LIZ PEEK: Two troubled Senate races could spoil Democrats' blue-wave fantasy
The midterm elections are three weeks away. In some states, voting has already begun. Betting site Kalshi shows odds of 61% that Democrats will win control of the Senate.
Recent developments in the Texas and Michigan races suggest keeping your money in your pocket.
As voters find out more about front-runner Democrats James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, the polls are tightening. They say intimacy breeds contempt; nowhere is this truer than in politics.
Talarico is the 2026 version of 2018 Senate wannabe Beto O’Rourke, who memorably live-streamed his teeth-cleaning as a campaign stunt, but ultimately lost to Republican Ted Cruz despite his laudable dental hygiene. Talarico, a photogenic 37-year-old state representative, recently vanished from public view for nearly two weeks, an extraordinary absence so close to Election Day. He says he had the flu; does he not know about Theraflu? Has he heard of Zoom?
His disappearance gave rise to a whirlwind of apparently erroneous rumors. Because Talarico has voiced some wacky ideas in the past, like believing there are six genders or that God is non-binary — which he has been forced to walk back — some voters are primed to believe such rumors.
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Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, is an unpopular candidate and carries considerable baggage, but his well-funded campaign is running ads showing Talarico making incendiary comments like, "I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity." Talarico has also been outed as having previously voted as a state representative against bans on biological men playing in women’s sports. Oops.
Beto O’Rourke lost in part because he embraced aggressive gun control in a state where most people have a gun. In 2022, Talarico appeared with the Texas Humane Legislation Network, warning of the "existential" need to "reduce our meat consumption," in a state that prides itself on its cattle.
Undoubtedly, Talarico’s progressive young base will not be deterred by his peculiar walk-about, but his lengthy absence from the campaign trail casts a cloud over his run. Some polls show him barely leading Ken Paxton; a recent UMass Lowell/YouGov poll shows the candidates tied, with 7% undecided.
As Trump rallies to energize his still-faithful base, it’s hard to imagine Talarico pulling out the win.
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Abdul El-Sayed, who calls himself a doctor, but is not legally authorized to practice medicine, has been changing positions as frequently as people change their underwear.
One of the central planks in his platform has been his enthusiastic endorsement of Medicare for All. In a podcast from 2020, he says Medicare for All "does away with the private insurance market." Nowadays, his campaign website says: "Medicare for All does not have to ban additional private insurance through unions or employers, although Medicare for All should make those choices redundant and unnecessary."
Moreover, during his primary race in January, El-Sayed explained, "If you like your insurance from your employer or from your union, that can still be there for you."
That sounds a lot like President Obama telling gullible voters: "If you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan, period." After millions of Americans saw their plans cancelled, Politifact dubbed that whopper the 2013 Lie of the Year.
Why the reversal from El-Sayed on his signature issue? First, unions. Organized labor has done a bang-up job of demanding expensive healthcare benefits for workers — benefits that are undoubtedly more generous than any that would be provided by Uncle Sam. There are half a million union members in the Wolverine State; he needs their vote, ideals be damned.
Second, those pesky taxes. El-Sayed has had to explain how he intends to pay for government-run healthcare. A writer at The Bridge, a nonpartisan news organization in Michigan, notes that "In 2020, the nonpartisan Urban Institute estimated that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ version of Medicare for All would cost the federal government $34 trillion over a 10-year period."
Experts say that money to fund such a program would rope in not just the wealthy, but middle-class families as well. In short, Medicare for All would mean higher taxes for all. El-Sayed has admitted as much in the past.
El-Sayed positions himself as a healthcare expert, given his role in local county offices, but those stints were arguably brief and inconsequential.
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Also troubling is El-Sayed’s association with anti-American Muslim organizations and personalities whom he has refused to denounce, like supporter Hasan Piker. On "Meet the Press" recently, El-Sayed claimed that neither he nor any family members have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group deemed a terror outfit by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and by Egypt. But the candidate’s half-sister, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, stated the opposite, claiming on social media years ago that her family "has long been" members of the Muslim Brotherhood and that some relatives had been "jailed" because of their association with the group.
El-Sayed is also facing scrutiny for claiming dual citizenship with Egypt and the U.S. in the past, an assertion he now denies. El-Sayed told a Detroit GlobeMed conference in 2016, "I carry dual citizenship, and I grew up spending most of my summers in another country …" He made the same claim on his academic resume. Was he lying then, or is he lying now?
Also, recently, asked during a debate whether El-Sayed considers Iran, the world’s biggest sponsor of terror, or Israel a bigger threat to the United States, the progressive anti-Israel candidate refused to answer. For many, his equivocation is disqualifying.
Michigan polls have tightened in the past couple of weeks, with several now showing El-Sayed up by only one or two points, well within the margin of error. My guess: Rogers prevails.