The signs for El-Sayed in Detroit — and the lack of them — are setting off alarm bells: Sixteen days before Election Day, Abdul El-Sayed is sitting at the dinette of a bus that has his face plastered all over it.
I had just played him a clip on my iPad. It was of Tashawna Gill, a Detroit organizer he knows well and who was one of his earliest supporters, describing an alarming trend in what she and her canvassers were hearing from Black voters in the city’s retirement communities.
“They’re skipping that part of the ballot,” Gill said. “We do the senior home tour, and they’re not interested. They skipped that on the ballot. They have returned their absentees, and some of them have shared that they’ve returned their absentees without checking the box for anything for the Senate race.”
In the tight space on the bus, the clip finishes, and El-Sayed says: “I hope more folks will fill out that part of the ballot. This one’s for all the marbles.”
El-Sayed watches a video on his campaign busMS NOW
How did it feel, I asked? Hearing that his story, his message isn’t landing with people in a community he has long served, people he needs if he wants to become Michigan’s next senator?
El-Sayed has a reputation of being pretty sure of himself. Unflappable, quick on his feet, someone who leans into the “don’t let ’em see you sweat” brand of politics.
For a second, that drops.
”Obviously, it’s heartbreaking. I’ve spent most of my career serving exactly those communities,” he says. “But I also get that campaigns are complicated.”
He blames the tens of millions of dollars in PAC money for the tepidness within the Black community toward his attempt to hold Michigan’s open Senate seat for Democrats, and for “destroying trust” he built with the Black community in his time as a public health official in Detroit.
“Rebuilding it takes a long time, so I’ve got work to do to rebuild trust, but I’ve been serving those communities for a long time,” he said. “I’m confident in the work I have done and confident in the work that I will do. And I hope I get… https://www.ms.now/news/the-signs-for-el-sayed-in-detroit-and-the-lack-of-them-are-setting-off-alarm-bells