Great news! This SHOULD ensure the election of Mike Rogers, former Congressman and former FBI agent to the US Senate. El-Sayed won the Democratic Primary by about 1% - but he received only 48% of the total Democratic vote. And with this Dem --> GOP flips (plus one more, MN? NH? GA?) will ensure Republicans pick up seats in the Senate! Via Detroit News.
Messaging targeted toward disaffected Democrats in the U.S. Senate race is beginning to shift.
Instead of pushing lifelong, deep-blue Democrats to defy their political DNA and cast a vote for Trump-backed Republican Mike Rogers, the ask of those voters is now to "leave it blank."
The goal is to give voters who fear Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed but loathe Donald Trump a way to punish the president while helping defeat El-Sayed: When they get to the Senate circles on the ballot, don't fill in either one.
Lon Johnson, a former Michigan Democratic Party chair, and David Kramer, a longtime Democratic strategist who has previously helped elect Democrats to the Senate, are leading the effort. Both supported Rep. Haley Stevens over El-Sayed in the August Democratic primary.
"Supporting a candidate after a hard-fought primary is an act of party unity, not a surrender of principle," the pair wrote in an op-ed for The Detroit News. "Democrats (who were) asked to set aside their differences for Abdul El-Sayed had every right to expect ... a commitment to earn their trust, address their legitimate concerns and unite a party whose nomination he won with less than 50% of the vote."
"He has failed that test."
Johnson, in an interview and in the op-ed, said he and Kramer have been under pressure by Democrats who support Rogers to vote for the Republican. But they chose a different route, one they say keeps them true to their ideals.
"For many of us, there is dignity in leaving it blank," they wrote.
The approach isn't perfect ― converting a Democratic voter to Rogers is a gain of two votes for the Republican, while convincing that same Democrat not to vote for either candidate is a net gain of just one vote. But it lowers both El-Sayed's tally and the number of votes Rogers needs to win.
Two years ago, Rogers lost to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin by less than a percentage point in a race in which both Democrats and Republicans held the partisan line.
If Michigan remains that evenly divided, the winning Senate candidate will again have to capture nearly all of his party's base. If a significant number of partisan loyalists defect or don't vote, the chances of victory go way down.
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