The Race That Became a Rorschach Test
A Q&A with Brian Derrick about Abdul El-Sayed's victory and the Democratic Party. Plus: GOP scandal season continues. A $30 million fight night. And doing chores at 17,500 miles per hour.
For daily news, updates, and analysis, be sure to follow us on Instagram. If you are able to support independent journalism, please make a tax-deductible donation to News Not Noise here.
Today, all eyes in Democratic politics are on Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed defeated Representative Haley Stevens to win the Democratic Senate primary in one of the year’s most closely watched races.
El-Sayed’s victory has become a national Rorschach test, with different factions seeing confirmation of their own theories about where the Democratic Party is headed.
Is his victory a sign the party is moving left? Evidence that voters are demanding more confrontational candidates? Or are commentators reading too much into a single race? How do Democrats unite after a bruising primary that featured record spending, fierce arguments over the role of AIPAC, and painful conversations about antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the party’s coalition?
To help make sense of it all, I spoke with Brian Derrick, a Democratic strategist and the founder of Oath, a fundraising platform that has helped direct nearly $100 million to Democratic campaigns. His platform is directing donations to El-Sayed’s campaign starting today.
A note: This conversation tackles difficult issues in real time. To do that, we sometimes need to stay with one question longer or examine one perspective without immediately accounting for every other one. The goal is not to produce perfectly calibrated language at every moment. It is to engage seriously and hold a discussion that too often gets avoided.
In today’s newsletter: Where Democrats go from here. The White House fight night’s price tag. Is David Ellison deliberately missing the argument? Two Republicans, two scandals. The tiny firm taking on thousands of children. And in News That Doesn’t Suck: Out on a tether.
Here Are Your Headlines
Paradigm Shift: Abdul El-Sayed, a doctor and former public health official, narrowly won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. He defeated his opponent, the more moderate four-term Rep. Haley Stevens, by less than a percentage point. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out a month ago, got more than 4% of the vote. Twice as many voters cast their ballots early as in 2024. El-Sayed is a progressive who supports taxing billionaires and abolishing ICE, but he is not a socialist or a member of DSA. He’s a self-described capitalist who says he wants to make the system “work the way it was supposed to work” and “build a politics that doesn’t suck.” His central policy goal is universal health care, and, in his words, ending “the thing that’s keeping us from having health care, which is money in politics.” This race was the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history. Spending neared $100 million and favored Stevens by 9 to 1, with the imbalance growing in the final weeks. Super PACs connected to AIPAC spent over $31 million backing her. El-Sayed turned the outside spending, particularly by AIPAC, into a central argument for his campaign. His victory, along with three other progressive wins in Michigan, showed that the party’s left is competing and winning in the Midwest, well beyond coastal blue cities. It also shows the deep divide among Democrats over ideology, Israel, and the influence of outside money, which Brian Derrick and I discuss in today’s interview.
Looking Forward: El-Sayed’s narrow win exposed the party’s divisions, and Democrats moved quickly to close ranks. Stevens conceded graciously, called for unity, and pledged to campaign for El-Sayed and other Democrats. Prominent Democrats who had backed her, including retiring Sen. Gary Peters, whose seat El-Sayed is seeking, also endorsed him. El-Sayed promised to unite the party and defend a seat Democrats cannot affored to lose. He now faces former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee. Rogers narrowly lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024 and later suggested, without evidence, that election fraud was to blame. Rogers and Republicans wasted little time attacking El-Sayed, painting him as “dangerously radical” while repeatedly invoking his full Arabic name. Trump said El-Sayed’s victory is “great news” for Republicans. Conservative groups have already pledged tens of millions for the race. If El-Sayed wins the election, he will be the first Muslim Senator in US history. Here’s how El-Sayed responded to the GOP ad:
Counterbalance: Progressives didn’t win everywhere. In Missouri, Rep. Wesley Bell won a rematch against progressive former Rep. Cori Bush, whom he unseated two years ago. Bush focused on Bell’s support for Israel, while AIPAC’s super PAC spent roughly $3 million supporting him. In Washington, centrist incumbent Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez advanced from the state’s all-party primary. She’ll face state Senate Minority Leader John Braun, a Republican, who also advanced. Together, the two locked out progressive challenger Brent Hennrich.
That’s Awkward: Strange scenes in Michigan’s U.S. House District 8. Republican Amir Hassan received Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement.” Then he went on to lose by more than 10,000 votes to Thomas Smith. The weird thing: Smith dropped out of the race weeks ago and endorsed another candidate, who placed third. Smith will now return to challenge incumbent Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet. (Brian and I also discuss this race… and whether it’s all in a name.)
Worth It: TKO Group Holdings, which owns UFC, admitted the company lost $30 million on UFC Freedom 250, the fight night held on the White House lawn on Trump’s birthday. Its CEO, superagent and David Ellison friend Ari Emanuel, nevertheless insisted the event was a “roaring success.” It averaged more than 8 million viewers on Paramount+. The streaming service, owned by Trump ally David Ellison, announced a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal last year with Emanuel’s TKO Group, which grants Ellison exclusive coverage rights to UFC events.
