Abdul El-Sayed, Haley Stevens, and the Senate Choice for Michigan Democrats
Showing mention at 3:30 — highlighted below
Transcript
61 segmentsAmerica has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Michigan Democrats go to the ballot box in the state's highly watched Senate primary with the latest poll showing far-left candidate Abdul El-Sayed up by double digits over Congresswoman Haley Stevens in a race with big implications for the future of the Democratic Party, the Senate, and possibly even the country. Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleagues on the WSJ's opinion pages, Alicia Finley and Jack Butler. It's primary day in five states, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, and Washington. And there's plenty on the ballot worth watching, including a comeback attempt in St. Louis by former Congresswoman Cori Bush, a member of the squad who was defeated by a fellow Democrat two years ago. The biggest influence, however, will probably be felt in Michigan, a toss-up Senate race that Democrats almost certainly need to win in November to retake control of that chamber. Let's start with a bit from each of the two contenders there. First, here is the polling favorite in the Democratic primary, Abdul El-Sayed speaking this week to CBS. So we're building a big, broad coalition, truly a big tent of people that combines folks from DSA on one side, even if I'm not a socialist. and combined three-time Trump voters, even if I've never voted for Donald Trump. Are you concerned about being labeled a socialist? I think that folks who come here, like with two weeks left in the election, really, really want to label me a socialist. I don't know why, except for maybe it fits into a nice telling of a broader national story. But I'm a scientist, right? And I like solutions that solve problems. That's the approach that I've always taken. I don't do ideology. I'd rather think of myself as a capitalist who actually read about capitalism in the sense that the biggest risk to capitalism was always going to be. corporate consolidation and monopoly rather than government regulation. In fact, you need some government regulation to make sure that capitalism runs well. And here's the other Democratic candidate, Congresswoman Haley Stevens. I can't he win. Well, look, I can only speak to what I've done, you know, which is I beat MAGA four times. I've won tough primaries. And, you know, Abdul is also, you know, chosen, you know, a path of anger, you know, a path of, he is really frustrated, which a lot of Michiganders are. But we also need plans. You know, it is not just slogans and bullhorns and big rallies. This is six years of hard and glamorous work.
that I'm signing up for on Michigan's workhorse. That's what I want to be. My boonick, he's already gotten his website for president. I just want to help Michigan. I just want to fight for Michigan and make sure we're heard. Let's start with El Sayyad. Alicia, most of the polling lately shows him having a double-digit lead. over Haley Stevens. One of the things that he has made his political name on is Medicare for All. And you write about this in your column this week under the headline Socialist Sheik and the Medicare for All sham. Give us a sense of your argument and what Else I at is proposing. Well, first of all, it depends on the day what else I had is proposing, because his vision, what Medicare for All or his health care plan has varied over the years in 2021. He wrote a book, Medicare for All, a Citizens Guide, that had a forward by Bernie Sanders, which was a very expansive proposal in which the government would essentially take over all of health care. It would be a single-payer system, no premiums, no deductibles, no cost sharing. By the way, this kind of system doesn't... exist anywhere in the world. He would essentially turn it into a single-payer, a completely free system, and it's not clear exactly how he plans to pay for just because it would be inordinately expensive. Now, he's kind of walked that plan back a bit lately and has suggested, well, I still don't want anyone to have to pay premiums or deductibles or cost sharing, but I don't want to take away your private insurance. It's a little, sounds a little bit like Obama. If you like your health care plan or if you like your doctor, you can keep it. But that I still think is a little bit of a misdirection and a deception because really what he, and I think the broader Democratic Party, if you read the Senate Democrats' health care blueprint that they put out last week, they really do want to get to a place of more of a single-payer system where government sets the prices, government determines what provider you can see, what treatments you can get. And as I said, I think he's campaigning on this Medicaid. for all because people he knows. Seniors in particular really like Medicare, but it's not free. All seniors have to pay premiums. They have to pay at least $200 a month for their Part B premiums, which is for physician care. And then they also have deductibles for the Part A plan, which is their hospital inpatient care as well as cost sharing. And there's a prescription Part D plan, which is, again, they have to have monthly premiums and that can range from about $0 to about $2. $230 month, depending on the generosity of the plan and the drugs that are on the formulary and all that. And then you have to take into account that about half of seniors are actually enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans because they actually like the private insurance and how it actually works. I mean, it's a little less expensive, yes, but it's kind of a seamless. program and that's why they prefer it in by large lower income people especially prefer these plans so i think that's why he's purposely trying to kind of obfuscate what he actually believes and stands for
