Progressives Scrape By in Michigan. Crowning a Way-Too-Early 2028 Champ (with Evan Scrimshaw)
About this episode
The episode discusses the close Democratic Senate race in Michigan and the implications of polling errors on future elections.
Abdul El-Sayed is going to be the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, but the victory was much closer than it looked when I initially planned to call it. With 23 percent of the vote counted, Haley Stevens was barely leading in Oakland County, which she represents in Congress, and the outstanding votes appeared to favor El-Sayed. I thought he was heading toward an eight-to-ten-point win. Instead, the margin narrowed to about 1.4 percent. Barring some miraculous vote drop out of Detroit, El-Sayed wins, but this wasn’t an overwhelming progressive victory. The polling miss is the polling miss. Congressional polling is never the most reliable. What’s strategically telling is that much of the expectation for a blowout came from El-Sayed’s own campaign, which released internal polling showing him ahead by 15 points. That obviously didn’t happen. Can you question the wisdom of releasing those numbers? You can. You can question that wisdom. Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I still got my prediction wrong. I picked Stevens by five, so allow me to eat the mistakes. My…
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