So all things being equal, an air of moderation is likely an advantage in purple states. But in Michigan, all things are not equal. Stevens is not a particularly adept politician. Many of her views are out of step with both Democratic and independent voters in ways that could hurt turnout. She’s a creature of the Democratic establishment at a moment when that establishment has never been more reviled.
In 2022, Stevens defeated Representative Andy Levin, a Jewish liberal Zionist targeted by AIPAC for his support for a Palestinian state. AIPAC spent heavily in the race, and when Stevens won, the group crowed, “Being pro-Israel is both good policy and good politics!” In office, Stevens has been a consistent champion of the Jewish state. “Israel comes to me in my dreams!” she shouted in a viral 2023 speech.
Whatever your views on policy, however, it’s increasingly hard to argue that being pro-Israel is good politics. A February Gallup poll found that, for the first time since at least 2001, more Americans — including more political independents — sympathize with the Palestinians over the Israelis. In Michigan’s Senate primary, AIPAC is once again spending lavishly on Stevens’s behalf, but its support could become a liability, particularly in a state with the country’s highest share of Arab Americans. It’s not hard to imagine that some of the voters who declined to back Kamala Harris in 2024 because of the war in Gaza might also refuse to vote for Stevens.
This month, a poll done for Common Defense, a progressive veterans group that has endorsed El-Sayed, tested each of the three Democratic primary candidates against the presumptive Republican nominee, Mike Rogers. It found each of them narrowly ahead, but Stevens’s margin — 43 percent to Rogers’s 42 percent — was the thinnest, a result of weak support among the most left-leaning voters.
Obviously, polls by interest groups need to be taken with several grains of salt. But Adam Carlson, whose firm Zenith Research conducted the survey — and who had been a vocal supporter of McMorrow on social media — insists that he doesn’t shape his research to fit his clients’ narratives. (If clients don’t like his results, he says, they can refuse to release them.) His poll for Common Defense showed El-Sayed faring best against Rogers, with 45 percent of the vote. It was a finding in keeping with what he’s witnessed in focus groups nationwide. “I have never seen this level of anger, frustration, discontent and anti-elite, anti-billionaire populist sentiment,” he said.
