Breaking News from Pod Save America - Abdul El-Sayed Wins Primary and Takes On Mike Rogers

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Michigan's Senate race is officially underway as Abdul El-Sayed wins the primary and MAGA and the NRSC ramp up their attacks. Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer break down the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. I'm Dan Fyfer. 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 Haley Stevens by 1.48.5% to 47.5%. And we'll face former Republican congressman, current Florida homeowner, Mike Rogers. On one hand, polls had Abdul ahead of Haley 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 D.C. and Michigan was outspent $11 to 1 by $60 million in outside spending, including a $32 million

A-PAC spend that's more than any group has spent in any Democratic primary this cycle, and Abdul still won. Haley 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 legislator. 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 shied 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 us sending money abroad and make sure that I got health care. So yeah, I like that. Abdul over your mic 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 pollster is 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 Haley Stevens up 10. So no one seems to know what no one really knew what this elector 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 undersampled. Taylor's oldest time.

We've seen it happen nationally. We're now having it happening in democratic politics. I was talking about this more on Policoster that's just coming out on Thursday, which everyone should check out. But it's actually the opposite polling error that happened in the 2025 gubernatorial races.

Were they undersampled? Oh, really? Well, I mean, it's, they were mean... That's right. So it's all very confusing. Let's put all the polling stuff aside 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 hurt around the world. It would be, as you point out, this incredible victory of a Muslim man named Abdul El-Said beating the entire Democratic machine, beating APEC, beating Czech Schumer, beating Gretchen 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 to win 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 his 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 end up with a very, very close race. Yeah, someone pointed out that Hillary Shulton, who represents a Western Michigan district was a big Haley Stevens supporter. Abdul won her district, but Haley Stevens won Rashida Talib's district. 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 Taleb's 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 when all the colleges are in Michigan, that's probably, that's the, I would guess that's the coalition that Abdul assembled to get them 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 80, 20. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes you different. 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 no, 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 overgeneralizing 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 would 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 it 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 APEC, being the APEC candidate was bad for Haley Stevens. APEC has a negative 37% 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-Semans was not a great fundraiser. You know, according to Ad Impact Data, Of the $60 million is spent on her behalf, 97% 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 imprimandor of being the APAC establishment candidate might have fared better than Stevens did in a one-on-one race with Abdul. 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 Apex 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 Apex endorsement because I disagree with, you know, the Netanyahu regime, whatever it may be, whatever she could say without completely flip-lopping, which is, you know. Well, I think she could have, I mean, her best move would have been to 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 APEC 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 Turk's 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 talked 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 and what you see online. Like a lot of those Democrats, like they liked both Stevens and Abdul.

And to the extent that there were negative things said about Haley 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 a I can't remember 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 pole so take a grain of salt, many grains of salt,

but they did a word cloud of things associated with Haley Stevens and APAC as like giant in the middle of that and money and like money I think is the other very big word in that word cloud. So it definitely impacted her candidacy. It's just it's 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-AAPC vehicle? Open question. But I think you generally, I cannot see, based on these results, a 2028 candidate soliciting, accepting, or courting APEC 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 know, like on whatever the scale is for 2028 candidates, and A-PAC starts running the United Democracy Project, whatever was called, or one of their shadow PACs, starts on behalf.

You have a good, like, hold a press cameras in front of A-PAC demanding they take it down. That's sort of what I was getting at. 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 to sort of bridge the divides from this pretty bruising primary. I think they were off to a really good start.

Haley Stevens, graciously conceded, had a nice post, and Mallory McMorrow, she introduced Abdul, and Abdul was saying all the right things. So everyone seems to be saying all the right things this morning, as a 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've 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 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 a plan.

This is a conversation that you pitch with the general is, 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 activist types. This morning we're like, Abdul's our nominee. Go support Abdul. Here's how you give to Abdul. I was an Mali McMorro supporter throughout this race.

