Demographics fuel Democrats’ concerns about El-Sayed’s strength

▪ El-Sayed’s tall task

▪ Fauci faces contempt vote

▪ CDC director confirmed

▪ Another redistricting battle in Missouri

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The demographic breakdown of the vote in Democrats’ Michigan Senate primary this week includes some glaring warning signs for the party as it seeks to rally voters behind progressive Abdul El-Sayed to win the critical battleground seat this November.

El-Sayed’s primary victory over moderate Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) was too close for comfort for many Democrats, who had hoped the victor would emerge with a more commanding lead to avoid having to win over half the Democratic base during the general election campaign.

Instead, the former state public health official eked out a narrow win — leading by less than 1 percentage point when Decision Desk HQ called the race in his favor Wednesday morning. The data makes it clear El-Sayed has his work cut out for him to win support of key demographics that backed Stevens.

El-Sayed won with support from young voters, leading Stevens by 24 points in counties with a population made up of at least 30 percent of young adults, aged 18 to 34, according to a Washington Post analysis of county-level demographic and voting data.

Stevens, on the other hand, led counties where young adults made up one-fifth or less of the population.

El-Sayed struggled in counties with higher Black populations or less educated voters. In counties where Black people made up at least 15 percent of the population, Stevens led El-Sayed by 8 points. Black voters in Detroit have historically been pivotal for Democrats to win statewide, pointing to a potential vulnerability for the party ahead of the general election.

Counties where at least 40 percent of the population had a college degree backed El-Sayed by 10 points — whereas Stevens led counties where 20 percent or less of the population was college educated.

After the race was called Wednesday morning, El-Sayed quickly sought to unite the party around defeating former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, casting him as both a neocon who shared responsibility for the Iraq war and a MAGA loyalist willing to do President Trump’s bidding.

Many analysts see holding the seat as critical to any path to Democrats taking control of the upper chamber.

Recent polling of the general election has added to the sense of uneasiness over the tough road ahead for El-Sayed. While Stevens was neck and neck in a hypothetical match-up against Rogers in November, El-Sayed was trailing Rogers in some surveys, though polling has varied — and proved unreliable in the primary.

Vice President Vance on Wednesday night argued El-Sayed’s victory was driven by affluent liberals, arguing the results pointed to the weakness of far-left candidates.

“El-Sayed, he’s this guy who holds himself out as a working-class hero, is a guy who’s gonna fight for the working class. He doesn’t have a constituency among the working class,” he said on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle.”

Retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who endorsed Stevens to succeed him, said Wednesday that the “stakes could not be higher” as he urged the party to back its new nominee, but he also acknowledged the strength of Stevens’s campaign.

“In order to win in Michigan, you have to have support in rural areas….you certainly need to build a coalition with rural voters,” Peters said, NOTUS’s Igor Bobic reported.

On whether El-Sayed might need to tack to the center at all, Peters added, “The way to earn support in — Haley Stevens, that’s where she got a lot of her support, in rural areas — is just talking about issues that they care about.”

A New York Times analysis found that Stevens won rural districts by 3 percentage points over El-Sayed.

Another potential warning sign for Democrats comes in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, where democratic socialist Donavan McKinney ousted incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), but where Stevens still held a significant advantage over El-Sayed.

The vote count is not yet final, but McKinney, who is Black, appears to have outpaced El-Sayed in that Detroit district by double digits, a striking split for two candidates ideologically aligned.

▪ The Hill: President Trump says El-Sayed is ‘full of........

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