So I've mostly been staying out of individual senate races unless they become national news. We had Jasmine crocket vs James talarico in Texas. Janet Mills vs Graham Platner is being heavily debated in Maine. And now with Hasangate, Abdul El Sayed is being elevated in Michigan.
And I wanna emphasize that last part. El Sayed was NOT projected to win. he was straight up in THIRD most of the race and I largely ignored him, even if I like him. But beccause the centrist democrats decided to develop Hasan derangement syndrome after Hasan jumped in on El Sayed's side, well, now El Sayed is competitive to win. Congrats, centrist dems, you played yourself by Barbara Streisand effecting your worst enemies again.
Anyway. Before we get to data, let's discuss the three candidates and their platforms. Abdul El Sayed is a progressive who doesnt have a well defined platform. His big thing is medicare for all. he literally wrote the book on it. And having read it, yeah it's pretty decent. He's kinda the M4A guy in a similar way to me being "the UBI guy." Other than that, he mostly seems to speak in platitudes. On electability, he's probably the worst of the three candidates, being R+3 vs Mike Rogers. For the record, that puts him at a 23% chance of winning.
Mallory McMorrow is a slightly more moderate candidate, but she seems pretty progressive herself. I'm not gonna lie, platform wise, I like her better. She has a detailed policy platform including a public option (which is more my lane anyway these days, I'm not as heavy on M4A any more due to the costs). She wants a minimum wage indexed to inflation, a child tax credit, affordable childcare. And she seems to actually have expertise. I'm actually kind of digging her over El Sayed. Like just read the platforms I presented, El Sayed has like blurbs, and McMorrow has a lot more comprehensive policy listed. Yeah, El Sayed is the M4A guy, but not gonna lie, I'll be happy with a public option these days, it's the direction I'm going in anyway. On electability, she's the second best candidate, only being R+1.5 vs Rogers. That gives her more like a 36% chance in winning. So El Sayed is at like 2 in 9, McMorrow is more 1 in 3.
And then finally, we got Haley Stevens....who....seems....a lot less inspiring. She doesn't have much of a policy agenda. Her big claim to fame is basically working with the Obama administration on fixing the economic crisis, her big thing seems to be job creation and putting people back to work. So...honestly, you can see how that's going over with me. She basically seems like the moderate candidate, the republican lite candidate. Im guessing the hasan derangement syndrome stuff is coming from her because well, it's the most "democrat" thing you can do. Run on next to nothing then bash your opponent as being too extreme. Sadly, she's the most electable, being D+1.3 vs Rogers, and having a 62% shot at winning. That's like 5 in 8.
So we're seeing a clear trend here. The moderate candidate does better, the progressive candidate does worse. The race is effectively a tossup. Historically, based on older data, it looked like the race was gonna be McMorrow vs Stevens with El Sayed not really having a shot, but now El Sayed seems to have gained steam, is competing directly with McMorrow, and Stevens is now in third place. Given the dualistic nature of this race, and how the electability of a candidate is proportionally inverse with their progressivism, I'm not sure how I feel about this.
If I were to vote for any of these guys based on what I know about their platforms from their website, I'd want McMorrow. El Sayed is not bad, don't get me wrong, but McMorrow has more policy expertise and a more detailed platform that i find acceptable. And at this point, M4A doesnt give you a huge advantage over a public option. I'll discuss my shifts on medicare for all later in another post. Given the other issue propelling E Sayed to the top is basically...Israel....yeah, it's not really swaying me. I dont feel as aligned with the progressive wing of the party as I used to, when I get into the nitty gritty on policy. I'm still progressive, but there is a bit of a policy mismatch now. I definitely dont like do nothing centrists, but if youre like McMorrow with a huge but slightly more moderate platform full of economic goodies, I'm not gonna exactly crap on that. What matters to me is you try to deliver on what you promise. Im not gonna demand moral purity, especially as my own priorities on M4A shift.
I also feel like McMorrow is more electable. I admit, polling data for the general election is pretty scarce. What we have is old, and things might have shifted since then. After all, they've shifted massively in the primary. It was a McMorrow vs Stevens race and now it's El Sayed vs McMorrow. Idk I'm currently leaning toward McMorrow, although just like with texas, I'll support whoever the nominee is. El Sayed is not a bad candidate. i do worry about his electability though and his big policy differences from McMorrow arent enough to win me over. Maybe there's more that I'm missing as Im not from michigan and not really paying close attention, but given it's getting more national attention, I wanted to weigh in. It looks like there was a debate, maybe I'll watch later and update.
But yeah, for now I'm temporarily endorsing McMorrow here.
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