Does Abdul El-Sayed Really Think This Will Help Him Win With

So Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign looked at the current landscape in Michigan and decided the missing ingredient was Kamala Harris. That is a choice. It’s a choice that tells Michigan voters everything they need to know about whether El-Sayed is running his own race or just taking orders from a national party that hasn’t figured out why it keeps losing working-class voters.

Harris doesn’t just bring star power to the trail—she brings a favorability rating that keeps sinking and a record on the border that her own administration abandoned. The strategy seems to be hoping that voters have forgotten the last four years. They haven’t. They’re reminded every time they pay for groceries or watch the news about fentanyl coming across the southern border. Hauling in a former VP who couldn’t sell her own agenda is an unforced error of the highest order.

You have to wonder what El-Sayed’s internal polling looks like. If the numbers were good, he wouldn’t need the cavalry. Bringing Harris in suggests the campaign is panicking, or worse, that it’s working for the DNC playbook instead of Michigan’s concerns. This is a state that rejected her once already, and her presence does nothing to address the issues that matter here—jobs, the auto industry, and the cost of living.

Maybe the Harris campaign stop will generate some flashy headlines and a few moments of cable news coverage. But it’s hard to see how it moves real votes. The lesson Democrats keep refusing to learn is that parachuting in coastal celebrities and failed national figures doesn't persuade the people in Macomb County. This is a desperate move, and it signals exactly what El-Sayed thinks of his own candidacy.