The Daily Blast: Who is Abdul El-Sayed? His Harsh New Takedown of Trump Offers a Clue.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent. After Abdul El Saeed won the Democratic Senate Primary in Michigan, Donald Trump, on cork to screens smearing him as crazy and to communist looser. And of course, that tweet previews what the GOP attack on him actually will be, only it'll be backed by hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the full expectation of this, El Saeed delivered a victory speech and then remarks to reporters that framed the attack on Trump and on MAGA that seems likely to animate his campaign. Can it work? Is it enough?

“How will El Saeed overcome the other serious challenges he faces in this race?”

We're really psyched to be discussing all this with Ron Brownstein, seen your political analyst that CNN and columnist for Bloomberg opinion whose recent piece about the contest is a reminder that he's the best in the business of explaining this stuff. Ron, great to have you on. Greg, glad to be with you.

So Abdul El Saeed, a former public health official who was born in Michigan, the Son of Egyptian immigrants, just won the primary by less than a point over the more moderate Haley Stevens.

El Saeed is harshly critical of Israel is running a left-populous campaign for Medicare

for all and targeting billionaires in the establishment. Ron, El Saeed won big among young and college educated voters, but Stevens won in the more rural and working class areas. Can you explain why that portends a serious challenge for him in the general election against microchrist?

Yeah, you remember like we used a phrase that I popularized about 15 years ago was a democratic presidential primaries divide between the wine track, candidate to appeal to young people and college educated whites and the beer track, candidate to mostly feel the working class whites, black voters, and seniors, that's kind of gotten scramble that the presidential level in the last few cycles, but it sure was an evidence in Michigan.

I mean, this was a pure wine track beer track coalition, and the answer is that whether it was Stevens or El Saeed, who won neither side of that is enough to win a purple state like Michigan. You need both.

And in the first general election polling that's out there from Epic MRA, El Saeed,

not surprisingly, is underperforming among voters over 50, black voters, and non-college white women. So he's got to do some work to knit together the coalition that Democrats need to win in November. Ron, so what does he have to do?

Basically, the poll you're talking about, or at least a number of public polls, if you look at them all together, basically what they show is that El Saeed is running behind where Stevens is running against microtters. So it depends on the poll, but maybe you're on 5.6.7 points, Stevens is running by that much more.

So he has to win that chunk of voters. The voters who would vote for Stevens against microtters, but not vote for El Saeed as some now against microtters, who are those voters?

“Well, I think they're fundamentally Trump disapprovers.”

I mean, as we've talked about before, in Trump's first term, Susan Collins in 2020 was

the only Republican senator or challenger who won a Senate race in a state where more people disapprove and approve of his job performance according to the exit polls. In that epic MRA poll, 63% of voters in Michigan now disapprove of Trump, you know, basically in amoeba should be able to win in that environment. There's just no precedent for Republicans winning a race, a Senate race in a state where

Trump is that unpopular, but in that poll, El Saeed is way underperforming among the disapprovers. What the political strategists call double haters are probably the people who are going to decide this race. I mean, the odds are high that there is going to be a big chunk of voters. Maybe as much as 20% who have an unfaithful view of El Saeed at the end after all this

Republican money and after his own choices, but also disapprove of Trump. So how do they vote in the end? In the past, double haters have tended to vote against the party in the White House, but Republicans hope that El Saeed is such a reach for those voters that they can win more of them than they usually do.

“And I think that will be the pivot point of this race.”

People who disapprove of Trump and are somewhat hesitant about El Saeed. Ron, who are those voters? Are those voters basically the same constituencies that essentially were more likely to vote for Stevens than for El Saeed? Logically, you would say yes, but we don't really have detailed enough evidence for that.

You know, I suspect there are also some college whites in there beyond the Democratic primary. I think it's going to be pretty broad-paced.

I mean, he presents himself as a leader of a movement.

He's been, you know, really focused on Israel and APAC, which is a less interest to a broader general electorate.

