HuffPost0%
The GOP Is Boosting A Progressive Candidate In Michigan. He Says He'll Make Them 'Rue The Day.' 66%
By Kevin Robillard0%
7/5/2026, 10:00:17 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 35 faulty reasoning types, including False Dilemma, Confirmation Bias, and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 33.9% saturation with 317 hits. Analysis detected 2,678 faulty-reasoning hits from 935 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60.4% and a BS Rank of 66% (6,980 of 20,407 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 65.80% of the article peer group.
WASHINGTON – Abdul El-Sayed is very confident he can beat Republican Mike Rogers and win Michigan’s U.S.
Senate seat in November.
“He generally has the charisma of a doorknob,” El-Sayed told HuffPost in a 45-minute interview last week.
“He carries all the MAGA baggage, but he also has the aesthetic of the guy at a country club who sneers at you from his Lincoln.
He’s not really hard to beat.”
“By the time I’m done with him, his golf buddies down in Florida are going to be calling him the names I call him,” he continued, referencing Rogers’ time living in the Sunshine State following his departure from Congress in 2015.
“I hope that 20 years from now, he still thinks of me.”
But his bravado is still not shared by the party establishment in D.C. or in Michigan, who fear his progressive positions ― he’s a longtime ally of Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and backs Medicare-for-All, abolishing ICE and cutting off aid to Israel ― could cost the party support from moderate voters and ultimately hand the state’s Senate seat, which has been in Democratic hands since 1978, over to Rogers and the GOP.
Party leaders, however, don’t seem to be making much headway with their assertions that establishment-oriented Rep.
Haley Stevens is actually the most electable pick for the Aug. 4 primary: El-Sayed has led the last seven publicly released polls of the race.
In the past, worries about electability have sunk many progressive candidacies before they could even begin.
Before this cycle, the last time a progressive candidate defeated the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s pick in a primary was 2010.
A lthough Democratic voters are still hardwired to care far more about electability than their GOP counterparts, both progressive and moderate party strategists say primary voters no longer trust the party leaders’ judgment on who can win — not after establishment candidates lost to President Donald Trump in 2016, narrowly beat him in 2020 and lost again in 2024.
“The last people who have any right to lecture us about electability are the establishment who lost to Donald Trump twice,” Rep.
Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said while campaigning for El-Sayed last month.
“If you were part of those campaigns, please sit down or exit stage left.”
The stakes for the race are high: Democrats’ relatively narrow path to winning the Senate essentially evaporates if Rogers wins in Michigan.
A primary victory for El-Sayed, a Rhodes Scholar and former leader of Detroit’s public health department, would mean the party is counting on left-wing candidates to win in both Michigan and Maine in November.
Failing to do so would dramatically undercut the progressive movement, which has gained momentum throughout this primary season.
If the Democratic establishment can’t make the case El-Sayed would be a general election loser, they hope GOP interference can do it for them.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee recently began running digital ads that attack El-Sayed in ways designed to make him sound more appealing to Democratic primary voters.
The 30-second ad opens with a clip of El-Sayed promising to back the abolishment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, before a narrator links him to two figures popular with progressives.
“Abdul campaigned with anti-Israel, radical Hasan Piker,” the narrator says.
“He called to abolish private health insurance, and he’s championing socialist tax hikes with Sen.
Bernie Sanders.”
The NRSC and Rogers’ campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Stevens’ allies view the ad as powerful validation for their contention that El-Sayed can’t win.
“There are two candidates in this race rooting for Abdul El-Sayed to win the primary: Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers,” said Arik Wolk, a spokesperson for Stevens’ campaign.
“That’s why Republicans are spending money to boost Abdul and Republican senators admitted: Abdul ‘makes it even better’ for them to win in Michigan.”
Another pro-Stevens consultant was even blunter: “As much as Democrats hate AIPAC right now, they hate Republicans more,” said the consultant, who requested anonymity to speak frankly, referring to the pro-Israel lobbying group loathed by progressives whose affiliated super PACs are spending millions to attack El-Sayed and<strong> </strong>back the congresswoman.
El-Sayed downplayed the ad’s importance.
“I think they’re trying to get ahead of things because it’s a short campaign after the primary, and they see me coming,” he said.
“If their intention really is to boost me, I’m gonna make them rue the day whatever dumbass consultant came up with that idea.”
At the same time, his campaign is clearly working to alleviate electability concerns.
His schedule is sending him through counties full of voters who flipped from backing former President Barack Obama to Trump.
His first ad of the campaign features no fewer than 17 shots of the American flag, and ends with Sanders jokingly reassuring voters who may worry about whether the state would elect a Muslim: “Don’t worry about his name.”
Indeed, many parts of the Democratic establishment agree the old model of an electable candidate no longer applies, even if they aren’t quite sold on the full-fledged progressivism of a candidate like El-Sayed.
“It’s not a binary choice between overcautious, under-imaginative old guard types on the one hand, and folks who seem to think that any society could exist without law enforcement and borders on the other,” said Andrew Bates, who was a spokesperson for Biden’s 2020 campaign.
“The people who win majority-making races create their own big tent that’s both true to themselves and fits their community; they don’t force themselves into a prepackaged box.”
Speakers
4speakers34%attributed speech615writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageAbdul El-Sayed
149 attributed words47% of attributed speech96% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.