First Draft: Michigan Braces for the Biggest Primary of the Year
Prem reports from Michigan on election day, where something astonishing is happening: Abdul El-Sayed, backed by a new leftist coalition, might be about to beat establishment candidate Haley Stevens.
On this day in 1964, the bodies of three civil rights workers murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and law enforcement were found buried in Neshoba County, Mississippi. In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan would give an infamous speech nearby, an appeal to “states’ rights” widely seen as a racist dogwhistle.
Good morning! Prem here, and I’m writing to you from Michigan on primary election day – where I’ve spoken with Rashida Tlaib, Chris Rabb, Melat Kiros, Adam Hamawy, and, of course, Abdul El-Sayed. We have so much exclusive coverage from the ground here – including a first-person look at El-Sayed’s final remarks of the campaign. If you’re not already a paid Zeteo subscriber, I highly recommend you upgrade to ensure you catch all of it below. Plus, I’ll have live coverage from Michigan tonight that you won’t want to miss.
And so, without further ado… in today’s ‘First Draft,’ something astounding is happening here in the Wolverine State – something the mainstream media is completely missing. Plus, GOP holdouts in the Senate fold on attorney general nominee Todd Blanche, after Trump agreed to give up his new slush fund (for now) while keeping personal retroactive tax immunity for himself. Meanwhile, former Fox host Jeanine Pirro could be fired as U.S. attorney for the funniest reason ever.
A New Squad Turns Out for El-Sayed
“For those of you who are new to this – to electoral politics, to organizing – know that this moment is unique. This is not what ordinarily happens. But it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because it’s powerful – and it’s not powerful in the ways that corporate media define power. This is people-powered. This is grassroots. This is what aggressive fabulosity looks like.”
That was Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania, one of several incoming congressional democratic socialists, speaking to a packed congregation in Detroit, Michigan.
On Monday, 108 days after Abdul El-Sayed announced his campaign for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan, he concluded it on Rosa Parks Boulevard. The Congregation, a 1920s-era church refashioned into a cafe and event space, was host to El-Sayed’s primary election swan song.
The room overflowed, with spanning walls decked with bricks smudged by time. Rows of make-do pews and irregular chairs helped groups of eager college boys, nodding millennials, and grandmothers and grandfathers of every color all squeeze into the old house of worship.
And indeed, sermons were delivered – from Rabb, Michigan House candidate Donavan McKinney, and the progressive frontrunner in the race for the Democratic Senate nomination.
El-Sayed’s campaign has been one perhaps most befitting of the moment. If Trump 1.0 was about cruelty being the point, his second term is about making racism the law again. A force that could and should have been shunted away to the annals of history was instead brought back to power, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of this teetering American experiment.
And now, as the miasma of Trump infects every single vestige of society, El-Sayed is presenting his vision of America, and his own American story, as an antidote to failed corporate and genocidal politics of the Democratic Party establishment, and Trump’s reactionary, exclusionary, and fascistic “America First” project.