“And so I think he's going to face a fair amount of suspicion among the broad or resistance”

at least among the broad electorate. But Trump is not going to get much more popular between now and November in Michigan. And so that group of people who are dubious of both, I think, will be the tug of war in this race. Well, Donald Trump issued a tweet that said this, quote, "Great news for the Republican

Party. El Saeed, a communist loser who hates Jews and Israel, is the projected winner in his race with the socialist. Now the Democrats, crazy policies will only get worse," quote, quote, "I think by socialist he means haily Stevens, which is utterly preposterous, but whatever, Ron, we're going to see hundreds

of millions of dollars put behind that precise message that Donald Trump put in that tweet. They're going to paint him as a radical, a terrorist sympathizer. Someone who pals around with far-leftists like Hassan Piker, they're going to highlight his support for abolishing ICE, et cetera.

“That's aimed at the landscape that you described before, right?”

In other words, they're conscious of what you essentially said, the challenge here is going to be. Yeah, and you know, look, I mean, we have not had a democratic nominee in a swing state try to defend Medicare for all, even, for example, like, you know, I was, the most striking, I was in Michigan over the weekend, the most striking thing I heard was in a black church

on Saturday afternoon, where the Reverend, who was the statewide president for Al Sharpen's national action network, described El Saeed as a one hit wonder who cares more about Palestine and then Detroit. I mean, so there's a lot of pressure points here, but you can't lose sight of the other side of the equation.

You know, Greg, in 2024, 51% of Michigan voters had an unfavorable view of Trump according to the exit poll. And Mike Rogers won only 10% of them.

That's about what every Republican candidate in Trump's first term except for Susan

Collins, one among people who disapprove of him. Okay, in this election, it is likely that somewhere around 60% of Michigan voters are going to be unfavorable to Trump, which means that Rogers is going to have to win close to twice as many Trump disapprovers as, you know, as anybody else did, except Collins in the first term or that basically he did in 2024.

I don't think that's impossible against El Saeed, but it is still a reach. And so it is possible that El Saeed could weigh underperform the underlying environment and still squeeze by. The demise of the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd's death in 2020 occurred without definition, scrutiny, or attempts to revive it.

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Listen to this. He can't decide which era of Republican he wants to be from. On the one hand, he was from the neocon era that had us fighting unnecessary wars in Iraq, swore up and down.

He could never support Donald Trump, then went to Mara Logo when he decided to run

for Senate the first time and leaked all the boots until he finally got that Trump endorsement. So he's both the worst of the neocon era and the worst of the maggot era, and I just think

“that's the worst of all, because at least you should know who you are.”

But I promise you, Mike, by the time we are done with you, all the Michigan is going to know who you are. On I like the way he depicts his Republican opponent as a Trump bootlicker, which indicts

often in swing areas. The idea of the fusion of the neocon era and the maga era goes after what Trumpism really is, what Trump has created, a GOP that combines militarism and white nationalism and authoritarianism. And yet, I've got to think language like neocon doesn't seem exactly like general election language.

It's online language a little bit, but it shouldn't be, but it is. What do you think of all that?

“I think his description of Rogers is pretty effective with the caveat that you mentioned”

about, you know, look, this is a guy who in the first debate with Haley Stevens described

Elsayed and the first debate with Haley Stevens described child care as a gender justice issue. He's funny guy to get out of the library a little bit, and look, he has that experience, but, you know, he does have that whiff of kind of the online self-closited left, or self, you know, kind of reinforcing left.

But I think that description of Rogers is effective, but I think like a lot of the Bernie inspired candidates, he really doesn't want to focus on Trump as a unique threat to the American system. That Israeli Friday night in Dearborn, he said as Bernie often did in his runs, Trump is a symptom.

Trump is not the disease. Trump is a symptom of a corrupt system where special interests, in his case, symbolize by APAC, have too much influence.

