Eoin Higgins is the author of “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voice on the Left.”
asserted
Billionaires → own → Left
Halloween weekend is the last chance for centrist Democrats to stop the nightmare they fear most: Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, who could be the first Muslim in the Senate.
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who → stop → Senate
The Michigan Democrat’s campaign came under pressure from party moderates days out from the general election to denounce an ad produced by The Young Turks presenter Cenk Uygur and his Rebellion PAC.
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campaign → come → Uygur
El-Sayed and his campaign were not involved in the production or distribution of the ad, which tied rising domestic prices to U.S. financial backing of the Israel military.
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which → involve → military
But on Thursday, the campaign made the conciliatory gesture of distancing itself.
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campaign → make → itself
Rather than take the win, Haley Stevens, the House member who lost to El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic primary for Senate in August, used that condemnation on Friday as a springboard for a scathing denouncement of her former opponent, framed as a “celebration” of her magnanimous decision to campaign for El-Sayed this weekend alongside Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. — and laying out conditions for her support with just a few days to go.
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who → take → days
In the statement, in which Stevens assigned herself the role as spokeswoman for Michigan’s Black and Jewish communities — Stevens herself is a white Protestant — she all but called El-Sayed an antisemite and a bigot attempting to cozy up to the worst of the far right.
“I have learned from Democratic Party leaders and emissaries, as reported in the news media, that Dr. El-Sayed has heard the deep concerns of the Jewish community and is now, for the first time in this campaign, formally condemning that ad for what it is,” Stevens wrote.
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Stevens → assign → ad
“That is why I accepted Congressman Clyburn’s invitation to appear with Abdul on Sunday.”
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I → accept → Sunday
Stevens’s eleventh-hour ratfuck came after her fiancé Jason Turkish, a political donor who supported incumbent Maine Republican Susan Collins this cycle, as well as other politicians of both parties, announced he’d vote for the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers, on Tuesday.
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he → come → Tuesday
On Friday night, Turkish told TMZ that his fiancee might join him if El-Sayed didn’t accede to her list of demands.
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Sayed → tell → demands
Establishment Democrats see El-Sayed, and the politics he represents, as an existential threat.
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he → see → threat
It’s not his rather anodyne liberalism in domestic policy — his policy portfolio isn’t far from that of party stalwart Elizabeth Warren — but El-Sayed’s opposition to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians that’s the issue.
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that → ’ → Palestinians
It’s a major problem for the entrenched, centrist Democrats who have controlled the party for decades and have tamped down any dissent on this issue.
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who → ’ → issue
Recent polling is likely motivating efforts to ding the El-Sayed campaign.
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polling → motivate → campaign
Senate polling from The New York Times/Siena University this week showed South Carolina in a dead heat — an absolute shocker — with Minnesota comfortably in the Democratic corner.
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polling → show → corner
CNN polling published on Thursday gave Democrats leads in Texas and Michigan and toss-ups in Maine and Kansas.
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polling → publish → Maine
With a Senate majority on the horizon, centrists need to enforce discipline and regain control.
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centrists → need → control
AIPAC is down, but not out; the lobbying group still has a hold on the party, even as voters are moving away from pro-genocide policies.
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voters → have → policies
Taking El-Sayed down would be a show of force to keep donors and the party’s right wing happy.
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Taking → take → donors
If Democrats can win the Senate without him, it would be all the better.
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it → win → him
But the effort may be backfiring as a faction of party elites, led by popular former President Barack Obama, are putting their muscle behind the El-Sayed campaign.
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faction → backfire → campaign
Obama has been a steady presence in Michigan, and Clyburn will rally for the candidate on Sunday at the aforementioned event that Stevens was set to attend.
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Stevens → rally → that
Anger is also spreading among party members in the state.
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Anger → spread → state
“I have no idea what the hell Haley Stevens is doing,” Mallory McMorrow, the Michigan state senator who placed third in the August primary, told CNN Friday night.
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who → have → CNN
“This is a moment where we have to recognize the stakes.”
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we → have → stakes
Stevens — who also demanded El-Sayed pull an ad showing far-right broadcaster Tucker Carlson saying he would “never” support the Republican in the race, Rogers — seems undeterred.
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he → demand → race
Given an inch by the campaign’s willingness to publicly mend fences, Stevens took it several miles, using that ad as a way of implying that El-Sayed was, at best, disinterested in the concerns of Black Michiganders.
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Sayed → give → Michiganders
This last-minute blitz comes after months of attacks on El-Sayed by centrist Democrats, both before and after his primary win.
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blitz → come → win
The smears have been normalized and facilitated by a number of Democrats eager to stay on good terms with the party’s powerful but increasingly marginalized pro-Israel wing.
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smears → normalize → wing
El-Sayed’s connection to the streamer Hasan Piker, who helped get out the vote in the primary, has been a direct and implied slam on the campaign for over half a year from other members of the party.
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who → help → party
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday called opposition to Israel’s existence as an apartheid ethnostate “more than concerning, it’s wrong,” on Donny Deutsch’s podcast, adding, “This new person in Michigan, we’ll see if he gets elected to the Congress.”
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he → call → Congress
On CNN Wednesday, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker — a consistent pro-Israel voice — declined to directly endorse El-Sayed by name.
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Booker → decline → name
They know their influence over the party is at a historic low.
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influence → know → low
The genocide in Gaza has pushed the base away from supporting Israel, perhaps permanently.
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genocide → push → Israel
Supermajorities of Democrats oppose the occupation and sympathize with Palestinians.
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Supermajorities → oppose → Palestinians
But the party’s donor class still backs Israel to the hilt and is fomenting a war-on-terror-style Islamophobic bigotry toward Muslims.
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class → back → Muslims
As Perry Bacon noted on Thursday in The New Republic, party elites attacked then-candidate for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani throughout 2025, then picked up where they left off with El-Sayed, the next prominent Muslim Democrat running for office, in 2026.
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they → note → 2026
The same Democrats who indulge in the attacks on El-Sayed are making hay out of rejecting more openly bigoted attacks from the likes of President Donald Trump and Rogers.
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who → indulge → Trump
Rep. Dan Goldman — an outgoing pro-Israel Democrat who jumped on the Condemn El-Sayed bandwagon earlier this week — called Republican attacks on El-Sayed “Islamaphobia” [sic] on Thursday; Booker did the same.
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Booker → jump → same
And Pelosi, just days after her comments on Deutsch’s show, urged Democrats to vote for El-Sayed.
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Pelosi → urge → Sayed
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia
