Socialist Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens by roughly a point with nearly all votes counted in Michigan’s Democrat primary for U.S. Senate.
El-Sayed campaigned on things like Medicare for All, investing in “affordable” housing, and abolishing ICE. He previously called for defunding the police. His campaign website says he believes “in an economy built by and for working people.”
But the coalition that helped El-Sayed cinch the Democrat nomination is not the constituency his rhetoric implies he cares about. His victory was not the result of support from the low-income or rural voters or groups traditionally thought to constitute working-class communities (which his policies claim to focus on). Instead, younger, wealthier, and “educated” voters in college towns spurred his campaign to victory.
The New York Times’ Reid J. Epstein wrote Wednesday that El-Sayed “was strongest in communities with young voters, college students and educated and wealthy white voters. That coalition carried him through the primary.”
USA Today wrote that El-Sayed won “the most liberal voters and White voters with college degrees” and “swamped Stevens among younger voters and in college towns like Ann Arbor and East Lansing” while also leading in Arab neighborhoods.
In contrast Stevens “showed strength among Black voters in Detroit and Flint and carried most of the state’s interior rural counties, aside from a few with college towns and resort communities,” according to Epstein, while USA Today wrote Stevens’ support came “from Black voters in Detroit and from seniors. She did well in working-class communities in the suburbs, and she carried many of the more conservative and predominantly White rural counties.”
In other words, El Sayed won over voters who are more insulated from the consequences of his socialist policies. And none of this is unique to El-Sayed’s win.
Socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier narrowly beat incumbent Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., after performing best with younger voters, college-educated precincts, and higher-income areas. Espaillat won low-income areas and majority-Hispanic precincts.
Brad Lander (a Mamdani-backed candidate) unseated Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., after winning high-income areas and college-educated areas while Goldman performed better in low-income areas.
All of these candidates campaign as though they are for the working people and the poor, and yet they get most of their support from affluent leftists and wealthy people, while being rejected at the ballot box by those they claim to represent.
Affluent voters can champion candidates who support defunding the police, for example, because when things become dangerous, they can pack up and leave. But low-income residents don’t have that same luxury and are instead left to deal with unsafe streets and communities. Or take government-run grocery stores: Affluent voters can champion the idea because if local businesses fail to compete with a subsidized food store, the affluent voters can just go shop at Whole Foods or somewhere else. But locals without cars or disposable income may be left with nowhere to shop.
Affluent voters can throw their support behind open-border globalists who want to abolish borders, ICE, and immigration enforcement because it won’t be their housing supply that is squeezed by tens of millions of illegal aliens pining for the limited apartments. It’s not their communities that are transformed into Third World hellscapes. It’s the low-income communities most affected.
As with every form of socialism ever, the socialism of the Democrat Party is authoritarian slavery dictated by self-appointed elites.
