It’s just past 4 a.m. here on the East Coast, and as I write this, Abdul El-Sayed leads Haley Stevens by only 1.4 points in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate with 95+ percent of the vote counted in Michigan.
asserted
percent → ’ → Michigan
The margin is narrow, but when there aren’t a lot of votes left, will be hard for Stevens to make up.
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Stevens → be → votes
El-Sayed has been declared the winner by NBC News, and is considered the almost certain victor by prediction markets, but other news outlets haven’t called the race yet.
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outlets → declare → race
I’ve never been much of an election night modeling guy — my whole thing is pre-election forecasts — so I’m not going to offer an opinion about whether NBC and the prediction markets got ahead of themselves.
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NBC → go → themselves
Most of you will probably read this in the morning, and the results may be clearer by then, but the points I’ll make in this newsletter aren’t particularly contingent on the exact final result.
uncertain
I → read → result
However, this is one of those cases where the headline doesn’t tell the whole story.
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headline → tell → story
A 1- or 2-point win for El-Sayed would be much narrower than the results predicted by polls; the last seven surveys of the race as tracked by the New York Times had El-Sayed up by margins ranging between 10 and 19 points.
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surveys → predict → margins
I will note that an earlier Glengariff Group poll had Stevens ahead by 7, which is actually likely to end up closer to the end result than most of the other surveys, though it was pretty far off, too.
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it → note → surveys
I’ve been putting the finishing touches on our midterms model, and that’s been going well; it should launch (early) next week.
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it → put → model
But I wrote some notes to myself while following Michigan in the background over the course of the evening.
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I → write → evening
Considering the hour, I’m mostly just going to reproduce those with some uncharacteristic brevity.
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I → consider → brevity
We should start by acknowledging that an El-Sayed win by any margin is a significant accomplishment.
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win → start → margin
It’s not exactly surprising, given the success of more progressive candidates elsewhere and that he’s been ahead in the polls for a couple of months now.
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he → ’ → months
But this is a guy whose only previous attempt at elected office resulted in a 22-point loss to Gretchen Whitmer in the 2018 Michigan gubernatorial primary.
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attempt → elect → primary
Michigan, where I’m from, isn’t New York City or some super liberal district in Colorado.
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I → ’m → Colorado
With that said, I think AES and some of his supporters are guilty of managing expectations very poorly.
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AES → say → expectations
Some of the polls I mentioned were from firms affiliated with El-Sayed’s campaign.
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I → mention → campaign
I don’t understand the utility of publishing internal polls showing yourself ahead by double digits — personally, if I ran a campaign, I’d make it a strict policy to never release internal polls, which are often highly misleading.
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which → understand → polls
And if you’re going to do that, you probably ought to come closer than within ~10 points of the actual result.
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you → go → result
El-Sayed has also predicted a big win for himself against Mike Rogers, who won the Republican nomination uncontested tonight, but who is a relatively moderate Republican for the Trump Era.
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who → predict → Era
As someone who can be a little trollish himself, and is sometimes accused of being cocky, I’ve kind of vibed with AES’s confidence on some level, but I’m also not running for office and would be a terrible candidate if I did.1
In presidential primaries, results relative to “expectations” matter
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results → accuse → expectations
Indeed, you can literally even model this, as we did in 2020.
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we → model → 2020
If AES had been going against Stevens in the New Hampshire primary, and had been favored by 13 points in polls but won by 1 or 2 instead, his chances of eventually becoming the Democratic nominee would probably have declined tonight, because the 1 extra delegate he won or whatever would be outweighed by the perceived loss of momentum and the message that donors, the media, etc. took from that.
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donors → go → that
Primaries for Congress don’t work that way: there’s no runoff in this race, no second chance for Stevens next week.
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Primaries → work → Stevens
Still, this race has big implications for how Democrats will navigate the political landscape going forward, including specifically in 2028.
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Democrats → have → 2028
But the way this went down won’t provide the morale boost that a bigger win might have.
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win → go → that
Instead of accepting that they have a lot of problems, they’re going to ask what they might have done differently.
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they → accept → what
Mallory McMorrow actually got 4 percent of the vote despite dropping out (so El-Sayed isn’t likely to hit 50 percent).
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Sayed → get → percent
What if she had endorsed Stevens?
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she → endorse → Stevens
With some very notable exceptions such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a lot of the Democratic establishment, including Michigan incumbent Sen. Elissa Slotkin, stayed on the sidelines in the race.2
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lot → include → race.2
I don’t necessarily know that their endorsements would have helped Stevens, especially since a lot of El-Sayed’s rhetoric was about how the Democratic establishment, AIPAC and wealthy donors had been putting a heavy finger on the scale.3
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establishment → know → scale.3
But the establishment might regard this as a game in which they took the starters out at halftime, and almost won anyway, rather than one they were destined to lose the whole time.
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they → regard → halftime
It’s clear that progressives are rising in the Democratic Party overall.
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progressives → ’ → Party
But it’s also clear that there’s a fair amount of race-by-race variance.
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it → ’ → variance
Just tonight, in Missouri’s 1st congressional district, former Squad member Cori Bush lost to a moderate Democrat by 22 points in a comeback bid, while one of the most moderate Democrats in the House, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, easily advanced to the general election in Washington’s 3rd district.
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one → lose → district
The media likes simple narratives, and “progressives rising” is by no means wrong, but
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rising → like → means
nobody should be bending the knee at this point.
With that said, there’s a fair amount of cope in establishment circles too.
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that → bend → circles
Well, a lot of establishment types will just assert that she was a bad candidate.
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she → assert → types
Stevens won election to the House four times in a suburban Detroit district with perfectly normal margins, for instance.
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Stevens → win → instance
Prediction markets have an increasing tendency toward overconfidence.
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markets → have → overconfidence
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
