Michigan Senate Race Disaster

Will an establishment Democrat or a very progressive candidate be the party’s choice for the U.S. Senate seat in Michigan? Polls show that the more Left-leaning candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) and AOC (NY-14), is leading U.S. Representative Haley Stevens (MI-11) as Michigan voters head to the voting booths.

Asreported by Fox News:

The high-stakes fight between the left-wing and the center-left establishment for the future of the Democratic Party is front-and-center on Tuesday in Michigan’s primary.

Boosted by a string of victories this spring in mostly blue congressional districts across the country, the Democrats’ ideological war moves to the Great Lakes battleground state, where progressive victories could reshape the party and endanger must-hold seats in the midterm elections.

Also at stake as Michigan joins Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and Washington State in holding mid-summer primaries is President Donald Trump’s immense clout over the GOP and the power of his endorsements in Republican nominating contests.

But taking top billing is Michigan’s divisive and expensive Democratic Senate primary, which is seen as the biggest stage to date in the fierce fight for the future of the Democratic Party.

“This is ground zero in the battle for the future of the Democratic Party, pitting status quo corporate Democrats against shake up the system economic fighters, and we’ll see who wins,” Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a leading group on the left, told Fox News Digital.

The primary face-off pits Abdul El-Sayed, a former Wayne County Health Department director, against Rep. Haley Stevens, a more moderate candidate backed by the establishment. The race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who is backing Stevens, is a must-hold for the Democrats and one of roughly a dozen Senate races from coast to coast that will determine if Republicans hold onto their slim Senate majority. . . .

El-Sayed, who, if elected, would make history as the nation’s first Muslim senator, is an epidemiologist who unsuccessfully ran for governor as an insurgent candidate in 2018. He has made support for “Medicare-for-all” a major component of his campaign.

The far-left candidate has also called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is a vocal critic of Israel amid its war with Hamas — even characterizing Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” against Palestinians.

Michigan has historically played a big role in deciding the President of the United States. And when you look at the policies of El-Sayed – who previously ran for governor of Michigan and lost – he seems to be trying to have it both ways when it comes to the socialist argument.

He recently insisted, “I’m simply not a socialist,” but then you look at all the things he supports, including Medicare for all, taxing the rich to redistribute it to the lower income, restructuring the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, all policies that fit right in line with the policies of the DSA.

And then you have Stevens, an establishment Leftist, but whose policies, such as equitable federal investment and economic empowerment and access, may not differ that much from those of El-Sayed.

But here’s where it all boils down to once again. To be a real socialist and gain that DSA support, you must hate Israel. El-Sayed’s primary line of attack against Stevens, who is endorsed by far-Left Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, is that Stevens is not anti-Israel and has received money from AIPAC. Therefore she should not be elected.

El-Sayed also seemingly went after a potential colleague, Senator John Fetterman (PA),stating, “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.” But clearly, these radical socialist candidates want nothing to do with anyone who has an inkling of support for Israel.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Jeff Ballabon, head of ACLJ Jerusalem, joined the broadcast, and I asked for his reaction to the idea that to be accepted by the DSA – to be one of the cool kids on the Left – you have to hate Israel.

Jeff explained he fears it’s worse than that:

I don’t think that it’s just that you have to hate Israel to be in this cool kids club. I think you have to hate America. By all standards that we would look at as to what America stands for, which is those liberties we’re trying to protect, they’re coming up within the system, taking advantage of the system, but they despise every aspect of that system. And that’s extremely dangerous.

The broader picture, I think, though, is that what’s extremely dangerous is that there’s been these huge lurches from 2008 with Barack Obama coming in and normalizing certain ideas about America, to 2018 with the “Squad” coming in and normalizing those ideas, and now here we are, and, and it’s gone even further, more openly hostile both to America and to Israel. And my concern is not whether or not someone is elected in Michigan, which we understand who is in their base and who’s doing the elections.

I’m more concerned that the Democrats as a party recognize they have to draw a red line somewhere. They should have drawn it a decade ago, at least. They did not. Instead, they embraced, they celebrated, they lionized the “Squad” and people like them. And so all of these things are a cascade effect. And to me, I’m less concerned about an individual running in a race; rather, how they’re accepted and normalized by the party at some point. And we see this, by the way, on the Republican side as well. At some point the parties have to decide what they stand for.

It should be very alarming to everyone – including the far Left – that somehow to be a socialist in America, you have to despise the Jewish state of Israel.

Today’s Sekulow broadcast included more analysis of the state of Michigan primary, and speculation of how either candidate might fare against the likely Republican nominee, former Representative Mike Rogers (MI-8).

Watch the full broadcast below: