State senator Mallory McMorrow, the kinda-sorta Elizabeth Warren of the Michigan Democratic primary for US Senate, has dropped out of the race. Hopefully this will end the Elizabeth Warren era when feckless and hapless faux-progressives could muddy up primaries by soft-pedaling nearly meh policy ideas and resorting to identity politics when that failed.<\/p>\n
She leaves the field to a one-on-one battle between Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, former public health official in Wayne County, and AIPAC-favorite U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens.<\/p>\n
I referenced the race previously in March and went more in-depth in April. <\/p>\n
McMorrow\u2019s decision came after she dropped to single digits in the polls \u2014 after leading for much of the spring \u2014 and coming under pressure from the Democratic establishment.<\/p>\n
So far she has not endorsed either of the remaining candidates and since El-Sayed has not yet polled over 50% in any major poll, McMorrow\u2019s supporters could be decisive on August 4th. <\/p>\n
El-Seyed immediately reached out to McMorrow to ask for her endorsement in the race and quickly took to social media to ask McMorrow supporters for their support. <\/p>\n
Stevens, with her usual nimble political acumen, had to be reminded by Politico to put in a call to McMorrow.<\/p>\n
McMorrow has previously blasted Stevens for taking so much money from AIPAC so any endorsement in that direction might not be especially convincing. <\/p>\n
Her name will remain on the ballot as well, so she may still claim the votes of some low info voters as well as, one presumes, her closest friends and family. <\/p>\n
The sitting Democratic Senator Gary Peters applied may have applied the crucial pressure on McMorrow in that inimitable fearless centrist style, almost directly saying what he meant and even mustering up a suggestion that needs consideration, per the WSJ:<\/p>\n
Sen. Gary Peters isn\u2019t seeking re-election. While he has remained publicly neutral, he has told associates that he believes Democrats need to coalesce around one candidate to face El-Sayed in the primary and has suggested that McMorrow needs to consider dropping out of the race, according to people familiar with the discussions. A spokeswoman for Peters declined to comment.<\/p>\n
No wonder she folded, no one could withstand such a blistering attack. <\/p>\n
Peters, a 67-year-old two-termer, certainly knows the campaign business having barely eeked out a 1.7% win over current GOP gubernatorial candidate John James in a $200 million family blog fest in what was the most expensive campaign in Michigan history:<\/p>\n
Both candidates raised nearly $50 million, according to FEC filings, with James raising $48.3 million and Peters $49.6 million through mid-November. James raised more than $300,000 that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) categorized as donations for a potential recount, though the campaign never pursued that effort.<\/p>\n
Yet outside groups outspent both candidates, with at least $106 million spent between at least 100 organizations advertising on television, radio, social media and by mail. Peters had about $5 million more in outside support than James.<\/p>\n
For some reason Sen. Peters didn\u2019t run for re-election this time. I can\u2019t imagine why, surely every Michigander wants more of what he brings to the table. <\/p>\n
And with Dem. Governor Gretchen Whitmer having elected to tie herself to the mast as the biggest data center YIMBY in the country, it\u2019s looking like the Michigan Democratic establishment is all out of allies to help Stevens stop El-Sayed.<\/p>\n
Oh yea, there\u2019s spooky CIA girlboss Senator Elissa Slotkin whose commentary on the race to Politico (of course) attempted to shade El-Sayed and his supporters with some nonsense:<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re the only ones around the country, but I certainly think there\u2019s a lot of engagement, positive and negative, online right now \u2014 specifically to this primary, because we have a lot of online interest and online backgrounds,\u201d said Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who knows what it\u2019s like to beat Rogers in a general election. \u201cI think some of the candidates really have an online background, but the vast majority of Michiganders are not that online.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Usual Caveats Apply<\/p>\n