Because the Bernie Sanders Medicare for All bill, to underline that point, has said in the past that all private plans that cover the same kind of health services that would be covered under Medicare for All would henceforth be illegal. And that is an unpopular message. But interesting, Jack, that... Haley Stevens does not seem to be taking up that message. It seems like a swing and a miss there from my perspective. Asked by CBS, why should he not be the Senate candidate for Democrats? One easy answer might be that he wants to make private health insurance that millions of people, including in Michigan, actually have, and many of them like, make that illegal. I mean, I understand the criticism of her that she doesn't have a rallying message, kind of anodyne. So from her website, for example, here's her. platform plank on health care. She wants to lower health care, advance health equity, protect science-based care, and defend Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid so Michigan families can live with dignity, health, and security. At least I can understand what else I add is proposing, whereas it's not even clear what Stephen stands for other than, you know, whatever might be the unifying democratic message. in the Senate at the time that she hopes to be in the Senate. But it seems to me, Jack, just a huge missed opportunity for her. Democrats that want to represent the center of the party, the center left of the party, seem very uncomfortable carrying the message that these socialist ideas, these people challenging us from the left, they're actually bad ideas on substance. Yes, Kyle. She's really putting herself out on a limb with that health care plank. It's bold stuff. But you're exactly right. So you can see this in both her messaging and in the quality of elected officials who have rallied to her side. The outgoing senator of Michigan, Gary Peters, has endorsed her. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has endorsed her. But it hasn't really been that enthusiastic and embrace. On the other hand, you have the whole wannabe socialist contingent going to the mattresses for Mr. El-Tayette. What I think this indicates is that there is an internal struggle within the Democratic Party, but the energy is clearly with the far left part of it. And when you talk about things like health care, again, Abdul El-Sayed's plank is clear. He knows what he believes. I think it's bonkers. I think it's bad. I think it's wrong. for all the reasons that Alicia and her column outlined, but it's a position. And the way that people rallying to Haley Stevens side and the way that Haley Stevens talks about him, about his views, it suggests almost like not your ideas are bad, but your ideas are not quite right for this particular moment. So can you just slow down? We're not ready for them yet. And that is not going to be a safeguard against... Candidates like this, they're not going to respond well within the context of a Democratic primary to hold on, wait. That's just not a very inspiring message. So that's what's going on, I think. Hang tight. We'll be right back in a moment. America has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute.
I'm Matthew Hennessy, the editor of Free Expression, the new daily newsletter from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. Free expression is a little different than what you get in the print paper's opinion section. We've expanded things out a little bit. We have a great mix of columnists, including Matt Continetti, Louise Perry, and Kyle Smith. You also get frequent, sharp contributions from my editorial colleagues. And we publish outside contributors, too, from rock star economists like Tom Sol to real rock stars like John Androsic and David Drayman. You can sign up for free expression by going to the journal's homepage and looking for the free expression tab. We're also on substack. Twitter, Instagram, threads, and TikTok, if that's your sort of thing. Sign up for free expression today, and we'll see you in your inbox tomorrow. Welcome back. It seeds that argument then to Republicans in the general election. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Mike Rogers, the... presumptive Republican nominee for Senate in Michigan is going to be talking about if Abdul El-Sayed is the nominee. Another potential opportunity, El-Sayed keeps saying how he's a capitalist and he believes in competition and we need to crack down on monopolies and oligopolis and whatnot. At the same time, though, again, he's arguing for Medicare for all, this government-run takeover of health insurance. And you can also point to countries where that's not working. out all that well for regular people, including one that borders Michigan, which is Canada. Here's a story from the CBC from a couple months ago. I'll just read a few sentences of it. On Monday morning, Maureen Armstrong's elderly mother suffered a fall and was taken by ambulance to a Windsor, Ontario emergency room. There she waited more than 48 hours to be admitted by the time Armstrong spoke with CBC news on Wednesday afternoon. Her 81-year-old mother was still waiting in the hallway for a hospital bed. Goes on to say that one in ten Canadians admitted to a hospital during 2024, 2025 fiscal year, spent more than 48 hours waiting in the emergency department, a 12-hour increase from 36 hours during 2018-19. Alicia, I think you can go down the list of... Abdul El-Sayed's platform and make similar sort of arguments. He's talking about universal free child care. How much is that going to cost? You know, who's going to pay for it? Is that going to make people price insensitive about the cost of child care, actually, if the government is picking up the tab and ultimately push up those prices, as I think you can argue government intervention in health care and in education? has done. And yet that is not an argument that you're hearing any whiff of here, I think, in the Democratic primary. And the difficulty is Haley Stevens, I think, doesn't want to turn off voters that she wants to attract in the primary who might be receptive to those kinds of messages. But it leaves her falling back, I think, on not a whole lot when she has asked.
