Abdul El-Sayed Says He's Not a Socialist. His Policy Agenda Says Otherwise.

Abdul El-Sayed has won the Michigan Democratic Senate race, and socialists really think they are surging—but they’re still lying when they say their supporters are working class.

This week, El-Sayed, a progressive, defeated the more moderate Rep. Haley Stevens (D–Mich.) even after campaigning alongside Hasan Piker, a far-left Twitch streamer who thinks America deserved 9/11 and that authoritarian China is the ideal.

That tells you everything you need to know about where the Democratic Party is headed: its primary voters absolutely hate the party establishment, and especially their leadership, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.).

They also increasingly view Israel/Gaza as a litmus test issue—and they will not stomach a candidate who is backed by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) money. There is a real case to be made that this is the main thing going on here: Democrats don’t think it’s acceptable to have a moderate position on Israel.

General election voters may feel differently. Michigan is a swing state that President Donald Trump won twice, and the Democrats might have nominated a candidate who is simply too extreme to win.

Though that’s not how El-Sayed sees it. Like so many other progressives, El-Sayed thinks his economic policies—which align with the Democratic Socialists of America—are both popular and inevitable. He thinks they’ll be embraced by the working class and he’ll be swept to victory in November.

But as the other leftist candidates are discovering, it’s not the working class falling in love with socialism: it’s affluent professionals. According to available data, Stevens actually performed better with working-class people. She cleaned up among lower-income black voters. Meanwhile, El-Sayed’s base of support is Ann Arbor. That’s my old college town, where I attended the University of Michigan. It’s full of young professionals succumbing to socialism’s influences, not working-class folks.

Make no mistake: If elected to the Senate, Abdul El-Sayed will pursue socialist policies. He was celebrating his victory, first lamenting that the government is turning us against each other before pivoting to a call for Medicare for All, a policy that would give the federal government vastly more power over our lives.

Abdul El-Sayed: “It turns out that the reason so many of is ain’t got is because of the system that has corrupted our politics to take it away from us. And that is the thing that we are taking on now.” pic.twitter.com/ONKgsp4NbF

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 5, 2026

To the extent I could follow what he was saying, El-Sayed is pushing a mendacious claim: that people would be wealthier and more prosperous if they endured yet another massive transfer of money and power to a vast federal health bureaucracy. Most people want more options and better prices. But this will not be accomplished by further disguising the price of medical services via an expanding system of government controls, and rationing, and subsidies.

With left-progressives like El-Sayed, and even explicit socialist candidates prevailing in Democratic primaries, the party’s identity is increasingly revealed: not a working-class party, but a party of discredited big-government ideas.

If you enjoy this kind of content and want more, subscribe to my newsletter, Free Media.

The post Abdul El-Sayed Says He’s Not a Socialist. His Policy Agenda Says Otherwise. appeared first on Reason.com.