Abdul El-Sayed Is Now the Most Radical Candidate in America

A candidate wins his primary by less than two points after polls had him up double digits, and the story is still being written as a coronation. That's Michigan for you right now. Abdul El-Sayed scraped past Haley Stevens, got beat badly with black voters and rural voters, and somehow the takeaway coming out of it is that he's the future of the party. If that's the future, the Democrats have a stranger road ahead than they think.

Stevens wasn't some establishment relic nobody wanted. She held her own with the voters Democrats supposedly can't win without anymore, and she still lost narrowly to a guy running well to her left. That gap between polling and result tells you something too: either the pollsters have no idea what's happening in these primaries, or turnout broke in a way nobody predicted and got lucky for El-Sayed. Neither is a great sign if you're a Democratic strategist trying to hold Michigan in a general election.

What's actually happening here is a party base drifting further from the coalition that used to win it statewide offices. El-Sayed's strength was concentrated, not broad. A 1.8 point win built on losing black and rural voters isn't a mandate, it's a warning light. Michigan Democrats have flipped that seat before by running candidates who could talk to union halls and church pews, not just activist Twitter.

We'll say the obvious thing nobody in that party seems eager to: nominating your most ideologically extreme option by the skin of your teeth is not how you hold a swing state. Republicans should be thrilled. Democrats should be worried. The numbers from last night suggest both reactions are correct.