I donated to Abdul this morning. 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's, that, that is the challenge in the general election. Pod Save America breaking news is brought to you by ZipRecruiter 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 ZipRecruiter as a way to to stand out from others in the pool. And ZipRecruiter has a new feature showing you the most interested, qualified candidates first so you can meet the right people faster. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology

finds qualified candidates quickly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. So try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who will go the extra step for your job. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free today at ZipRecruiter.com

slash crooked. That's zip recruiter. com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter, meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Okay, so let's get to the general. Earlier we heard a preview of Abdul's general election message against Mike Rogers. Here's the first ad from the Republican Senate committee. Abdul Rahman Muhammad El-Sayed, the most radical Senate candidate in America.

Oh, pretty dangerous! El-Sayed pledged support for the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a designated foreign terrorist group. He wants to hike taxes on Michigan waitresses, delivery drivers, and seniors on Social Security. 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?

American deserved 9-11, dude. El-Sayed refused to disavow. I'm not here to disavow people's views. Abdul-Elsaid, too radical, too dangerous. Wrong from Michigan. Welcome to the general. Thoughts on the app. I was a real kicking the teeth this morning, I'll tell you that.

Yeah. I like that they combine. I like the, I really like the mix of dangerous, scary, Muslim, extremist with Ann Hill raised taxes. It's not as dumb as it sounds. No, I know. But it's just like, it's, it's not as dumb as it sounds. And I will say Democrats do the exact same thing.

But it is the consultant pollster ad maker brain, which is like, this is tests unpopular, this test unpopular. 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, that is a very hard thing for anyone to imagine. So you have to prove that they are so radical that they'd be willing to do that. And by all the other stuff leads to the idea that he is someone so radical that he would do that. And so I do think they, like, this is the argument. Is he's as incredible radical that he will do these other things that affect you? Because a person who cares about affordability, if they believe, if 2020, example, if they believe that Abdul, I mean, they're going to discount a lot of this stuff because of political lab.

But they think that he's a little too extreme. Maybe he says some things in the past, but they think he's actually going to lower his cost. Donald Trump's election proves people will tolerate a lot for someone who will lower their costs. You have to make them believe that he will not lower your costs. 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 got to pick one. I think if you are, like if I was going to try to persuade people that he was going to, 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. Like, I would go all, like if he's going to be a socialist who's going to raise your taxes, you've got to make them left on that, which I'm sure that 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 and a signal to donors of what the larger argument will be. This will all over the course of 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 are softening the ground for the economic argument by showing someone to be extreme. And the candidate who is viewed as more as less extreme tends to win elections in these last few elections. And Donald Trump being seen as less extreme than Kamala Harris was a real warning sign that he was going to win that race. Well, so then let's talk about Abdullah 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 going to make Mike Rogers the more corrupt candidate. Yes. I think his argument there too was also. So 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. 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. Yeah. We can discuss the, whether that's the, whether, he's doing that in the right way or not. But, you know, I think, like, 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 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 Mike Rogers is a vote for Donald Trump and Donald Trump to control the Senate, you know, is the. And,

underneath that is a vote for higher cost 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 Mike Rogers 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 Mike Rogers specific problem, is Mike Rogers 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 Mike

Rogers is, probably remember him as a more moderate Republican. For sure. There's plenty of clips of him speaking out against Donald Trump. And I think Abdul has to make people realize before he just says that Mike Rogers is going to be a vote for Donald Trump, that Mike Rogers has changed. Because otherwise, I don't think you can go right to Mike Rogers. Like, I know everyone wants to do, and we talked about this in the main Senate race too, ever 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 a Susan Collins, like Mike Rogers, 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 to have Trump be part of it, but you have to do some work on the person's character. The Mike Rogers thing is interesting because I have, as I have been arguing for a long time that this is a very hard race because Mike Rogers is not a maga buff, in the eyes of the voters. Right.

A maga buffoon like a Dr. Oz or Herschel Walker or some of these other the 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 Mike Rogers District know Mike Rogers. He was there for 18 years, I think. We know Mike Rogers because we watched CNN in the 2010s, and he was always on. And he was a very prominent Trump's 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 Mike Rogers is more like running against a generic Republican. I guess also it's tying to Mike Rogers, tying Mike Rogers 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 pricehikemic.com. I'm sorry, Abdul didn't do it. The Michigan Democratic Party did. Pricehikemikemike.com. And they have some great Mike Rogers 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 going to 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, he said, 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 and has no idea what people in Michigan are going through anymore. Yeah, I agree. Okay. So, uh, anything else that Abdul needs to think about, uh, ahead of the general? So much.