Just to get this out of the way, I\u2019m covering this in the hopes of providing a one-stop window into a race that has national (and thus international) implications and what it tells us about the American electorate and the forces attempting to sway it. <\/p>\n
This is not an endorsement of any candidate, regardless of my (obvious) personal sympathies, or even of the American electoral system which is impossibly corrupt and has led to the bought-and-paid-for US Congress being functionally impotent. <\/p>\n
Americans won\u2019t vote our way out of the polycrisis, so don\u2019t get your hopes up.<\/p>\n
The Candidates: The Good, the Bad, and the Cringe<\/p>\n
El-Sayed, Stevens and McMorrow have dramatic differences in communications styles and skill sets as illustrated below when each addressed the ridiculous situation with the completed but unused Gordie Howe bridge connecting Michigan to Canada: <\/p>\n
I actually think it\u2019s really special that all 3 candidates in the MI-SEN Democratic primary did the same bridge video, allowing us to compare their campaigning styles and digital skills side-by-side pic.twitter.com\/ul2lR2MmCy<\/p>\n
\u2014 bryan metzger (@metzgov) July 3, 2026<\/p>\n
El-Sayed might be a generational political talent, but I\u2019ll let him speak for himself:<\/p>\n
\nAbdul El-Sayed: \u201cI love Judaism and the Jewish People, because i love People. I love Palestinians and their Rights, because i love People. It\u2019s dangerous to equate antisemitism with criticizing a foreign government and its Leaders.\u201d
by
u\/sovalente in
ProgressiveHQ\n<\/p>\n
And when asked by the Detroit Free Press about his chances in the general election this is what the good doctor had to say:<\/p>\n
No. 1, most people say this (I can\u2019t win) because of my name. I\u2019ve been Abdul in Michigan my whole life and I know that Michiganders are big-hearted. They\u2019re open-minded people. They care less about what your name is, they care that you care to know their name. They care less about how you pray, they want to know what you pray for. And I know that Michiganders are going to look past my name to ask, who out here is actually going to fight for me? I want to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for All.<\/p>\n
Second, I\u2019m running against an actual guy. This guy voted 60 times to raise prescription drug prices. He helped to architect the legislation\u00a0that kicked off the opioid epidemic. \u2026 And I\u2019m the guy who rebuilt Detroit\u2019s Health Department, eliminated $700 million in medical debt, and put Narcan in 100 different locations. Who better to prosecute the case against him than me?<\/p>\n
Finally, think about who we can win back. We lost voters. Arab and Muslim voters, we lost young men, and I feel well-placed to have a conversation with those voters about what it looks like to actually be consistent with our values, and we\u2019re going to need that if we\u2019re going to be able to pull folks back\u2026 Imagine what happens when you inspire young people to actually come out for a politics they believe in, and think about how you can change the electorate.<\/p>\n
And then the last thing I\u2019ll just tell you is that this man has tied himself to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is about as popular as rotten eggs right now, and he\u2019s getting less popular every single day. And so, imagine what can happen when we\u2019re actually taking the case to Mike Rogers. He\u2019s a beta character at a comedy based in a country club that nobody likes to watch. He\u2019s like the guy who laughs extra hard at the dumb joke that the alpha guy told. And nobody wants that guy as their next U.S. senator\u2026 (I\u2019m) looking forward to wiping the floor with him.<\/p>\n
Last one, El-Sayed goes after AIPAC:<\/p>\n
Abdul El-Sayed on AIPAC: \u201cWhy does an organization that wants to send our money abroad to drop bombs on women and children, to back a genocidal foreign government, why are they attacking me? Well, because they know I want to keep our money here, to invest in women\u2019s health here\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/sIVBC0wtYx<\/p>\n
\u2014 Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) July 5, 2026<\/p>\n
What can I say, I like the cut of his jib.<\/p>\n
As for Haley Stevens, we\u2019ll let two graphics do 2000 words of work:<\/p>\n
pic.twitter.com\/zQems85ZQ3<\/p>\n
\u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 6, 2026<\/p>\n
pic.twitter.com\/fEVdSQgfeh<\/p>\n
