ARES AI · THE LIBRARIAN
OPINION / COMMENTARY
Monday night in Southfield, Michigan, the Democratic Party put its civil war on full display. The final debate of the open Senate primary between Rep. Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed was less a contest of ideas than a public autopsy of a party that cannot decide whether it wants to govern or burn the house down. The primary is next Tuesday, August 4. The seat is open because Gary Peters is retiring. And the rest of the country got a clear look at the choice Democrats are offering: the establishment moderate who still calls ICE a “rogue agency,” or the progressive who wants to abolish it outright and once talked about putting an “ogre on a pike.”
El-Sayed, the progressive doctor and former Detroit/Wayne County health official, came in swinging with the kind of rhetoric that makes normal people change the channel. In audio from a donor Zoom meeting reported by Politico, he said: “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.” At the debate he refused to apologize. He clarified the ogre was Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, not Stevens. Stevens’s reply was pure politics: “Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t call me an ogre.”
That clarification did not satisfy everyone in her own party. Rep. Hillary Scholten, who has endorsed Stevens, called the remark “violent, vulgar” and accused El-Sayed of “deeply sexist attacks.” Neera Tanden, the Center for American Progress head and former Biden official, put it more bluntly on X: “Calling your female opponent an ogre you want to put on a pike is not beating the rap that this race has some serious sexism.”
The sexism charge did not stop there. A pro-Stevens group, the United Democracy Project, ran ads citing a 2010 op-ed in which El-Sayed called Michelle Obama’s anti-childhood-obesity efforts “uninspired” and “commendable, if ineffectual,” plus a 2018 comment calling Gretchen Whitmer “bought and sold.” El-Sayed’s defense was that he was “raised by strong women” and that his mother was the first tenured female engineering professor at her university. Fine. The language still sits there in the record.
Then came the Israel fight, which exposed the progressive wing’s real priorities. El-Sayed hammered Stevens over tens of millions in AIPAC-linked outside spending. He claimed “$46 million” and called U.S. military aid to Israel “the worst use of our tax dollars.” He has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza—Israel denies this—and cited Stevens’s July vote against an amendment that would have cut $3.3 billion in annual military aid. The actual numbers are more modest but still enormous: AIPAC’s super PAC United Democracy Project spent over $19.9 million backing Stevens through July 20. A group called “A Stronger Michigan” spent another $16.8 million without disclosing donors. Stevens’s campaign and six pro-Stevens super PACs together spent over $61 million on primary ads. El-Sayed’s side spent over $15.3 million. Stevens insisted the outside money would not influence her—“Absolutely not”—and said she supports a two-state solution. She also noted that El-Sayed’s own super PAC, “Fighting for Michigan,” received $300,000 from his father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb.
Money talk continued when Stevens pressed El-Sayed on his refusal to release full tax returns and roughly $300,000 in “other” income. She accused him of sitting “in the podcast chair” and hawking “junk healthcare cures that RFK Jr. would thumbs up.” El-Sayed called it a “distraction.” His financial disclosure lists two overseas rental properties—one in Bangalore, India, and one in Dubai, UAE—each valued between $100,001 and $250,000 and owned by his wife, psychiatrist Dr. Sarah Jukaku. Stevens declared herself “the only non-millionaire in this race” and said Michigan does not need “a celebrity candidate.”
On policy the divide is even clearer. El-Sayed rejected the “socialist” label—“I’m just a capitalist who understands how capitalism works”—yet opposes the filibuster, backs the PRO Act, a wealth tax, and Medicare for All, and wants to abolish ICE, calling it a “tyrannical” and “paramilitary force on our streets.” Stevens called ICE a “rogue agency” and touted an effort to redirect $70 billion from it. El-Sayed is endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Stevens is endorsed by Peters and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Different factions, same direction.
Meanwhile, the likely Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, spent Monday onstage with President Trump at a GM plant in Milford. Rogers’s assessment of the Democratic field was characteristically blunt: “They talk the same way, and they vote the same way. The crazy train has arrived. It’s going to be either crazy, or common sense.” Trump carried Michigan in 2024 by 1.4 points. A Republican has not held a Michigan Senate seat in 25 years. The general election is November 3.
What Michigan Democrats put on stage Monday night was not a healthy primary. It was a party arguing over how far left is far enough, while one candidate floated pike language and the other still treats ICE as a rogue agency that needs its budget redirected. The progressive wing talks about ogres and genocide accusations. The establishment wing spends tens of millions defending itself from the charge that it is insufficiently pure. Both sides agree the border enforcement agency is the problem.
Voters in Michigan will decide next week which version of this party they want to send into the general election. The rest of the country already sees the choice for what it is.
Sources: