In his race to be the next Democratic senator from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive populist, is challenging perceptions about who Michigan’s voters are and what they really want. In an interview with CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe, El-Sayed questioned the characterization of the state’s voters as moderates.
“It’s always funny to me that people want to say that this state votes for moderates when it voted for Donald Trump twice,” he told O’Keefe in Detroit Monday, on the eve of the Michigan primaries. “It may just be that the better explanation is not that the state wants moderates: It’s that it’s so sick and tired of the establishment bought off by corporations on both sides of the political aisle that it was willing to hold its nose and vote for Donald Trump twice.”
El-Sayed’s main opponent in the Democratic primary Tuesday is Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate who represents a district outside Detroit and was recruited for the race by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Stevens has the support of most establishment Democrats, while progressives like independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are in El-Sayed’s corner.
Later Monday, O’Keefe also spoke with Stevens, who said she has a record of winning tough primaries. In polls since mid-July, though, she’s been trailing El-Sayed by double digits. Stevens accused El-Sayed of following a “path of anger,” and she suggested he’s using the Michigan Senate race as a stepping stone to the presidency.
“Abdul has also, you know, chosen … a path of anger,” Stevens said, adding, “He is really frustrated, which a lot of Michiganders are. But we also need plans. You know, it is not just slogans and bullhorns and big rallies. This is six years of hard, unglamorous work that I’m signing up for. I’m Michigan’s workhorse. That’s what I want to be. My opponent, he’s already got his website for president. I just want to help Michigan. I just want to fight for Michigan and make sure we’re heard.”
El-Sayed, a doctor who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018, is relying solely on grassroots donations and is not accepting PAC money, while Stevens has received tens of millions of dollars from several PACs, including AIPAC, which lobbies for U.S. support for Israel.
El-Sayed told O’Keefe he wants to build a “broad coalition,” including “anybody who wants to take on fascism, anybody who wants to get money out of politics, anybody who wants to fight for union rights, anybody who wants to make sure that people can live free with clean air and drink clean water, anybody who wants to guarantee healthcare.”
He suggested that the Democratic Party has been losing some support because it’s been focusing on a narrow band of interests rather than coming up with ways to address the needs of most Americans.
“Sometimes, when the Democratic Party talks about a big tent, we push everybody into the corner and then go talk and pander to the corner,” he told O’Keefe. “I’m just trying to bring everybody to the tent pole in the middle to talk about what we really need. We need good housing. We need good schools. We need healthcare.”
Pressed on whether there are views he doesn’t want to see in the party, El-Sayed responded, “We’re trying to define a viewpoint that’s built on money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”
The Democratic Socialists of America have not endorsed El-Sayed, but Sanders and other democratic socialists have been campaigning for him across Michigan.
El-Sayed says he doesn’t care about party labels — “I don’t do ideology” — and while he’s not part of DSA, he thinks its supporters should be welcomed into the Democratic Party.
“You want a coalition of all people,” he said. “You know who else are going to be part of my coalition? Three-time Trump voters who want health care, who want to keep our money here at home.”
He acknowledged that there are some who “really want to label me a socialist.”
El-Sayed says, “I’d rather think of myself as a capitalist who’s actually read about capitalism, in the sense that the biggest risk to capitalism was always going to be corporate consolidation and monopoly rather than government regulation. In fact, you need some government regulation to make sure that capitalism runs well.”