{"id":753,"date":"2026-07-31T12:38:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=753"},"modified":"2026-07-31T12:38:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:38:38","slug":"abdul-el-sayed-knows-just-how-to-beat-billionaire-funded-republicans-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=753","title":{"rendered":"Abdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When Michigan Democratic US Senate candidates Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed faced each other in their debate this week, the talk was as much about the broad topic of money in politics as it was about the particular issues that separate Stevens, a corporate-aligned centrist, and El-Sayed, an economic populist with a sweeping progressive agenda.<\/p>\n

Read more America\u2019s Crisis of \u201cDeath by Incarceration\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t surprising. The money fight frames an electability debate between Stevens, who is relying heavily on support from special-interest groups and wealthy donors, and El-Sayed, whose campaign has placed a heavy emphasis on grassroots fundraising from small donors. Democratic primary voters will decide which of these paths they want to follow when they go to the polls on Tuesday; surveys show El-Sayed with a significant lead over Stevens.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed and his backers charge that Stevens has effectively sold out to the monied elites. And they\u2019re blunt about it. In this week\u2019s debate, El-Sayed argued that Stevens had been \u201cbought off\u201d by free-spending special interests, who know she would be \u201ca reliable vote\u201d for their agendas.<\/p>\n

Stevens backers counter by charging that El-Sayed\u2019s leftist views will scare off swing voters\u2014and, presumably, big donors\u2014who disagree with the populist\u2019s stark criticisms of corporate monopolies, a healthcare system that\u2019s effectively owned by the insurance companies and Big Pharma, and of the Pentagon, defense contractors, and Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza.<\/p>\n

But El-Sayed isn\u2019t blinking. He\u2019s leaning into the money issue in a way that has relevance not just for the primary but for the general election fight against heavily funded Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed has been mounting a \u201cMichigan Is Not For Sale\u201d campaign, in which he says, \u201cMaybe \u2018electable candidates\u2019 are the ones who don\u2019t need $60 million from corporations and special interests to run and win campaigns. Maybe electable candidates aren\u2019t the ones who have to carpet bomb the airwaves with 30-second glossy ads lying about themselves and about their opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed hit the same theme in the standout moment of this week\u2019s debate. \u201cWhen you ask $60 million to come into a race for you, and then say that somehow you\u2019re \u2018electable,\u2019 I think you don\u2019t quite understand what electability means. If you need a $60 million crutch, you probably can\u2019t be elected on your own terms,\u201d he said of Stevens. Then, addressing Democratic primary voters, he added, \u201cSo, I would just say that you should probably, if you really want to beat Mike Rogers, find the candidate who is electable without having to find a $60 million crutch to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whichever Democrat is nominated on August 4, the truth is that they\u2019ll almost certainly be outspent by the Republicans and billionaire-funded political action committees. But El-Sayed has a much stronger critique of the corrosive influence of this Big Money\u2014one that could resonate with voters\u2014than Stevens, who critics complain has long been a prodigious recipient of support from corporate interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cStevens has benefited from overwhelmingly lopsided support by outside groups,\u201d explains Michigan Bridge<\/em>, a nonpartisan news site, while CBS News reports, \u201cStevens\u2019 campaign and six super PACs that back her have spent over $61 million on ads during the primary, according to advertisement tracking firm AdImpact. El-Sayed\u2019s campaign and outside groups combined have spent over $15.3 million, according to FEC reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the Stevens money coming from? \u201cThe majority of Stevens\u2019 outside assistance has come from United Democracy Project, an offshoot of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. The group has spent to boost Stevens, including $14.1 million since the start of July,\u201d notes Michigan Bridge<\/em>. \u201cAnother PAC, called A Stronger Michigan, has spent more than $16 million on ads to boost Stevens since its creation in late May. The PAC is , a dark money group that does not disclose donors and promotes centrist candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevens backers hate it when El-Sayed rips into their candidate\u2019s fundraising\u2014and when his critique is amplified by backers such as US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). That\u2019s understandable, because El-Sayed has hit on a way of talking about money in politics that, as his wide polling lead over Stevens suggests, is resonating. It is not hard to see how he could extend the argument to Rogers in a general election.<\/p>\n

This matters\u2014a lot\u2014because Michigan is not merely a swing state. It is a state where cash-rich Republicans think that, with enough spending, they could flip a Democratic seat. If they were to do so, that would provide a huge boost to their efforts to retain control of the Senate\u2014even in the face of President Trump\u2019s cratering approval ratings, awful \u201cgeneric ballot\u201d numbers that give a measure of the turn against the GOP, and strong Democratic candidate recruitment in \u201cred\u201d states such as Alaska and Ohio.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Lethal Ad-Libbing in Iraq Enters Its Most Dangerous Phase<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans have a 53\u201347 Senate majority. But Democrats are currently mounting viable campaigns for Republican-held seats in North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Texas and Alaska. Let\u2019s say the \u201cblue wave\u201d hits and Democrats take four or five of those states\u2014an incredible but not impossible prospect. That would position the opposition party to form a sufficient majority to take charge of the chamber\u2014so long as Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman stays in the caucus.<\/p>\n

Democrats are also well-positioned to retain the seat US Senator Tina Smith is vacating in Minnesota\u2014so long as an intense primary contest between progressive Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and centrist US Representative Angie Craig doesn\u2019t go off the rails. They must also mount an effective defense in New Hampshire, where Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen is stepping down, and, of course, in Michigan, where Democratic Senator Gary Peters is standing down.<\/p>\n

What makes all of this difficult is the immense Republican money advantage. On Wednesday, MS Now reported that the GOP, through its various fundraising arms and super PACS, had around $500 million more in the bank this year than the Democrats.<\/p>\n

Republican Senate majority leader John Thune\u2019s Senate super PAC had $238 million on hand in mid-July. That compares with Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer\u2019s Senate Majority PAC, which had roughly $126 million on hand at around the same time. And Thune\u2019s operation continues to raise money from billionaires and corporate interests at a far faster clip than Schumer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Republicans and \u201cindependent\u201d groups that boost Republicans will use that advantage to try to flip Michigan\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

So the question of \u201celectability\u201d comes down not just to the money that the respective parties might raise, but also to the prospect that a Democrat might effectively denounce the billionaires and their political pawns.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed is uniquely prepared to frame the debate around the threat posed by Big Money\u2014because of the way in which it seeks to buy not just election results but the policies that extend from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the thing about it: None of it actually makes your life better,\u201d he says of the huge amounts of money that are flowing into our politics in 2026. \u201cThink about the $60 million that got spent in this [primary] race. What could $60 million do for a community in Detroit? What could $60 million mean for erasing medical debt?\u2026 But they want to spend it to get the congresswoman elected. Why? Because, at the end of the day, they know that they\u2019re going to have a safe seat doing their bidding instead of yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that messaging works for El-Sayed in the primary election where he is being extremely outspent, then there is every reason to believe it can work in a general election where the spending will be just as extreme.<\/p>\n

Read more Abdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nAbdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=753\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=753\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-31T12:38:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=753#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=753\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"Abdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T12:38:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=753\"},\"wordCount\":1312,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=753#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/8b94412437fe69152c286b751c0334eb.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=753#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=753\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=753\",\"name\":\"Abdul El-Sayed Knows Just How to Beat Billionaire-Funded Republicans - 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