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How the Michigan Senate primary became a battle for Democrats’ soul

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks with Astead Herndon about electability, the left-right dichotomy, and more.

The Democratic Party is at war with itself, and nowhere is the fight clearer than the Michigan Senate primary. On one side: Rep. Haley Stevens, backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the establishment, who says the left is too untested and too extreme to win a general election. On the other: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former public health official who wants to blow up the whole premise of the question.

More than $40 million in outside money has already poured into this race — a big chunk of it from pro-Israel groups lining up against El-Sayed — because it’s less a Senate primary than a proxy war for where the party goes next. And at the center of it sits that dreaded word: electability.

That term has become a catch-all used by Democrats to encapsulate whatever approach they think has higher odds of winning the general election.

This week on America, Actually, I sat down with El-Sayed about what his theory of electability actually........

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