“I don't think that is as much of a winning argument in 2026 as that Trump himself is taking”

the country in the wrong direction. And like a lot of the Bernie candidates, he doesn't really want to lean on that.

He wants to basically say the entire system is corrupt, he like many of the Bernie candidates,

he often seems more energized, criticizing the Democratic leadership than he does Trump. And so the job for a Democratic nominee in Michigan really isn't that complicated. You don't have to change the electorate, you don't have to inspire a movement. You just have to win as many voters who disapprove of Trump as every other Democratic nominee did in his first term except for Saragitian against Susan Collins.

That's it. That's what you have to do. And you know, I thought in his victory speech the other day, El Sajad was talking about the movement that he's inspired, how his election is going to change politics forever. Really?

Like, you know, you won an election by 15,000 votes, and that's going to change politics forever. There was a lot of me not quite enough you, I thought, particularly for voters who are

not tuned in politically, and a Democratic primary railing against APAC is really powerful.

For a swing voter who is worrying about, you know, paying the bills, it is like could not be less relevant. And so I felt like, you know, watching him is a candidate and even watching him last on election night and the morning after, he seems like to me, he has to broaden who he's talking to and how he is talking to them.

Like, as I said, this is a guy who called childcare a gender justice issue, I cannot imagine there is a working mom who has thought of it many in exactly those terms in small town Michigan. Right.

“I think the problem is that he is torn between on the one side, going after the GOP/Magga,”

which is something that is really right right now, especially in a place like Michigan where Trump is, you know, at 60% disapproving. And then so on the other side of the equation, he wants to indict the whole system. And there's sort of a strain in this type of left-leaning thinking that holds that if you're talking too much about Trump and MAGA, you're not talking about the more systemic

problems. Politically, I feel like he could go very hard at Trump and MAGA here. Maybe harder. I do want to credit him, though, with going after MAGA the way he did, he gets that MAGA is the problem to some degree, right?

He just has to centralize Trump a little more, I think. What do you think of that? Well, no, I agree. I mean, I think that, you know, I think that, as I said, like many of Sanders himself and many of the candidates he's inspired, he doesn't really dwell on Trump.

I mean, he explicitly said on Friday night in a kind of a closing argument rally, I view Trump as a symptom, not the disease. The disease is that there's all this money corrupting politics and it's symbolized by all the money that he packs from against me. And there is an audience for that, but the core, what is the tailwind for Democrats this

year? What is the core argument? It's that voters feel the Trump has not delivered on what he promised, the swing voters feel that. And Democratic voters believe he is just out of control, threatening the fundamentals of

the country, our values, our laws, and putting a check on Trump is really the core argument

He kind of, he refuses to kind of focus that in the, or is reluctant to focus that in the way there will be most powerful because, as you said, he gets in the way of this broader somewhat more academic, I think, to many voters' arguments about how the system functions are doesn't. Right.

In your point, let's listen to what else I had said to reporters, it's another rendition of the Trump Bootlipper line, check this out.

Mike Rogers is a guy who has never shot away from a corporation he could do a favor for.

Mike Rogers is a guy who, believe it or not, went back to Florida, so he could lick every single boot Donald Trump owns, to beg for his endorsement.

“I'm so sorry if you want to send it, it was going to lick some boots, bye, go vote for my”

Rogers, but if you want to send it, who's going to stand up to Donald Trump, then you've got your option right here. So Ron there, he's doing what I think we want to see more of, which is cast this race as a referendum or a choice between someone who will rain in Trump and stand up to Trump on the one hand, and someone who licks his boots on the other, and you know, it also

goes after Trump in a deeper sense, he's essentially saying Trump requires Republicans

to corruptly act as the servants of him and the servants of corporations.

He should probably talk more like that, right? Yeah, well look, I, I'm not here to give him campaign advice, but I think it would, he, as I said, like many of the Sanders candidates, he is kind of pulling away from what is the strongest democratic argument in 2026 because it interferes with this broader point that he wants to make.

