Patrick Basham

Framing Michigan Senate People have a baseline already for this race that is being ignored. In 2018, the state had just flipped two years before to Trump, narrowly and with less than 48% of the vote. This was eight years ago, with a lot of the red only written in pencil and not yet etched in stone. Dem Debbie Stabenow ran for a fourth term and faced John James. She only won by 6.5% as the incumbent - and even won Macomb County - key to the Trump realignment. Now the seat is open. Whitmer would have won it easily. The two bland female candidates this year would have held it as well, but given the Stabenow baseline with a high Dem generic ballot in the House, I’d say 3-4 points. Now there is the El-Sayed issue. The reds are much redder, he’s not winning Macomb, and he has a voting bloc problem with multiple factions of the Dem party he needs to consolidate. From a glance at things I can’t see him with a ceiling or more than 2. And if Detroit turnout looks like Cleveland and Toledo turnout from right down the road he may not even be in the game.