🧨 The 2026 race that could blow up Democratic ... · Storyflo

🧨 The 2026 race that could blow up Democratic ... · Storyflo

The 2026 election ends on November 3.

The 2028 presidential race — especially on the Democratic side — starts on November 4.

And you can be certain that every Democrat with an eye on a national bid in two years time will be looking very closely at the 2026 results for signs and hints of what the electorate really wants going forward.

Which brings me to this quote from none other than New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a private fundraiser Monday night for Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed:

If Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere. We are going to break the electoral map everywhere, everywhere, because that is what it is going to take to guarantee health care to every American.

👀

Like AOC or not, she’s right. Which is why the Michigan Senate race is, for Democrats eyeing 2028, the single most important contest on the ballot this fall.

Let me explain.

El-Sayed is not, technically, a Democratic Socialist like AOC.

“You don’t have to be a socialist to believe that you should be taxing billionaires their wealth,” El-Sayed told the New York Times in August. “In fact, if you are a capitalist, you should believe in that. So, I’m a capitalist who just knows about capitalism. I have a bad habit of reading; I’m so sorry.”

Earlier this year, El-Sayed told CNN: “I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism, I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated.”

That said, El-Sayed supports a number of key principles and policies at the heart of the DSA movement — from Medicare for All to a strong innate suspicion about the motivations of very wealthy individuals and large corporations.

It’s why he has been endorsed by the superstars of the Democratic Socialism movement — from AOC to Bernie Sanders.

It’s also why what happens to El-Sayed on November 3 matters SO much for what direction the Democratic party takes as it heads into 2028.

The knock on Democratic Socialists from the non-DSA wing of the party boils down to this: A candidate with DSA views cannot win a general election in anything close to a swing state.

Here’s Third Way, a center-left think tank, in a memo last fall — in the wake of the election of DSA candidate Zohran Mamdani as New York City Mayor:

Mamdani’s policy ideas, and the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which he has failed to repudiate, were drawn from the far left and are deeply unpopular in the red and purple places Democrats must win to retake Congress and the White House.

Third Way — and other centrist/moderate/establishment voices like it — have kept up that drumbeat throughout this year. Yes, DSA candidates like Darializa Avila Chevalier and Melat Kiros have won in urban centers like New York City and Denver, they argue, but Francesca Hong, a DSA candidate for governor of Wisconsin, lost a Democratic primary every poll said she would win.

The “yeah but” to that argument is El-Sayed.

While he won by a smaller margin over Rep. Haley Stevens in the early August Democratic primary, he still won.

And, if he beats former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in 27 days — as polls suggest he is more likely than not to do — you can be damn sure that El-Sayed and AOC will cite that victory as proof positive that the notion of the DSA as a fringe movement that can’t work nationwide is fully debunked.

Hell, they are already doing it!

Here’s more — via the New York Times — from AOC during that NYC fundraiser earlier this week:

We are in a long-term — I’m being very open right now, right? — about our generational project that we have ahead of us. Generational. We are here to break the map.

And here’s the Times on El-Sayed’s comments at that same fundraiser:

Dr. El-Sayed also spoke about the stakes of his race for 2028.

“What does it say about what America really wants, needs and deserves if our state bucks all of the pundits and all of the pontificators who think that this is not possible?” he said. “What does it tell them? It tells them just how big America is and exactly what we want.”

Later, he said that “this one is for all the marbles” and referred to “the ripple effect that this race will have.”

I mean…the subtext is pretty much just text here, right?

“Break the map”! “This one is for all the marbles”! “Ripple effect”!

Now, do I think an El-Sayed win in Michigan would be indisputable proof that Americans, writ large, are ready to elect a very liberal/DSA-aligned candidate president in 2028?

I do not!

But I also know how politics works. And the reality is this: If El-Sayed wins, AOC immediately becomes a more viable and serious contender for the Democratic nomination in the eyes of the political class.

Scoff if you like! But ask yourself this: If El-Sayed loses, do you have ANY doubt that it will be used by the governing wing of the Democratic party as evidence that the DSA-aligned candidates can’t win anywhere the party will need to in order to reclaim the White House in 2028?

Candidly, I don’t think that sentiment is necessarily true either! El-Sayed losing does not convince me AOC isn’t a serious 2028 candidate if she runs!

But, politics is politics. And perception — and narratives — matter a LOT. And the narrative at stake in 27 days in Michigan is whether or not a Midwest swing state will elect someone in El-Sayed who has very, very liberal views.

If that happens, AOC is already laying the groundwork to use El-Sayed’s victory as a springboard to a national bid. And all of the voices in the party’s middle are ready to stomp on the DSA’s momentum — and an AOC presidential bid — if El-Sayed loses.

As I have already noted, I think AOC is, today, the most likely Democratic nominee for president in 2028. An El-Sayed win would supercharge that movement — and make it that much harder for the governing wing of the party to stop AOC if she does run for president. An El-Sayed loss, on the other hand, might convince AOC that a Senate bid in 2028 is the next right move for her.

So much hangs in the balance for the future of AOC and the broader party in Michigan in a month’s time. I can’t wait to say how it plays out.