I am not super familiar with Michigan politics, but it seems to me that - if the messaging is good - Abdul El-Sayed’s nomination to run for U.S. Senate is a true opportunity for t he Democratic party to expand their reach.
Top line? Abdul is as American as apple pie. He is the showcase for what immigration and assimilation have done to help make the United States the economic powerhouse and cultural melting pot it has been for 250 years and still is today. Our strength IS our diversity.
As the semi-famous New York sportscaster Warner Wolf used to say, let’s go the videotape (figuratively in this case, of course - in this case it’s Wikipedia).
El-Sayed was born in Michigan and was raised by his Egyptian father (who studied engineering at Wayne State University) and American stepmother (also an engineer).
He was the team captain in wrestling, football and lacrosse at Bloomberg Hills Andover High School in Michigan (as a former college lacrosse player myself, AES had me with this one 😇)
EL-Sayed graduated from the University of Michigan, majored in biology and political science and played on the men's club lacrosse team. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Distinction in 2007 with a bachelor's degree and delivered that year's commencement speech.
After 2 years at U of Michigan Med School (on a full scholarship), he applied for and received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he received a Doctorate in Public Health and captained the men’s lacrosse team
He completed his M.D. at Columbia University. El-Sayed joined the faculty at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health as an assistant professor in the epidemiology department. He served as director of Columbia's Systems Science Program and Global Research Analytics for Population Health. He has received several research awards, including being named one of the Carnegie Council's Policy Innovators.
Back in Michigan, El-Sayed served as the Public Health Director for Detroit and then for Wayne County.
Basically, Abdul El-Sayed is the person most mothers (and fathers too - don’t @ me) dream their child would grow up to be. A student. An athlete. A doctor. A public servant.
Abdul El-Sayed is the All-American Guy.
Now, here’ some interesting information from a post yesterday by pollster and statistician G. Elliot Morris:
In recent weeks, the Stevens campaign and its allies spent much of their time and money arguing El-Sayed is too progressive to win Michigan in November, and that Stevens would have been a more “electable” candidate. The New York Times reported the day after the primary that El-Sayed’s “narrow win” sets up a “critical test” for the “insurgent” left: Can progressives win in swing states?
I find these debates about electability tiring and, usually, damningly devoid of data. The reality is if you look at the data — the polls and the “fundamentals,” to use the parlance of election forecasters — the two candidates look like they would have done roughly the same this November.
[After presenting some tables on polling, Morris concludes] Accounting for uncertainty across the poll results, there is no statistically significant difference between how the candidates polled for the November election.
…
The smart answer to the question “Would Stevens have done better than El-Sayed?” is simply “I don’t know.”
And that’s not all. The other problem is that it’s nowhere near November. Public opinion tends to change a lot in Senate races in the final 90 days.
Whether you think El-Sayed will do worse than Stevens would have also depends on how much faith you put in Senate polls conducted in August. And frankly… you shouldn’t put much.
I went back through every Senate race with public polling since 2008 and calculated how close the average poll taken 90 days out was to the final result. The answer is not close at all. Across 88 competitive Senate races, the average poll 90 days out is 7 points off from the final margin.
More to the point of this column, 85% of those races ended up more than 2 points from where the polls had them in early August — which is more than the entire distance between Stevens and El-Sayed in those pre-primary surveys. More than half missed by greater than 5 points.
For the record, Michigan’s own polling record is even worse than the average race…
Morris’ final conclusion in the post:
For the sake of clarity, I am not arguing that candidate quality doesn’t matter. It does, and in some cases by a lot — see, e.g., Susan Collins. And there is risk that comes with nominating a candidate who has not been vetted in a prior campaign for elected office. (See: Graham Platner.)
What I am arguing for is uncertainty. I’m not telling you El-Sayed is as strong a candidate as Stevens would have been. I’m telling you that a poll taken in August can’t tell the difference. If you are a partisan or ideologue, maybe you have your priors about who would be stronger. But if you are trying to operate from a data-driven perspective, the evidence is unclear.
People are getting out over their skis projecting that El-Sayed will lose Michigan when Stevens would have won it. There is no version of the polling or other data where the electability gap for Stevens is measured precisely enough to justify the certainty with which people are opining about this contest.
The data shows both El-Sayed and Stevens are/would have been favored over Rogers, by about the same amount, and the difference between them is smaller than the uncertainty in our forecasts.
Morris’ column brings several thoughts to the fore for me.
First, Dems need to stop talking about EL-Sayed vs. Stevens and how Stevens would have done against Rogers vs. how El-Sayed will do. IT’s a moot point. Dems need to start talking about the difference between El-Sayed the All-American Guy and Mike Rogers, the sleazy and complicit Republican.
Second, the challenge for El-Sayed and supporting Democratic institutions is to play this race on El-Sayeed’s and Democrat’s home turf (remember, teams win way more often when they have home field advantage). That means highlighting El-Sayed’s All-American story, his medical credentials, his public service, and differentiating that from Rogers.
Third, position El-Sayed as the culmination of the good that immigration and assimilation of different cultures and viewpoints bring to this country. He IS the essence of the American melting pot. Play this off against the venal inhumanity of Trump and Stephen Miller and point out how Rogers is with them al the way in the fearmongering and hate.
Finally, El-Sayed needs to keep this race on corruption, direct-voter-impact issues and pivot away every time his opponents try to play on their home turf (anti-Israel accusations and fear of Muslims).
El-Sayed’s candidacy is, IMHO, an incredible opportunity for Democrats to showcase their popular values, their higher quality candidate, to fight back against the culture wars and hatred of Republicans, and to broaden the Democratic coalition.
It all depends on the message.
John Fogerty - Centerfield
