AOC says an El-Sayed win would ‘break open the entire political calculus’
Abdul El-Sayed, who narrowly won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary two months ago, has drawn attention from the top leaders in both parties since Monday, with less than a month to go in the U.S. Senate race, according to the WSJ Politics newsletter.
The WSJ Politics newsletter, written by Damian Paletta, the Wall Street Journal’s Washington coverage chief, characterized the shift in El-Sayed’s standing as a transformation from “a potential anvil for the Democrats” to “a game-changer within the party.”
President Trump used a rally to criticize Fox News for how the network handled a recent interview with El-Sayed. “El-Sayed was interviewed just a little while ago on a certain network…They let this guy talk, talk, talk. They hardly fight him at all. Why are they putting these people on our television networks?” Trump said, according to the newsletter.
At a private event in New York, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said an El-Sayed win would reshape national politics. “What we do is that we break open the entire political calculus in America—period,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to the New York Times, as quoted by the newsletter. “Because if you can win, if Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere. Anywhere.”
Former President Barack Obama announced he would campaign with El-Sayed in Michigan later this month. The newsletter reported that El-Sayed did not have support from many in the Democratic establishment during his primary battle against Rep. Haley Stevens, and that former Vice President Kamala Harris has already campaigned with the Democratic nominee. The newsletter said Obama’s planned appearance “brings the Democratic seal of approval onto a candidate that didn’t have support from many in the Democratic establishment” in the primary.
The edition was curated and edited by Paletta in collaboration with Alistair Dawber and Alina Heineke.
Other items in the newsletter
The same edition of the WSJ Politics newsletter also reported on other matters.
Max Miller: The Republican congressman faces domestic-violence allegations and is betting voters in his Ohio district have heard about them, and he is leaning into the issue, according to the newsletter.
Trump’s Wednesday schedule: The president is scheduled to hold policy meetings at 10 a.m. ET and 12:30 p.m., make an announcement at 1 p.m., and later depart for San Antonio, where he is set to deliver remarks at a midterm rally in the evening.
Scott Bessent: The Treasury secretary is facing pressure from Trump to tame the markets, end the war in Iran and boost the economy, and the pressure is weighing on him, according to people close to him, the newsletter reported. Bessent is described as lashing out at his own staff and making unusual market interventions, alienating some of his own allies.
Marco Rubio: The secretary of state visited Iceland on Tuesday, seeking to calm fears over what the newsletter described as Trump’s territorial ambitions for the Arctic and to reframe the president’s push to take control of Greenland as an expansion of U.S. military reach across the region. His trip came after Trump’s Greenland campaign rattled Reykjavík, which recently summoned the U.S. ambassador over a White House post depicting Iceland under an American flag.
U.S. and Russia: Washington has warned Moscow that its failure to disclose details about the death of a lab worker from a plague-research center in Siberia runs counter to international health obligations, U.S. officials said, according to the newsletter. The episode has stirred fears that an infectious disease might spread inside Russia and beyond the country’s borders.