WASHINGTON — Republicans are seeing red after Democrats grew their army of “Mini Zohran Mamdamis” to take into battle for control of Congress in November.
Michigan’s primary on Tuesday echoed Democratic elections in New York, Maine, Colorado and beyond, where far-left — including socialist candidates — beat out moderates in states critical to the 2026 midterm elections.
Lefty Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated centrist Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in the Senate Democratic primary on Tuesday; Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-backed Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney ousted incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar; and community organizer William Lawrence, a progressive endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), triumphed over two moderate opponents.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Post on Wednesday that the outcomes were “making it easier on Republicans” for the general election.
“What’s your choice between a Republican and a crazy person?” Cornyn asked.
El-Sayed, a Muslim doctor who wants to abolish ICE, pass Medicare-for-All and insists Israel is just “as evil as Hamas,” defeated Stevens, who was backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC): 48.5% to 47.5%.
While Stevens easily won rural areas and held her own in Detroit and its suburbs, El-Sayed ran up massive margins in the college town of Ann Arbor as well as the growing city of Grand Rapids, home of the young, white and college-educated voters who have flocked to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) elsewhere.
“Michigan Republicans have a turnout problem, but Mike Rogers just caught a political lifeline,” said Dennis Lennox, Michigan Republican consultant. “The prospect of Abdul El-Sayed in the Senate is real, and that will energize Republicans while converting many normie Democrats, especially Jewish voters, into being Democrats for Rogers.”
Dick Morris, a political consultant to Bill Clinton for 20 years, including his 1996 re-election, before aiding Trump, called the democratic socialist victories in the primaries “a huge gift for Republicans” and predicted Republican Mike Rogers will defeat El-Sayed.
Other Democrats pointed out that El-Sayed would have to moderate his messaging for the general election against Rogers, with one noting that his fraternizing with controversial lefty streamer Hasan Piker wasn’t helping.
“Time will tell whether Abdul wants to bring people together and moderate significantly or keep on hanging out with his buddy Hasan who calls all Zionists Nazis,” another Democratic source said. “If I worked at the DSCC, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”
Rory Lancman, a Jewish civil rights lawyer running as a Democratic candidate for state Senate, said: “Outside of the blue districts and low turnout primaries, the antisemitism and extremism that El-Sayed represents will not travel very far or very well with mainstream voters.”
According to the RealClearPolitics polling aggregator, Rogers is barely ahead of El-Sayed in the most recent surveys but had been trailing behind Stevens by several percentage points.
“You lose your home, you lose your apartment, and that’s where the communists will take us 100%,” President Trump said at an event Wednesday. “When I watch Abdul, he’s full of s–t. … He almost lost, but he’s going to lose to our great candidate.”
The Michigan wins come after recent primaries in Maine, New York and other states that elevated socialist and socialist-adjacent candidates for the Nov. 3 elections.
“Democrats will come to regret letting the inmates run the asylum,” noted Republican National Committee spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre. “These socialists want to take a hacksaw to our country and strip Americans of their safety, sanity, and freedom. In the war between commonsense versus crazy, socialists will lose to Republicans in November.”
The GOP currently holds the Senate 53-47, with Michigan, Maine, Ohio and Alaska considered toss-ups for party control. More than a dozen House seats will determine which party gains the majority in the lower chamber.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) asked voters in an X post Wednesday: “Are we going to maintain our status as the world’s great superpower and beacon of liberty, opportunity and security — OR — allow radical Marxist Democrats to destroy the very foundations that make us the envy of the entire world?”
“Democrats now openly express disdain for America and embrace the failed, dangerous, deadly path of COMMUNISM,” Johnson said. “We must take a stand and FIGHT to protect the greatest nation in the history of the world from being overrun by Mini Mamdanis.”
Sanders, who won Michigan’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary, celebrated El-Sayed’s win as having pulled off “the biggest upset in the history of modern politics.”
“He had to take on the entire national Democratic leadership, [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-NY] on down, and then he had to withstand over $60 million in super PAC money, half of that from AIPAC,” added the socialist senator.
“He ran a campaign where it was best described by his words of ‘money out of politics,’ ‘money in your pocket,’ ‘Medicare for All,’” added New York City socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani. “He was able to prevail with a focus on a cost of living crisis and the way in which health care is exceedingly out of reach for those who have helped to make this country what it is.”
On the generic congressional ballot, Democrats are ahead by more than seven percentage points, per RealClearPolitics’ average.
Schumer, who privately backed Stevens along with the rest of the Democratic establishment, told reporters flatly on Tuesday, “Look, we are a big tent party, and being a big tent party is a strength, not a weakness.”