Again, like he can win, I mean, there's no question he can win. Trump's disapproval is at a point where he doesn't have to do anything special to win. He only has to win somewhere a little north of 80% of people who disapproval of Trump, which should be very doable, but there are a lot of reasons not only in his argument, but also in his positions, you know, and let's face it, in his background, that are

going to create hurdles for him in doing that, and you know, that it's going to be,

“it's going to be a campaign, I mean, it's going to be a lot tighter, I think, than it would”

have been with Stevens. Yes, I fear that that's the case, agree that it's totally doable. Let's listen to one more stretch of Elsa and talking here, listen to this. I look in front of me and I see all kinds of colors, all kinds of stories coming together around the idea that we can have nice things, we just can't do it alone.

That to have them, we're going to need to reach across the divides. They tell us we can't breach divides of race, of faith, of geography, of sexual orientation, gender identity, and so as we continue forward. For the next 13 weeks, I am asking you to put your shoulder in the work to make sure that we defeat Mike Rogers, we defeat and send a blow to Trumpism, and we do the work of building

that next 250 years that all of us deserve because it's some point, whether you know

“them or you don't, the future will ask you, what did you do in this moment?”

For me, it looks like two little girls, ethnically half Indian, like their mom, ethnically half Egyptian, like me, 100% American. On, I don't think it's an accident that he juxtaposed the need to go after Trumpism with this kind of rhapsodic take on the diversity of his audience and the Americanness of his two kids and of himself, despite his kids being half Indian and half Egyptian.

That again, kind of goes to the core of what people are angry at Trump about, which is that Trump is essentially trying to wreck that aspect of what makes America great, diversity, immigration, it's a white nationalist in short, and so I think he's getting close to the type of indictment he needs of Trump and Trumpism, just not quite there. What do you think?

I think that ultimately, the voters who are available to a Democrat, realistically, even

in a state like Michigan, overwhelmingly believe that, that is the idea of the coalition of transformation, that Democrats ultimately rely on the voters who are comfortable with the way the country is changing democratically culturally and economically. The issue isn't that message, the issue is the extent to which other things he has said and done kind of belive that, or give Republicans ammunition.

What he said hurt people hurt people about the synagogue attack, right? And that's there is a kind of sectarianism about his campaign, and there needs to be, if he is going to win, he has to talk to people who are just either not interested in that

in Michigan just by unifying the Democratic base, even if he succeeds in doing that.

“I think, though, I want to point this out, Ron.”

I think he's talking about this idea, his kids being 100% American and himself being 100% American, juxtaposed with Trumpism, as the beginnings of a rebuttal to the attack he's going to face. So I think what's going to happen here is those hundreds of millions of dollars are essentially going to try to do to him what they tried to do to Barack Obama, right?

So I think Hassan Piker will sort of function as the Reverend Wright, but Greg, but Greg, think about the difference. I mean, that is the core. Of course. That is the core.

Obama directly dealt with it. Yes. I agree. I agree. I agree.

“I think I just want to get it what else I think he's doing, though, because I think what he thinks”

he's doing is, okay, I'm about to face hundreds of millions of dollars, which cast

me as an alien, threatening anti-American figure, a terrorist, right, basically.

And so when he talks about how American he is, and unabashedly talks about his immigrant heritage, he's sort of staking out the beginnings of a rebuttal to that attack on him. I don't think it's there. I agree with you. I just want to sort of underscore that that's where he thinks he's going and maybe

ask your opinion on what he really needs to do with that. Can he get there with Hassan Piker next to him? That's the question. And I think that, as I said, I think that argument is very appealing to anyone who is open to voting for a Democrat, would accept that argument, that my kids are the proof of what

America is.

I mean, that is the greatness of America, but that doesn't erase Hassan Piker from

the picture. And it doesn't erase hurt people, hurt people, from the picture. I mean, I mean, he is not running as Barack Obama did in 2008, as many people have pointed out to me who I've talked to in the last couple of weeks.

