After huge progressive Michigan win, El-Sayed faces a tougher test

Far-left progressive Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, a swing state that Donald Trump won twice.

It was the first major test of an ascendant progressive wing of the Democratic Party looking to see how far they could push their agenda outside of liberal strongholds like New York City — and he passed it. But just barely, and the warning signs on the horizon are flashing red.

See, El-Sayed defeated moderate Rep. Haley Stevens by just a percentage point — winning 48.5% of the vote to her 47.5% — and thereby winning a plurality of the Democratic vote, not a majority.

That means he’s got some work to do between now and November.

He’s, as my colleague and Michigan native Jamal Simmons put it, a very talented “political athlete,” but Michigan Democrats — like all Democrats, it seems — are deeply divided on which direction to take the country, and which messages will work best to win big in November. And you better believe the general election will expose all the ugly and treacherous fault lines.

While the issue of Israel has been front-and-center — intentionally put there by many progressives who believe it a defining one, for better or worse — there are other divides in the party that candidates like El-Sayed will have to reckon with, and quickly.

One of the major schisms on the left right now is between progressives and Black voters, many of whom, especially older Black voters, aren’t supportive of the socialist agenda these candidates are openly pushing, and prefer instead moderate candidates who are focused on kitchen-table issues.

To wit, Stevens was leading among Black voters in Michigan by a whopping 46 points before the primary, and she delivered them on Tuesday night.

Of the 12 Michigan counties with large Black voter populations, El-Sayed won just five, and Stevens won seven. He also lost all of metro Detroit, the state’s largest Black-majority city, where Stevens won handily, by 60%.

El-Sayed and another far-left progressive candidate — William Lawrence, who also won his primary in Michigan’s 7th District — have earned the ire of Black leadership, with revered party elder Rep. Jim Clyburn scolding the former for not having more Black support at his rallies. Likewise, a PAC for the Congressional Black Caucus also released a statement telling their supporters not to vote for Lawrence over comments he made about Israel and Black leadership.

So, suffice it to say, El-Sayed will have to do what other progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders could not — bring Black voters out to cast their ballots for him.

The questions, if not the answers, are clear. With Stevens out, will moderate Black voters simply stay home? Could they possibly vote for Republican Mike Rogers, who lost to moderate Dem Elissa Slotkin in 2024 by less than .3%?

Will Black leaders like Clyburn change their tune about El-Sayed now that he’s officially the nominee? If New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s race was any indication, the answer is no — Clyburn endorsed his rival, the more moderate Andrew Cuomo in that election.

Can El-Sayed and others, who had to run far to the left to engage their base in a primary, make an effective pivot to the center in time for November? Will they risk alienating their supporters if they do?

It’s a tricky road ahead for an energized and emboldened group of candidates who are about to test out messages and agendas to a much wider audience, and fend off all the scrutiny that comes with that.

Either El-Sayed will prove this new wave of progressives could be key to turning swing states blue, retaking the majority, and reinvigorating a lackluster Democratic Party, or Dems will be wishing, come November, that they stuck with the safer choice.

S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.