You know, why you and not El Sayyad? Well, this race actually very much reminds me a little bit of the 2008 primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton was promising that she would be, you know, the workhorse versus Obama, who was the shore horse and who was speaking a lot of uplifting. And I think there is a little bit of an uplifting message if you listen to Abdul El-Sayed. He's very glib. He speaks. He's very articulate. Whereas Haley Stevens is like, I'm going to get the work done. I'm going to focus on the issues. I mean, Jack's a little right that she has an issue in campaign on any kind of specifics. But there's that kind of similar dynamic to that 2008 race. I would also point out, you say that, well, Democrats don't really want to talk about these issues and or Haley Stevens doesn't want to actually try to dissect outside its plans and the problems with it. Well, I would say actually at this point, the big problem is that Republicans don't. either. And you are not hearing really Republicans talk about anything other than say, oh, he's a commie, he's a socialist, and not really address the merits and the difficulties and challenges of these plans, whether it be Medicare for All, universal child care. I mean, they're really a party wandering in the wilderness on health care. And I actually do not expect Mike Rogers at all to be talking about Medicare for all because he does not want to attract attention to the health care issue. because Republicans themselves don't have a plan. They actually seem to think some of the same problems or agree with Democrats on some of the solutions, which is more price controls. And they've actually allied with some Democrats in the Senate on these issues. You hear about it from Josh Hawley with Elizabeth Warren, let's break up big medicine. And what they mean by that is we do not want insurance companies owning providers, which was, by the way, encouraged by regulation in the Obamacare. Anyways, this is a long digression, but I would just say that what I find is particularly worrisome is that Republicans don't necessarily have response or answer to the proposals that you see coming out from the left. Jack, I think the... Polling bears out Haley Stevens' argument that she's a stronger general election candidate against Mike Rogers compared with El-Sayed. So just to pick one specific example, this is from the same pollster, July 24 to 31. This poll has Mike Rogers up 46 to 43 over Abdul El-Sayed. and then losing to Haley Stevens, 44 to 42. So that is a pretty significant swing, five or so points, just based on which candidate Democrats pick. If Democrats could pick up five points in Michigan by adopting a particular policy plank, it seems to me that given the pressures to retake the Senate and to oppose and reverse President Trump's agenda, Democrats would gladly adopt all sorts of things. voters do primary voters in the same way care about electability? What's your read of that? I don't think they do. It's certainly not in the same way that maybe political consultants or what have you do. And I've been puzzling as to why that is. I see this electability argument made throughout our politics, especially in the primary stages of an election. And voters in that particular stage don't seem to...
buy it because they seem to be more interested in their affinity for a candidate than who will win. And in the case of this Stevens-Abdul El-Sayed race, there's a couple things going on. One, I think that now the nationalization of politics may be sufficiently thorough that electability-based appeals, even appeals to highly specific local or regional issues, may not be the source of appeal that they once were. I also think that related to this, Abdul El-Sayed is already viewing himself as a national figure. He has already said or expressed the aspiration to primary, someone who would be his Democratic Senate colleague, at least in theory, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, wants to put an ogre's head on the pike in the colorful language that he used. And I think there's probably a part of the faction to which Abdul El-Sayed either already belongs or aspires to belong that would almost accept a general election loss if it means that its control of the Democratic Party is increased as a result, because eventually they'll get lucky and get one of their people in. They would rather have that future outcome happen than get a compromised, weak-tee somebody in before. So I think that's what's going on with the electability question. Hang tight. We'll be right back after one more break. America has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, play the opinion Potomac Watch podcast.
