On Tuesday, in Michigan, the Democrats chose their U.S. Senate nominee – Abdul El-Sayed. Another crazed radical Muslim socialist. If these numbers hold up, the party has chosen rather poorly.
The RealClearPolitics (RCP) average for the upcoming general election in Michigan favors the GOP nominee, Trump-backed former Rep. Mike Rogers, slightly, 44.3 percent to 44 percent. But current polling is not everything in this race; El-Sayed has some major negatives that probably will be exploited in the upcoming campaign (see below).
This is a bad move by the Democrats. Especially because the party cannot afford to lose one of its own seats in 2026, and that is quite possible now, even if there is a potential “blue wave”.
As similarly happened in Florida in 2018.
Once again, in the upper chamber, the Republicans have a 53-to-47-seat majority, with 35 seats up. The Democrats need a net pickup of four seats to win control. But only two Republican seats – Maine and North Carolina – are in competitive states. The other 20 GOP seats are in states Donald Trump won by double digits. Picking up a double-digit seat for the opposite party rarely happens, let alone twice. Only once, in modern times - in 2010 - did the GOP win three such seats.
In the 2025 Virginia elections, the Democrats won in a landslide, but they didn’t carry a single state legislative district where Trump won with that margin.
The GOP will have a huge money edge overall, although most Democrat candidates are outraising their Republican foes. Recently, Elon Musk vowed to supplement GOP resources; in 2024 he spent $260 million.
But several races have seen some changes that are worthy of further exploration.
Alaska: Dan Sullivan / 54% R / Lean R
Former Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola is challenging Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. The RCP average shows Sullivan with a two-point advantage. Alaska has a strange Ranked Choice Voting system, instituted by rogue Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to keep her in office, which the Democrats are desperately trying to rig in their favor. First, the Democrats got a fake Dan Sullivan on the ballot, whose candidacy the state Supreme Court eventually ruled in favor of. Then, they set up a $515,000 “Right for Alaska” PAC to bash the real Dan Sullivan and to promote two other minor right-wing candidates. Republicans responded with their own “Fair Deal Alaska” PAC to spend against Peltola and promote two left-leaning minor candidates. Peltola’s campaign continues to outraise Sullivan’s - $6.9 million to more than $2 million.
Maine: Susan Collins / 50.98% R / Tilt R
Since the “Oyster Führer" Graham Platner dropped his Senate candidacy because his party finally objected to one of his alleged bad acts – an accused rape of a left-leaning woman – as opposed to his earlier alleged domestic assault of a right-leaning woman – the Democrats held a convention to choose state Senator Troy Jackson as their replacement candidate. Jackson is, without a doubt, a stronger candidate than was Platner; at the very least, he does not have a Nazi tattoo. He has a three-point lead in the only poll of the race. Yet, Jackson has his own issues – although originally more moderate, he is now far to the left. Earlier this year he failed to win the Democrat nomination for governor, which may affect his eligibility to stay on the ballot because of Maine’s “sore loser” election law. Janet Mills, the Democrat governor, has refused to endorse Jackson. And Jackson is a controversial figure in Maine politics, with a nasty temper and a son who has mooched off his father as a lobbyist. Collins has a huge money edge, as she raised $19 million and still has $11 million, while Jackson just got started with $2 million.
Michigan: Gary Peters (retiring) / Tilt D
The plurality of the Democrats who voted in the Michigan Senate primary saw what NYC had done, and they said, “yeah, I want that, too.” But unlike with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, El-Sayed is running in a competitive political area. And there is much to target with El-Sayed. Although he claims not to be a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), he is a left-wing Bernie Bro. He has called for the defunding of the police and ICE. He rants about the wealthy and billionaires, although he himself is quite wealthy. He is also a radical Muslim. When there was a terror attack in Michigan against a Jewish temple, he expressed understanding for the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terrorist. He headlined a series of luxury yacht fundraisers for an organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and his father-in-law, who has fundraised for him, is a founding member of another Muslim Brotherhood group. El-Sayed is also buddy-buddy with Hasan Piker, another crazed radical Muslim who loves communists, including Mao Zedong. Some of El-Sayed’s other donors are suspect, as well, for other reasons. El-Sayed is a good fundraiser, but his money is largely depleted now, while his GOP opponent, Rogers, raised about $2.9 million and sits on roughly $5.7 million. The 100,000 Jews in the state, who are mostly Democrats, are expected to be in play for Rogers. Also, moderate Democrats may be up for grabs. Longtime Democrat strategist James Carville has stated that he is out of the party if folks like El-Sayed's pal Piker become a "force" within the party. Democrat Rep. Hillary Scholten (MI-03), who represents a competitive district, has, so far, refused to endorse El-Sayed.
SEE ALSO: It Should Surprise No One That the Democrats Love Socialism
Texas: John Cornyn (defeated in the primary) / Lean R
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton crushed incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff. Paxton is not the strongest candidate, so, of course, the Democrats are once again confident of victory – despite Wendy Davis, Beto O’Rourke, and Colin Allred, etc. – this time with state Rep. James Talarico. Despite Talarico being a far-left crazy who is totally out of step with Texas, he is a fundraising powerhouse, raising more than triple what Paxton has, although much of Talarico’s fundraising is spent on ads that are not necessarily well targeted – the ads are popping up to me repeatedly at the gym in both Virginia and Pennsylvania. Talarico also leads in the polling, by one point, although pollsters tend to undervalue Republican support in Texas. This can easily be seen, as the same polls show a nip-and-tuck governor’s race, even though Gov. Greg Abbott is not seriously thought to be in any trouble by political observers. It seems likely that some Cornyn supporters are still upset with Paxton’s decision to challenge him, and most of them will eventually come home.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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