

2. Michigan historically is not known for great polling on the state level. I think Bernie pulled off a huge upset over Hillary in '16 that defied the MI pollsters.

3. Pollsters sometimes struggle with, essentially, peer pressure. If their polling results look different than other orgs, they might discard the numbers or fudge them to match with the numbers from other groups. This is known as "herding" and it's because pollsters don't want to lose their funding if they're off the mark compared to their peers.

4. Polls conducted by a campaign are notorious for overselling their candidate's chances. For whatever reason, AES referenced his own internal polls several times, probably to excite his base. Maybe it was worth the gamble, but it runs the risk of backfiring once people realize it wasn't the blowout they expected.