“And I think he will try to get there, but this is not that.”

This is a very different, this is a more narrow casting kind of political strategy. And it proved to have a lot more limits and proved to be a lot more narrowly cast, even in the primary than they accepted than they expected. Again, having said all this, Trump is unpopular enough that he might be able to win, but whether this is a model that other Democrats should be following, I would submit to you that

the issue is not only whether wins, the issue is comparing to Jocelyn Benson, a more centrist candidate. If you run 70 points behind her and wins, is the message of that that a Bernie style candidate can win Michigan in 2008 or is it that, if you have an environment that is less advantageous for Democrats, this is just not settled on a majority.

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To get your 20% off, go to DSR network.substack.com/awgist26. That's DSR network.substack.com/awgist26. Right, I agree. I think though that in his head he's moving beyond the Bernie campaign, at least to some degree, I think he thinks he's doing that with the the pains to Americanism and so forth.

How does he, I guess what you're saying here is there's going to have to be some sort of very clear articulation of something much more Obama-like than he's doing right now. Is that the essence of your point? I think so. I don't know if it's a sense, like I said, he might be able to win without it because

of the environment, but I do think that he has anchored himself in a way. There's not been a Reverend Wright speech here at all. I mean, there's nothing like that in fact, there's been defiance. There are reasons why there are a lot of voters, including on the Democratic side who worry about him appearing with Hassan Piker, you know, I mean, I don't have a huge opinion

on that, but it's clearly something that is troubling for a lot of even Democratic voters

Right.

What he's saying is they're going to say Hassan Piker Hassan Piker and I'm going to say,

well, I'm fully American and my immigrant heritage makes me American is only so far you can move. There's only so far you can move with him still in the picture. You think that there's got to be some sort of more comprehensive and thought through

“a model to the Hassan Piker attacks, yeah, well, but it's not just that, right?”

I mean, I think he very much, you know, in his campaign, you know, identified as, whether it's on the farm policy stuff with Israel or the way he framed, we're talking about the way he frames the domestic political situation, he identified very much in that Bernie Lane and it was just enough as it was in 2016 for Bernie barely beating Hillary in the Michigan primary, it was just enough to get the nomination, but it's hard to imagine

even in this year that's enough to win, to win in Michigan. Okay, Ron, so what does the winning coalition look like in granular terms? Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, usually Democrats have to get to somewhere in the high 30s among non-college whites or the low 40s to win in Michigan and, you know, he will probably do and look, we'll have to see how well he does a Monk College white men as well.

I mean, you know, the winning coalition for Democrats in the, in the, in the, in the, in a Rust Belt state, like Michigan, non-college whites are about half or more of the electorate. Democrats no longer have to win most of them, but they can't get annihilated among them. If he only wins 35% of non-college whites, he is not going to win, I mean, he's probably got to win a little more than that.

He's got to win 85, north of 85% of black voters and he's got to turn them out. And then he's probably got to win, you know, a majority of college whites.

“I mean, that would be the winning coalition, I think, for him, and all of that is doable”

in this environment, but none of it will be easy, especially with the way he is presented himself to this point.

El Saiyad's victory is the most important win for the left in this primary season.

One of the left is one, some big primaries, the center as one, some big primaries. This without a doubt is the biggest win for the left, but it instantly becomes the biggest test for the left because I think if he wins the nomination, but doesn't win the general election, the message and the momentum going into 28 for the left looks very different than if he does win the general election.

The same thing with Francesca Hong and Wisconsin.

“If she wins the nomination, but doesn't win the general election, I think the interpretation”

of Democrats in states they absolutely must have to get the White House back in 28. I think the interpretation of Democrats are there experiences to me very different than if they do win. So this is like the undercard. The main event is still to come.

It's going to be really tough, but as you say, doable, Ron Brownstein, thanks so much for coming on. As I said before, you're really showing here while you're the best at this stuff.

I'll always pray to be with you, Greg.