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Notes -
With three days until Election Day, is there still enough time for the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Michigan?
Cenk Uygur's Rebellion PAC dropped a controversial new ad supporting the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed featuring a grocery store conversation about Israel. Some are calling it the most antisemitic ad of all time:
Now, I don't think this is a very good ad. It's poorly acted and a bit too on-the-nose, but accusing the political opposition of wasting money on unpopular special interests while regular citizens deal with rising prices is probably the most common political maneuver in modern American politics. Apparently, this ad is at the center of a possible last-minute fracture of the Michigan Democratic coalition.
Haley Stevens, El Sayed's defeated challenger in the dem primary, released an incredibly passive aggressive statement preemptively thanking El Sayed for his "Expected Condemnation of Antisemitic Campaign Advertisement". Amusingly, long-time TYT host Ceng Uygur has been demoted to "Hasan Piker's Uncle". In case you didn't catch the subtext, this is a threat to pull her support (as explained by Haley Stevens's fiance on TMZ for some reason?). Abdul appears to have no intention of disavowing the ad.
This doesn't seem to have affected El Sayed's chances in the prediction markets. He is now up to an 80% chance to win, but I guess we'll see what happens at the black church on Sunday.
I thought that ad was just too on-the-nose, unsubtle, and poorly-acted to be convincing, but otherwise just unremarkable and mediocre, until I got to the intended stinger at the end.
Obviously an ad about Israel or foreign policy in general can't be accused of anti-semitism, but the spooky picture of a bunch of Jews while calling them 'They/Them' feels either pretty close to that line or outright over it.
Anyway, I think it probably won't matter. My prediction for Michigan is that El-Sayed wins while substantially underperforming the median Democrat, and everybody will freak out as if this is meaningful, or proves that left-wingers or DSA types can win anywhere, or as if the situation is anything other than the Democrats nominating a weak candidate who still managed to blunder into victory in a heavily D-favoured election.
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