Talking the Walk: David Ellison, owner of Paramount-Skydance, which includes CBS News, published an op-ed in The New York Times defending his planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, now stalled by an antitrust lawsuit. Ellison argued that opposition to the deal is really a referendum on whether he “can be trusted” to oversee CNN. He cautioned observers that his politics span left and right. But the lawsuit does not hinge on CNN or his politics. It is about competition and market power. He also skipped over the questions that make politics relevant: His ties to the Trump administration, the turmoil at CBS News, and his family’s growing influence over media and tech. In other words, Ellison answered the charge he preferred not the one he faces in court.
Defiant: Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) isn’t dropping out. He made the unusual move of requesting a House Ethics Committee investigation into his own conduct, and the Committee agreed. In a CNN interview, he insisted that all three women accusing him of abuse are lying. He blamed his attorney for releasing a nude image of his young daughter. And he favorably compared himself to Trump for refusing to back down in the face of “extreme allegations.” He pointed out that Trump became president. Trump has backed Miller publicly, but reportedly told Miller in a private call his chances of getting reelected are slim. Several Republicans have spoken out against Miller after his ex-wife’s father, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), called for his resignation. “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office,” Moreno said, “Max Miller fails them.”
Another One Bites the Dust: Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) abandoned his reelection campaign after the House Ethics Committee announced it had found “substantial evidence” he violated rules “related to sexual harassment.” According to the investigation, Edwards engaged in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” with two of his female staffers. The Ethics Committee took the extraordinary step of recommending the full House vote to censure him.
Think of the Children: The Trump administration plans to award a small Texas law firm a $150 million, no-bid contract to provide legal representation for thousands of unaccompanied migrant children. Burke Law Group has just 26 employees, and none of its lawyers list immigration law as an area of expertise. One of its founders worked in the first Trump administration, and another works in the current one. The firm is set to replace the Acacia Center for Justice, whose contract the administration allowed to expire at the end of July. During its five-year contract, Acacia and more than 80 subcontracted legal groups represented almost 20,000 migrant children. The Trump administration tried to cancel the contract last year, but was stymied by litigation. It has since withheld more than $65 million from Acacia and its subcontractors while trying to force them to hand over confidential information about migrant children. The funding freeze forced the legal aid groups to cut services. “We offered to help these kids,” said an official with one firm that claims it’s owed over $20 million, “and now we’re saying, ‘Sorry, we can’t.’ It’s just awful.”
Nomination Not Yet Aborted: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told faith leaders on a private call that his Justice Department is working with other agencies “to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.” The Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling ended the federal right to abortion. Blanche also said the administration is working to crack down on abortion pills sent by mail. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) announced that she will not vote to confirm Blanche, citing his anti-abortion pledges, and concerns that the DOJ has become less independent under his leadership. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) also said he’ll vote no, signaling Democrats are uniting against the nomination. Blanche can afford to lose only two more Republicans. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and John Cassidy (R-LA), two remaining holdouts, met with Blanche today and left the meeting without commenting.
Also: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who voted to advance Blanche’s nomination, claimed there is “nothing” Republicans “can do to rein in the president” when it comes to his wishes for the so-called anti-weaponization fund. Cornyn made his vote for Blanche contingent on an agreement that, as AG, Blanche would ensure the slush fund remains dead. But Cornyn was also one of 50 Republican senators who voted to kill a measure that would have blocked the fund.
News That Doesn’t Suck
Out on a Tether: NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon will take a spacewalk tomorrow. They’ll spend seven hours working outside the International Space System, preparing it for a new solar array, which will provide additional power. No pressure – they’ll be doing this while orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles per hour. Spacewalks are formally called extravehicular activities, and they don’t really involve much walking. Astronauts pull themselves along the station using handholds, secured by a tether that keeps them from drifting off into space. That’s harder than you might think. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke called spacewalks “the most dangerous thing that we do.” The spacesuit weighs a few hundred pounds (on Earth), so every move is physically demanding. The work is complex and the margin for error is small. Oh, and mission control is watching every move. Then there’s the view. “You just see this planet beneath your feet going 17,500 mph,” NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson recalled, “and you and the other person in the puffy white suit are the only two out there in the vacuum of space. You tend to hang on a little tighter.” Astronauts prepare for spacewalks for months, practicing underwater in full spacesuits in a swimming pool to simulate weightlessness. The goal is to make every movement feel routine so they can focus entirely on the task at hand. Maybe routine isn’t quite the right word. “It’s really, truly breathtaking,” Fincke said. “The only thing between you and the rest of the universe, seeing the whole cosmos of creation, is the glass faceplate of your visor on your helmet, and it’s just awe-inspiring.” You can watch tomorrow’s spacewalk on NASA’s website here.
Want more information?
Please share this newsletter with family, friends, and anyone who wants to get the news and turn down the noise. If you’d like to sponsor our newsletter or our Instagram content, please reach out to us at community@newsnotnoise.com.
 | A guest post by
|
Yes, Israel and gaza have been in peoples’ news feed for years and 99.9% of the reportage has been islamist propaganda!