\u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 6, 2026<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a collection of headlines to kick her while she\u2019s down and dirty, rolling around in AIPAC money:<\/p>\n
pic.twitter.com\/lXP5UBKy35<\/p>\n
\u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 6, 2026<\/p>\n
Can you say, bought and paid for? <\/p>\n
While El-Sayed was racking up endorsements from the mighty United Auto Workers (UAW) union, NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the Detroit Metro Times and Indivisible, Stevens gained one notable backer, the truly loathsome outgoing Dem Attorney General Dana Nessel.<\/p>\n
One of Nessel\u2019s grossest moves may be relevant in this race:<\/p>\n
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is continuing to target student activists supporting Palestinian rights, despite mounting criticism in recent weeks, through what the TAHRIR Coalition \u2014 a broad coalition of student organizations at the University of Michigan \u2014 describes as an ongoing campaign of intimidation and repression. According to the coalition, police and representatives from Nessel\u2019s office visited the homes of two activists earlier this July.<\/p>\n
So yea, all the good guys are getting together on this one.<\/p>\n
Stevens owes her whole political career to AIPAC, having benefitted from millions of foreign lobby money to crush Rep. Andy Levin in the 2022 congressional primary. NBC documented the atrocities at the time:<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s close our look at Stevens with a brutal compilation of Stevens in her own words, is she the Ted Cruz of the Dems?:<\/p>\n
pic.twitter.com\/qIdbUXyGi2<\/p>\n
\u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 6, 2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll transcribe the most over the top of the Stevens\u2019 statements looped above:<\/p>\n
Rep. Haley Stevens: I will continue to fight for the people of Israel. I will continue to fight for Israel\u2019s existence. Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel\u2019s future and I know Israel will continue to exist for the Jewish people.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s her voting record:<\/p>\n
Haley Stevens voted to: pic.twitter.com\/z3r7AHSjCR<\/p>\n
\u2014 Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) July 5, 2026<\/p>\n
Alrighty then, that\u2019s enough of her.<\/p>\n
McMorrow was the candidate of the mushy middle. This endorsement from the Detroit Free Press \u2014 made just last week, lol \u2014 sums up her ersatz appeal:<\/p>\n
McMorrow combines the best of El-Sayed\u2019s impassioned activism and Stevens\u2019 technocratic policy chops. She understands that change happens incrementally, but that the path toward progress doesn\u2019t end after the first step. And in this race, she is uniquely capable of representing Michiganders who don\u2019t fall neatly into El-Sayed\u2019s progressivism or Stevens\u2019 centrism.<\/p>\n
The update they added today is the perfect cherry on top, epitomizing the MSM\u2019s lack of political acumen in 2026:<\/p>\n
Update: State Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her U.S. Senate campaign on July 5. Because ballots were mailed on June 25, her name still appears on the Aug. 4 primary ballot.<\/p>\n
Many believe it was McMorrow\u2019s decision to attack El-Sayed and the enormously popular streamer Hasan Piker in an interview with Jewish Insider that doomed her campaign. <\/p>\n
The NYT Times is in that category:<\/p>\n
Long adept at cable news interviews and creating viral moments online, Ms. McMorrow began to bleed support in public polling after she condemned Dr. El-Sayed for campaigning in March with Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer who has defended Hamas and called Israel \u201can apartheid state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The move backfired quickly. Her remarks helped burnish Dr. El-Sayed\u2019s claim that he was the lone progressive candidate in the race and the one most willing to criticize American funding of the Israeli military. And she won little support from moderate voters as millions of dollars of pro-Stevens advertising poured into the state from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other groups.<\/p>\n
Others think it was this video from an April state party meeting which Glenn Greenwald called \u201cone of the most traumatizing things I\u2019ve ever witnessed in politics\u201d:<\/p>\n
