In Michigan, the Democrats could start to lose the 2028 presidential election

Today in the United States is the day on which the Democrats could begin to lose the 2028 presidential election. That is to say, to lay the groundwork for their defeat in two years’ time in one of the most important elections in 250 years of American history: the moment when it will be decided whether or not Trumpism is destined to continue, in other forms, into the 2030s.

Why today? Because the primaries are taking place in Michigan, one of the key swing states, to select the Democratic candidate who will challenge Republican Mike Rogers for a Senate seat in November. The seat itself is important because Michigan is one of the four states that will determine who controls the Senate during the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency. But the state will become even more significant if, at the end of the primary voting – as seems likely according to the polls – the Egyptian-American Abdul El Sayed emerges as the Democratic candidate. It would mark yet another triumph in this election cycle for a figure from the party’s most progressive wing – those Democratic Socialists who are increasingly taking centre stage, with leading figures such as former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, presidential hopeful Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the multifaceted and charismatic Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which held its annual summit at the weekend and has been in the spotlight for months, could take over the Democratic Party in a manner similar to what the MAGA movement managed to do in 2016 with the Republicans. A victory for El Sayed in the primaries in a swing state such as Michigan would confirm this golden moment for the party’s far-left wing, resulting in increased media pressure to push him to make a decisive bid for 2028 by relying on those whom Trump simply calls ‘the communists’.

The Democratic establishment and the entire centrist and moderate wing of the party shudder at the idea, convinced that it is a path to defeat. Replicating on a national scale the socialist experiments that originated in the suburbs of New York or in a marginal context such as Sanders’ Vermont is seen as a mad choice by many leading Democrats. The Republicans, on the other hand, are hoping for it, as it would give them the opportunity to build an election campaign in which they could portray their opponents as figures ‘out of touch with ordinary people’, enemies of capitalism and therefore enemies of America.

Much depends on whether or not El Sayed wins today’s primary and then the November election. Dr El Sayed, as he prefers to be called, is 41 years old, was born in Michigan on Halloween night in 1984 and is the son of Egyptian immigrants. His CV seems tailor-made for the American dream: captain of his high school football team, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, a doctor trained at Columbia, an epidemiologist, and subsequently director of public health first in Detroit and then in Wayne County. When he graduated in Ann Arbor, the official speaker at the ceremony was Bill Clinton, who wrote him a note: ‘Forget medicine, go into politics.’ He took his advice. In 2018, he ran for governor and lost heavily in the primaries to Gretchen Whitmer, now the governor who is backing his rival, Haley Stevens. Eight years on, he has become the face of the new Democratic left. His supporters describe him as a cross between Sanders and Barack Obama; one of his aides calls him “the Muslim Bruce Springsteen”. He has the charisma of a rally speaker and the precision of a policy expert who has written a book on Medicare. If he wins in November, he will be the first Muslim senator in American history.

There is, however, another way of looking at it. Critics find him arrogant and presumptuous, an Oxford lad masquerading as a class warrior. The most divisive aspect is his stance on Gaza: he has described the Israeli government as ‘evil’ and its actions as ‘genocide’; he has campaigned alongside the Marxist and anti-Zionist streamer Hasan Piker; and he condemned the attack on a synagogue in Michigan by adding that ‘those who suffer make others suffer’ – a remark that many perceived as an attempt to downplay the incident. The pro-Israeli organisation AIPAC has spent nearly thirty million dollars to stop him – the largest single investment in its history. Yet the polls show him in the lead. He is the opponent the Republicans dream of. And the one that some Democrats fear for the very same reason.