August 13th by Pete Newman

LANSING, Michigan – On Tuesday, Aug. 4, primary elections were held in Michigan to determine each party’s slate of candidates for the November general. The Republican half of the race was rather uninteresting, their Senate candidate Mike Rogers ran unopposed, as did the House of Representatives candidate for our district here in Lansing, Tom Barret. In fact, most of their federal nominees (8 out of 14) ran unopposed, and the ones who didn’t struggled to find real political differences. The Democratic primary is where things got interesting.

There has been an undeniable trend this election cycle: progressives are winning. This trend had its triumphant christening with the election of New York Mayor Zohran Mandami, who persists as one of the biggest political celebrities in the country, and certainly the most recognizable mayor. It continued through the various Democratic primaries in the months that followed, and now it has come to Michigan.

After a failed gubernatorial bid in 2018, Detroit-born epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed won the race to become the Senate candidate of the Democratic Party, on a platform of working-class focused issues, opposition to the Trump regime and MAGA broadly, and opposition to the genocidal and foolhardy perpetual wars. “Money out of politics. Money in your pockets. Medicare For All.” was his campaigns central rallying cry. El-Sayed, a Muslim with Egyptian heritage, was particularly critical of the state of Israel and the critical support it finds from our own government, mirroring Mandami and others who have built substantial political clout based on their willingness to loudly call out what every expert agrees is a genocide in Gaza. While it probably was not the crucial element of his success, his opponent Hailey Stevens’ open support of Israel and several darkly humorous moments from her past where she lavished praise on the genocidal state certainly harmed her campaign significantly.

Even closer to home for us in Lansing was the victory of veteran local activist Will Lawerence, co-founder of the Lansing-based, tenant’s rights and affordable housing focused organization The Rent is Too Damn High. Running on very similar issues to El-Sayed and others across the country, Lawrence specifically found success when broadcasting his opposition to data centers, which very interestingly led to his victory in several much more conservative, rural areas of the district. The turnout he can inspire in these areas in November against a Republican will certainly be interesting. Lawrence’s campaign also mobilized upwards of a thousand active volunteers, who knocked on tens of thousands of doors and were unsurprisingly the most critical piece in the campaign of a working-class organizer taking on opponents with the backing of millions of dollars and the entire party establishment. The good work of these volunteers is only going to grow in scale the closer we get to November.

The election was not all “sunshine and rainbows,” however. Trump’s Department of Justice sent their “election monitors” to four Michigan cities: down in Detroit and Hamtramck, and right here in Lansing and East Lansing, “to ensure free and fair elections.” Obscured by this rhetoric is the fairly obvious intention to do just the opposite; the consensus fear among election experts and the public broadly is that these DOJ “monitors” will use any irregularities they find as a pretext to impede democracy as much as possible in November, in a sort of electoral false flag. This tactic has indeed been used by the Trump administration before and seems to be escalating in anticipation of November, although the numbers and exact function of these “monitors” remains unknown. Independent counter-observers were scattered in a few polling stations, and these organizers look to expand their operations in the general. Of all the many faults of democracy in our country, that the individual votes are tallied inaccurately just simply isn’t one of them, and any attempt of this administration to concern troll their way into an electoral coup should obviously be resisted.

Come November, the working class in Lansing, all of Michigan, and indeed the entire country will certainly be watching Michigan, as we can proudly report that our state has become one of the most relevant areas in the current political moment.