From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Welcome back. I do think that's what's happening in some of these House races, particularly where Democratic Socialists of America candidates are winning in the sense that the open primary process that these two political parties have established, have allowed themselves created vulnerabilities for hostile takeovers, to put it that way. And it's interesting because In some of the places where those candidates are succeeding, for example, a house race in New York, a deep blue house race, if they can get past the primary, they can win. But we're talking about Michigan here, a very competitive swing state. And they also can win, even in races like that, if the Republican candidate nominated, is also somebody who is viewed by many voters in the center as too far to the right, as a fringe candidate, somebody with personal scandals. But here I don't think Mike Rogers fits that bill. Alicia, interestingly, since we're on the topic of do voters care about electability? You can also look at the Texas Senate race. Five recent polls now in a row show James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, with a slight lead over Ken Paxton. Interestingly, one of these polls has a libertarian third-party candidate with about 2%, which is, I think, the difference between James Talarico and Ken Paxton in that poll. One of these is a Fox News-sponsored polls. So these include some well-regarded pollsters in this mix. Alicia, what do you make of that result? I mean, it's almost a mirror image, and I'm not saying that... Ken Paxton won't necessarily be able to resell himself to more establishment, moderate-minded conservatives in Texas between now and November. But remarkable here that we're looking down the prospect of maybe Republicans picking up Michigan and losing Texas. Right. So I think there are a few things going on in the Texas race. One is that Ken Paxton has a lot of baggage. And we knew that going in. And that was one of the reasons why the Senate primary. was so aptly contested with John Thune and the Republican Senate, the NRC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee backing John Cornyn's been trying to. pull that out because they knew that Ken Paxton had an impeachment, a House impeachment related to various corruption scandals using his office improperly, in part to enrich himself. He was not convicted in the state senate, but he was impeached by the heavily Republican House. There is very close ties to the trial lawyers. It's not really clear to me that that's actually going to be a big liability. in the general election per se. I think it's won his temperament, his past a little bit in some shady scandals, his wife who claimed, you know, she was divorcing him for quote-unquote biblical reasons. So there's that baggage. And then there's why I would actually call it the Trump baggage. And Trump does not do well, even among Texas independence. That is a big drag.
on, I think, Republicans just generally in the state and country. If you look at the polling numbers nationally, Trump is polling his approval rating among independents is around 25 to 30%. And that has been what has represented the big swing in a lot of the states. And why all of a sudden, Ohio is also up for grabs with the Republican Senator John Husted, really facing a formidable challenge from the former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and many polls showing Brown ahead. And Ohio has really been, for the most part, a very red state in the recent elections. But the reason, again, why these seats are, you know, being tested and are no longer sure things for Republicans is because the independents are swinging so strongly for Democrats right now. Jack, we'll give you the last word. Democrats do, however, have to face a Senate map that is not entirely in their favor. And you have to keep in mind as well that JD Vance is the vice presidential tiebreaker if we end up with a 50-50 Senate. So at the moment, there are 47 Republican Senate seats that are either not on the ballot this year or are likely or solid Republican. So Republicans need three then in order to get to that 50. that magic 50 number where Vice President JD Vance gives them control with that tiebreaker. There are four toss-up races, Alaska, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and two leaning Republican, Iowa and Texas. And really, Republicans need only three of those. I mean, it could come down to, again, I'm not making this as a prediction, but it could come down to Michigan and choices of candidates in these primaries. Michigan, Texas, it seems like Republicans still have a bit of an edge just given which states are up. On the other hand, as Alicia makes the argument that the generic ballot polling and President Trump's approval rating are not where Republicans would want them to be. Yeah, right now we seem to be in a war between structural forces and polling forces. So you got a war between the map and President Trump's approval rating. And right now, it's probably... difficult to determine who's going to win that war. You can look to all sorts of precedents for how that plays out. One, that's interesting. I know that our colleague Matthew Contetti has brought up is the 2022 midterms, which Republicans were very excited about. We're expecting this giant rebuke of Biden. Ended up, the red wave turned into a trickle. Could well happen in 26. But I don't know. It seems. that indicators are trending in the direction that Trump is going to be a force that drags down at least a significant amount of structural advantage that Republicans might have from the way that this map is laid out. How much he'll drag them down? We will have a better sense of in a couple of months. Thank you, Jack and Alicia. Thank you all for listening. You can email us at PW Podcast at WSJ.com. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button. And we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of Potomac Watch.
America has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute.