The Democrats Are Still Not Out of Danger With Their Own Senate Seats

Politico, the hard-left, partisan Democrat Capitol Hill newspaper, has deep thoughts about their hero, Abdul El-Sayed, in their article titled “Washington Isn’t Ready for Abdul El-Sayed:”

El-Sayed, by dint of his history-making story and enemy-making swagger, is poised to have the biggest impact of any new lawmaker if he wins next month. He told me he’ll leverage what he calls his “movement” to build a platform in the Senate, push his party unapologetically left and become the man to see for Democratic presidential aspirants coming through Michigan, now an early primary state.

Well, that is one way to put it. Another way would be to note that Washington, D.C. isn’t ready for a dual-citizen, Muslim Brotherhood-supporting, terror-sympathizing U.S. Senator who would be a “grave national security threat.”

Of course, El-Sayed is still a real risk to win the U.S. Senate race. In these polarized, partisan times, even a Virginia lawyer who threatens children can be carried along by partisanship of a state wave into public office. Granted, Virginia is much more Democrat than is Michigan. But if there is a huge “blue wave,” then this Egyptian who sympathizes with the Muslim Brotherhood may yet serve in the Senate.

The Michigan race, however, will not necessarily determine who controls the U.S. Senate in 2027. 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. 

Even during the “blue wave” of 2018, the GOP picked up Senate seats, including ousting a sitting Democrat incumbent.

But on to the Democrat-held seats, where a single flip could crush Democrat hopes of Senate control: 

Michigan: Gary Peters (retiring) / Tilt R

Abdul El-Sayed, the radical Muslim socialist, continues to have an atrocious post-primary. El Sayed is leading 48.1 to 45.5 percent in the RCP average over Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers (MI-08). But El-Sayed was up a lot in the primary polls too, before he won by one point, and in recent Michigan Senate general elections, the Democrat nominees has been overestimated by an average of 2-3 percentage points, and sometimes by much more. El-Sayed clearly has a problem with three primarily Democrat groups – the Jews, the Blacks, and the Democrat moderates. 

Recently, NBC News performed real journalism after El-Sayed lied to them about his ties to the MB, exposing his deception to the normies. El-Sayed’s only deflection is that his own sister is providing “hearsay”, which while technically true, is meaningless in this context. (This isn’t a trial.) In the debate, where El-Sayed was largely crushed by Rogers, El-Sayed couldn’t distinguish Iran, which has been at war with the U.S. since 1979, from Israel, one of the U.S.’s strongest allies. He has excused a likely Iranian-sponsored attack on a synagogue. 

Rogers and his allies have produced brutal ads that pound El-Sayed on these issues. As a result of this and more, estimates are that up to 70 percent of the normally heavily Democrat Jewish community is likely to vote against El-Sayed, a reversal of normal voting patterns. Meanwhile, after foolishly promoting himself as African – once again, technically true, but very off putting to black voters – El Sayed has continued to have problems getting support from a community that is normally about 90 percent Democrat. Rogers has, once again, produced some excellent ads to make things harder for El-Sayed. As a result, the Democrats have had to rush both Kamala Harris and Barack Obama to Michigan to try to stir up black support, with mixed results. 

And moderate Democrats, including former leaders of the party, have pushed for Democrat voters to leave the ballot blank rather than vote for El-Sayed. The only good news for El-Sayed is that he has “smoked” Rogers in recent fundraising. 

Considering El-Sayed is proving to be a target-rich environment for Mike Rogers, and Rogers’ forces will continue to have a spending edge, I continue to believe that El-Sayed can only win if Rogers makes a big mistake, or the Democrat tide gets too large and drags El-Sayed into office. 

Minnesota: Tina Smith (retiring) / Likely D

Democrat Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is part Native American and very left-wing, is squaring off against former TV sportscaster Michelle Tafoya, who is hispanic and a moderate. The RCP average has Flanagan up 46.2 percent to 43.3 percent. Tafoya’s central attack on Flanagan concerns her being Tim Walz’s understudy while Minnesota was ground zero for the massive defrauding of various federal welfare programs. 

In an otherwise bad year for the Republicans, this scandal (theoretically) could be enough to upend the fact that Minnesota is a light-but-consistently-blue state where there has been a long string of narrow GOP losses since 2006. The recent debate largely centered on this issue, and observers thought Tafoya “schooled” Flanagan in it. It is also not good for Flanagan that her own attack ad against Tafoya showed Flanagan in a shockingly weird outfit that turned heads for all the wrong reasons. (It is well-known by political consultants that visuals in an ad should not contrast with the content.) The Duluth News Tribune, which mixes up its political endorsements, endorsed Tafoya. 

And unlike in other Senate races, in Minnesota the GOP nominee has dominated fundraising. The worst polling miss in this state has been over 3 percent in favor of the Democrats. 

Tafoya is running a great campaign, but the Democrat streak in state is strong, there is a red undertow, and Tafoya can’t seem to get over 45 percent, so I must leave this race at Likely D.

New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen (retiring) / Likely D

Republican former Sen. John Sununu, the son and brother of popular Republican New Hampshire governors, who was ousted by Shaheen in 2008, is running a surprisingly strong comeback campaign. Rep. Chris Pappas (NH-01), the Democrat who represents half of the state, is leading Sununu 49.7 to 43.2 percent in the RCP average. 

Recently, presumably for personal reasons, a former GOP Senate nominee endorsed the Democrat Pappas over Sununu. Pappas has also smoked Sununu in recent fundraising. The debate between the two was nasty but made no major news. Unfortunately, unlike in the other states, in New Hampshire the public pollsters tend to overestimate the Republicans. 

Pappas appears to have the momentum in the final weeks of the campaign, and the state is normally Democrat-leaning in federal races, so it is looking more like a stretch for Sununu to upset Pappas in this red undertow year, forcing me to push this to Likely D. 

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