When Spencer Lucker saw the notification that Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary had been called for Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive who spent much of his campaign attacking AIPAC and Israel, it felt like a gut punch.
“I have a really hard time grasping that this is the Democratic Party that I’ve always supported and been a part of,” said Lucker, a 38-year-old Huntington Woods, Michigan, resident who backed US Rep. Haley Stevens in the primary.
As Lucker absorbed the results Wednesday following an election night that saw Sayed eke out a win against Stevens by 48.5% to 47.5%, he said the narrow margin offered a small measure of assurance even as it did little to ease his concerns about the nominee.
“There is some relief and hope in however many people voted for her,” Lucker said. “But the margin doesn’t matter in the end.”
Sayed’s unexpectedly narrow margin – polls had shown him with a commanding lead in the days before the primary – has allowed some of his critics to tout a silver lining, with Jewish leaders saying the close result proves that many Michigan voters do not embrace his anti-Israel politics.
“The lesson from Tuesday’s results is twofold: There is clearly strong anti-establishment energy this cycle, but no one should count pro-Israel Democrats out,” said Brian Romick, the president of the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC. “While Sayed’s razor-thin victory in Michigan is disappointing, it was hardly the sweeping triumph he predicted or a mandate for his views.”
Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which backed Stevens, said in a statement, “While we are disappointed in the final result of the Michigan Senate race, the razor-thin margin isn’t the resounding win for the far-left that was predicted.”
Now, as Sayed is set to face off against Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, in November, the debate has turned to whether his narrow margin of victory on Tuesday portends a Democratic loss in a crucial battleground state.
While recent polling conducted prior to Tuesday’s primary showed Rogers with a slight lead over Sayed, Josh Pasek, a professor of communication and media and political science at the University of Michigan, cautioned against reading the primary margin as a measure of Sayed’s general election prospects.
“I mean, disappointment matters. It hits enthusiasm for people who support one candidate versus another,” said Pasek, who is Jewish and has previously been involved in Democratic politics. “But the real question is how does the party, how do the candidates, and how do the supporters, respond to whatever happens next?”
Since his victory, Sayed has drawn endorsements from Stevens as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had backed her in the primary. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also sent a plea to donors on Wednesday asking them to help fund Sayed’s general election campaign.
Throughout the race, Sayed drew criticism from many Jewish Democrats over his attacks on AIPAC spending, his relationship with the anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker and his remarks following the attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield in March. While Sayed condemned the attack, his statement also discussed Israel’s war in Lebanon, where the attacker’s brother was killed.
Now, the new Democratic nominee is signaling that he is looking to build bridges with Jewish Democrats in the state. In his victory speech, Sayed made a direct appeal to Jewish voters, saying that his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.”
For Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus chair, the strong showing for Stevens underscored that Sayed would need to build a “much more diverse coalition” ahead of November, including with Jewish constituents.
“I was more worried that we wouldn’t be at the table, so I think we’re at the table,” Alexander said. “I know that feels strange, but I feel in some ways we’re part of this story and part of this narrative. So I actually feel kind of relieved.”
Michigan’s Jewish Democrats now face a question that has loomed throughout the bitter primary: whether those who were deeply alienated by Sayed’s rhetoric can ultimately support him in November.
Lucker said he knows he won’t be able to bring himself to cast a vote for Sayed. But he said he was unsure if he would be prepared to vote for Rogers instead given his stances on social issues.
“I am a firm believer that we should not vote against our own interests, and I feel like a vote for him is a vote against the interests of me as a Jewish community leader as well as a Jewish father,” Lucker said of the Democratic nominee. “At the same time, I don’t know if I can vote for Mike Rogers either, again, as a father of a young girl, as a husband, as the son of gay moms.”
Elizabeth Dizik, a 42-year-old Jewish voter from Lathrup Village, a suburb of Detroit, is eyeing a different path.
Dizik said Sayed disqualified himself from her vote with his response to the attack on Temple Israel.
“As a Jewish Democrat with small children, I feel like our Democratic candidate does not value the safety of my children, which means that he is not a candidate that is representative of all of Michigan,” Dizik said. “I think his rhetoric is really dangerous, and I’m incredibly disappointed and sad that that rhetoric is being normalized amongst the party.”
At this point, Dizik said she was “more likely to cast a vote for Rogers than I am to abstain from voting.”
But while Jewish Democrats mull their choices in November, Pasek said he did not believe most Jewish Democrats who were alienated by Sayed would ultimately vote Republican, though some might instead sit out the general election.
“There are people who definitely decide not to vote. That’s much more common than crossing the aisle in practice,” he said, later adding, “Voters who have voted for the same party for a long time have a really hard time leaving that party.”
But Pasek said the Michigan Senate race was unusual in ways that could break the mold. “This got more heated than a lot of primaries on some issues that are going to be a little harder to reconcile, particularly when we’re talking about the Jewish and Arab communities,” he said, adding that Sayed’s next moves on the campaign trail are crucial.
“If Sayed wants to not alienate a bunch of people who are going to end up not voting, I think he’s got to do some serious outreach and to figure out how to build bridges,” Pasek said. “It’s going to be a bit of a challenge because what has come up so far seems like a pretty big gap.”
Some Jewish Democratic leaders are already calling for Sayed to take that step.
“He absolutely needs to do some outreach in the Jewish community,” said Adam Duberstein, a Jewish City Councilmember in Clawson, Michigan, and the co-chair of outreach for the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, which backed Stevens.
The Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus has not yet decided whether it will back Sayed for the general election, Duberstein said, citing a “diversity of opinion” within the group.
Alexander said the group was far off from making any determination.
“My sense is he’d seek it for sure. He sought our endorsement for the primary, but for us as a caucus, I think we’d have to figure out: What would we need to hear from him and his campaign?” Alexander said.
Duberstein said he had heard a wide range of reactions since Sayed’s victory, including from Jewish Democrats considering abstaining, voting for Rogers or supporting a third-party candidate. But he said those reactions also offered an opportunity for Sayed.
“People are trying to understand, how do we forge forward and work together so that Jewish Democrats can help to keep a Democrat in the seat,” Duberstein said. “I’m hoping that he takes an opportunity to get to know our community.”
Alexander said that, despite the “harmful” rhetoric employed during the primary, she hoped Jewish Democrats would resist retreating from the party.
“I am nervous that a lot of people are either going to not vote or vote for Rogers,” Alexander said. “Those are easy things. The harder thing for us all to do would be to actually talk and connect and converse, and it’s going to be harder, but that’s what we have to do.”
As his caucus decides how it will move forward, Duberstein said he believed the results of the primary, and the near-tie between Sayed and Stevens, reflected a wider question facing Democrats.
“What it means is that there’s still some questions about the direction of the Democratic Party, not just in the state of Michigan, but nationally. What direction should we go, and how big of a tent are we?” Duberstein said. “How do the Sayed fans and fans of Congresswoman Stevens sit down at the end of the day and make some calls about how they want the party to move forward and how they want it to look.”
For Jewish voters like Lucker, the question is whether they can still find a place in that tent.
“I am not a single-issue voter, or never have been, and so that is where I really feel politically homeless,” Lucker said. “Does either party really care about me, my family, and my community? I’m not convinced either do.”
