TWAA: Michigan’s Brings the DSA Into the Open
The progressive left is moving from the fringe into the mainstream.
What I’m Thinking About
Michigan Democrats have chosen Abdul El-Sayed as their nominee for the United States Senate. This was not a protest vote in Brooklyn or another predictable victory in a deep-blue congressional district. Michigan is one of America’s most consequential swing states, and its open Senate seat could determine control of the chamber. Yet Democratic primary voters nominated one of the progressive left’s most ideological candidates, defeating establishment-backed Haley Stevens despite being heavily outspent. El-Sayed supports Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and ending U.S. military aid to Israel. He has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide” and has refused to affirm plainly the Jewish state’s right to exist, instead reframing the question around Palestinian and Israeli self-determination. He insists he is “not technically or practically DSA,” yet his campaign was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, while Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became two of his most prominent national champions.
But the real story is no longer Abdul El-Sayed. It is the electorate that chose him. His victory is part of a broader progressive advance through Democratic primaries, with DSA-backed and socialist-aligned candidates winning races from New York to Colorado and now, crucially, in a state Donald Trump carried in 2024. These are no longer campus politics. They are becoming congressional politics. Michigan voters will now decide whether that movement belongs on college campuses—or in the United States Senate.
The fringe becomes the establishment one primary at a time.