Go for it. I know you were a message box on this. I did. 1,700 words on no sleep. Um, the, the, look. Abdul's win is incredibly impressive when you put it 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 with college educated voters. He underperformed in rural areas. He underperformed in most rural areas, not all of them. But he underperformed with working class voters. And he really got his clock clean with black voters. 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 data 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 a majority college-educated. in a general election, if you look at 2024 exit poll data, it's 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 in the electorate in 2020, in the general election. And I think we, you know, he, once again, this is another progressive case. 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, you know, win with grace. And he has done that thus far, that 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 Haley 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 work to, I think he's got work to do there. I hope he calls Barack Obama today. Yeah.

And starts to think about how he could be helpful. And other, in other Michigan Democrats, and 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 communication's, a messing 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 vibe. And he now has to

go out and persuade a lot of people. Some of them who voted for Haley 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 look at the way that 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 like sort of prototypical leftist candidate. You didn't see he was either unable to get or did not seek out endorsements that 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 has opened primary. Why aren't those people in ads? Yeah. Right? You're going to have to do some things that have a much more broadly appealing.

There's more, that you have to actively reach out to people should not agree with you. And the last thing is, like you really, we really have to think hard about, you know, he had a very economically centered message. money in your pockets. What is it that did not work with that with working class 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 aid to Israel? I was just going to say, like, I think this whole conversation about working class voters in the Democratic primary has sort of like gotten out of hand

because like we taught we did this with the Platiner 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 especially. That is he has excelled. it, and it used to be just white voters, and now under Trump, it was Latino voters and 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 that 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 and center left Democrats are like, well, the left can't do this and they're not, they say that they're economically populace, 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, Haley 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.

There are cultural social concerns that the working class have, 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 Maine too and is like as moderate as they come on a host of issues, but is not some like economically populist hero. Twizzlers keep the fun going. Yeah, I know. I just stopped whatever you were listening to to tell you that Twizzlers keep the fun going. Well, irony isn't my forte, but twisty, chewy, yummy Twisler sure is.

So think of Twizzlers as a little palate cleanser for whatever's queued up, which, by the way, should be coming very soon. Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going. I agree with your point here. I think if you were 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 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. White voters.

That's the big, that's one giant difference here is the reason why Obama wins and Bernie and Bill Bradley and all these other progressive 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, 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 won. 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 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. Obama was very, spent a lot of time reaching out to voters who disallowed. agreed with him on abortion. This is all I'm, this is what I'm getting at. That's what I was getting at by saying. Yes. And I think there's a way in which Israel plays into this, which gets him in a sec.

And look, you cannot be just, I don't want to overlook the fact that in both in Obama's case and Abdul's case, race plays a role here. Of course. Right. The fact that he is that Obama is a black man and Abdul is a Muslim American certainly plays a role. And that then puts a higher burden on you in the general election because life is not fucking fair 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 aid to 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 reaching out to Jewish Americans who disagree with him.

Right. But he has work 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 this deficit. And some of his supporters, his most promised supporters are why he has a bit of this deficit. But independent voters in Michigan and nationally agree with Abdul on aid to Israel. independents are basically very similar to Democrats on this issue. The issue, though, is once you move 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 great, not just what he says, because you should not listen to his full speech, but what's breaking through in media coverage or social media conversation, even in some mail pieces is APAC and Israel. And that these voters who agree with Abdul but think it is let but care much more, but affordability is a much higher topic for them can believe that in his mind is priority, priority wise that aid to Israel on that basket of issues is higher on his list in affordability. And that hurts you with voters. And it's one of the reasons Democrats have suffered with these voters is, you know, we saw this in the deciding to win report that Simon Bazelon did last year or whenever that was because time has no meaning. and what voters think Democrats' top priorities are is often not the economy, even when it actually is.