Mallory McMorrow’s downfall began right in this clip and I’m being so serious. It was the crunchy dancing with the token mfs who decided to hype her up. pic.twitter.com\/hUzQ5xaGDJ<\/p>\n
\u2014 adri \u2661 (@socialistadri) July 5, 2026<\/p>\n
The Swamp Gas Will Only Heat Up From Here<\/p>\n
Now that McMorrow is out of the way, Stevens\u2019 supporters (ie the entire bipartisan establishment) will be pulling out all the stops, spending unbelievable amounts and flooding the zone with slurs, cheap shots, backhanded compliments, patronizing BS, hand-wringing and concern trolling. <\/p>\n
I doubt that the Mossad\/CIA or whoever is about to smear Platner (again) can do anything comparable to El-Sayed, but they\u2019ll likely try.<\/p>\n
For now it looks like the main thrust will be to paint him as sexist, but even the Free Press ain\u2019t falling for that as their headline choice attests, \u201cNew ad claiming El-Sayed disrespected women stretches its facts\u201d:<\/p>\n
United Democracy Project, a Washington DC-based group aligned with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has a new ad up attacking former Wayne County and Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed, who is leading the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Michigan, as having \u201ca long history of disrespecting women.\u201d
\u2026
The ad, by the way, which the publication Jewish Insider says is funded by a $2 million ad buy in Michigan, is silent on the groups\u2019 support of Stevens or their own support of Israel, but is clearly meant to wound El-Sayed\u2019s chances with a key voting bloc \u2212 women \u2212 at a time when he appears to have an edge in the race. It is also one of first negative ads of the campaign to date.<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t speak for El-Sayed\u2019s personal history with women or comments he may have made to women in the past, being generally unaware of any inappropriate remarks. As for the ones cited in the ad, however, they are, in at least three cases, unpersuasive in terms of suggesting he is, or has been, specifically misogynistic in these instances.\n<\/p>\n
The El-Sayed campaign is already inoculating against these attacks: <\/p>\n
Mom taught me so much about both how to stand with others, and how to stand alone. Love you! pic.twitter.com\/HtQqLSxflx<\/p>\n
\u2014 Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) July 5, 2026<\/p>\n
Lots of this kind of stuff from the oh-so-credible centrist establishment:<\/p>\n
Battleground Director for the Harris-Walz 2024 campaign says Haley Stevens has the best chance of defeating a Republican for the US Senate seat. \ud83e\udd74 pic.twitter.com\/RiGb0oTXNv<\/p>\n
\u2014 gato fumante (@KweenInYellow) July 6, 2026<\/p>\n
FWIW here\u2019s what the Freep had to say about El-Sayed, the current front runner in the primary:<\/p>\n
Farthest left of the trio is former public health official Abdul El-Sayed. He\u2019s a proponent of policies like Medicare For All, an 8% tax on billionaires, abolishing U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and halting U.S. arms sales to Israel. He doesn\u2019t accept campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, and says that any candidate or elected official who has is compromised. El-Sayed is banking on populist anger against systemic failure, rising oligarchy and America\u2019s bellicose posture abroad, and elevated turnout among young voters \u2012 historically, a risky prospect \u2012 to carry the primary.<\/p>\n
I could dunk on these dumbasses and those like them all day but shooting fish in a barrel just gets lead in your breakfast so let\u2019s look at the Polymarket odds and the first poll I\u2019ve seen of the two-way version of the race and call it a post:<\/p>\n
pic.twitter.com\/RIWT2M6dBn<\/p>\n
\u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 6, 2026<\/p>\n
Poll from pro-Abdul El-Sayed super PAC | released 7\/6 <\/p>\n
(taken before Mallory McMorrow dropped out)<\/p>\n
US Senate Michigan 2026
\ud83d\udfe6Abdul El-Sayed 54%
\ud83d\udfe6Haley Stevens 34%<\/p>\n
The poll found El-Sayed narrowly winning most of Mallory McMorrow\u2019s supporters.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Politics & Poll Tracker \ud83d\udce1 (@PollTracker2024) July 6, 2026<\/p>\n
There\u2019s less than a month for Stevens and the millions of dollars backing her to take out El-Sayed. Time will tell.<\/p>\n
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