So I'm not gonna do a full election update as recent posts still have done a pretty decent job on that, but I do want to discuss a new poll out of Michigan since other people are talking about it. Basically Mcmorrow's campaign has cratered significantly and she's now third place. Somehow she imploded so bad she resurrected Stevens' flailing campaign. So why is this?
Well, it should be obvious. I mean, I'm someone who was right up McMorrow's alley originally. When I knew next to nothing about the candidates other than El Sayed being the medicare for all book guy, I actually trended toward mcmorrow and my first post on the matter actually endorsed her. Why? because I've come to realize I dont always think in lockstep with the progressive movement due to my UBI centric ideal platform and how I need to make compromises on other priorities to keep a full UBI viable. As such, I've become okay with a public option and slightly more incremental solutions. While I love the energy progressives bring, and am on board with fixing the country with real solutions, we disagree somewhat on what those real solutions should be, and I'm fine with voting for someone who is a little more moderate (but still to the left of the centrist wing of the party) in order to get something a bit closer to what I want.
But then I started wading into the toxicity of the primary race itself, and how McMorrow had the brilliant idea of flinging tons of dishonest mud at El Sayed painting him as a radical for daring to appear with Hasan Piker, and it really made me wonder, gee, is McMorrow even genuine? Can i trust her to have my back on these issues in practice? And the answer is no. no, I very obviously cant. Her campaign has the establishment's stink all over it, and she seems to have aligned with some third way interests and hasan derangement syndrome. And again, that makes me wonder...okay, well how well will she stick to her purported interests in office? Or will she just conveniently drop them because the donors say so like Biden/Harris did?
Because we've seen this before. Biden/Harris had a mildly progressive campaign in practice, and then Biden kinda distanced himself from say, the public option, and Harris dropped it from her platform, and honestly, are these guys gonna actually do what they say in office? If you align with third way style interests...I dont trust you.
She also reminds me of Elizabeth Warren in 2020, who had some major progressive street cred in 2020, but then went all in with knifing Bernie in the back with a hillary-esque campaign claiming he was sexist, and basically splitting his votes by refusing to drop out. There's a reason we call her a "snake." Because she is. And McMorrow comes off as one too.
Especially when El Sayed's message is basically just "I want to help you people." Granted, he hasnt done a good job outlining exactly what that entails. His platform is vague. But yeah, vibes tend to win elections over policy for many people. And McMorrow just went in a direction that made her extremely unlikeable, whereas El Sayed is literally midwestern zohran mamdani, and he's popular AF in NYC.
now, can El Sayed win the general? That's the big concern. El Sayed polls way worse than McMorrow or Stevens do, and I'm kind of inclined to back McMorrow in the sense that McMorrow has a better shot at actually winning. While recent polling shows all 3 underwater for some reason (which is highly anomalous given all other polling I've seen on 2026), El Sayed does do a good 2-3 points worse than the others on average. Stevens is the only one who in the averages still wins (and its like 0.6 or something). McMorrow is down around 1-2, and El Sayed is down like 3-4, with recent polling showing him at R+5 in the general election matchup. That's...not good. And given winning the senate is important, and even I'm inclined to be "blue no matter who", I really don't like El Sayed's chances. But...I get why McMorrow isnt that popular. She kind of outed herself as a warren like "snake" and is suffering for it in the polls.
Either way, Im not from Michigan. Those who are, vote your conscience. Objectively speaking I still kinda like McMorrow outside of her smear campaign, I just really hate said campaign. And while I love El Sayed's progressive campaign....on policy I'm a bit more mixed, and on electability, I'm just not sure he can pull it off. Do with this information what you will.
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