I think there's a pretty easy way to square this circle, and I could see him moving towards this. Yes, yes, 100%. Which is just people are tired of their money going overseas to be spent on stupid wars. Like Israel's part of this, but we're at war with Iran right now that is a fucking disaster that Donald Trump is responsible for,

and Mike Rogers is supporting, and Mike Rogers just told Semaphore the other day, Oh, when I go around, no one talks about Iran and the war, 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 until like, you know, when it should be here in Michigan, helping you afford things. Like, I think that's a good message. Yeah, for sure. That was one of I meant to bring that brother is that.

That pivot was notable in his remarks. And it's going to be interesting when you get asked how I feel is about aid to Ukraine in this. situation? Yeah. Yeah, that is true. Well, we're not providing much anymore, so there's that's right. We're fortunately there. But yeah, no, that is. Well, and he's also been, because I saw I'm on MS now and someone was like, well, you talk about Israel all the time. Well, do you not like, do you not like Egypt or other ethno-nationalist governments? He's like, no, no, I don't. I would not, I would not give aid to them either. Yeah, he basically said he would give aid. Yeah, he doesn't believe in unconditional aid to any country. Right. 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 7th 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 13th House District, DSA candidate Donovan McKinney has defeated incumbent Democrat Shreith Anadar by three points.

In Kansas, the more progressive state senator, Cindy Holscher, 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. And elsewhere 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 takes on the rest of the primaries from last night? No, I mean, this continues a trend we've seen with a handful of exceptions here and there of progressive anti-establishment candidates winning in races. You can overstate these things. Lawrence won a three-way race. So it would be interesting to see what would happen if he had one-on-one with either of the two moderates.

Maybe he still would have won then, too. but the anti-Larence vote was much larger than Lawrence vote. In the Sri Thadadar 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, Corey Bush one, which is an example of this. He was very, was supported heavily by APEC. Wesley Bell was. Apex supported his victory against Cory Bush last time.

There's a lot of baggage from Y, Corey Bush lost the first time scandal stuff there that affected it. And 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 and 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 your point about Michigan 7th where if there had only been one candidate facing William Lawrence instead of two, they very well, he very well could have lost. And I think for, you know, moderate Democrats who are worried about this or worried about, you know, this 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 could be wrong, but the general belief, this is Michigan 7th's the district that Trump won by one point. It's Alyssa Slok and sole district. Democrats should win it this time around. Most of the people whose job it is to try to win the House believe pretty strongly that either Bridget Brink or Matt Mazden would be favorites in that race. It 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 shit out and get one person on the race? For the same thing, we're like, hey, DSEC, stop endorsing in these primaries.

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 else you want, do have to get their shit together. And I think what happened in Michigan 7 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 aren't a lot of people in the Democratic Party with the authority in the experience and the trust to 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 going to believe them. 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 think the ability of some democratic establishment to like move pieces on a chess board to get the right people that they want in races is like not the best. 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 Asaf is an example, right? Like, John Asaf has taken some votes that are, you know, pretty moderate votes or things that left-lefties 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 because of scandal. Mandela Barnes also drops out partially because of scandal, partly because he didn't break through. We got David Crowley, who you're going to be talking to on Thursday show, who last minute got Evers endorsement.

Now they're trying. It's just like you got to have, you got to 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. Josh Turk is a more moderate candidate, believed to be more electable, was supported by Schumer World and did benefit from $10 million in super back spending for that, but was able to, in all the other, you know, Schumer's endorsed in three races. his candidate has lost or dropped out in two of the three. Turek's the exception.

Turek 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 toadies. Ruben Gallego in Arizona in 2024. This is another example of that, right?

Elizabeth Lacken, honestly. Same. Yeah. Yeah. So different profile, but, you know, 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, wait until 2028. All right. That's enough on the, on Tuesday night's primaries.

We'll see you guys soon. And don't forget to please subscribe to Pod Save 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. Potsave America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroote, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellev,

David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers' Guild of America East. Ready to take your investing knowledge to pro-level? This is Fidelity Connects, your daily edge in the markets. Get deep insights on real-time market topics that may impact your investment portfolio. Listen to Fidelity Connects on Spotify today and power your next move tomorrow.