‘A Big Deal!’ NYT Reporter Warns Polling May Not Be Picking Up Democrats Voting Against El-Sayed

The polls could be making it look like Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) is in a better position heading into Election Day than he actually is, The New York Times national reporter Jeremy Peters told MS NOW on Monday morning.

Peters reported the polls do not seem to be “picking up” staunch Democrats who are planning to vote for Republican Mike Rogers because they are so turned off by El-Sayed. Jewish Michiganders, in particular, are a key block of usually reliable Democratic voters who are now pivoting to the GOP.

“One of the factors that is really worth paying closer attention to are the number of Democrats, lifelong Jewish Democrats, especially in the Detroit suburbs, who are saying for the first time in their lives they’re voting Republican,” Peters said. “That’s a big deal.”

He continued:

I don’t know of any other marquee race in the country where the Republican candidate is converting Democrats. I mean, given the overall environment for Trump — the economy, prices, the war, gas, all that — it’s very unusual, and really quite striking that there are Democrats who are so concerned about their party’s nominee that they are willing to vote for the candidate aligned with Donald Trump.

Peters shared his analysis a few weeks after Andy Schor, the Jewish mayor of Lansing, said he can’t vote for El-Sayed because he is too “uncomfortable” with the progressive candidate bashing Israel.

Schor’s hesitation comes after El-Sayed has said Israel is just as “evil” as Hamas, repeatedly accused the country of committing a “genocide” in Gaza, and accused AIPAC of “legalized bribery” by giving to his primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI).

And Schor is not the only Jewish Democrat who has expressed skepticism about voting for El-Sayed.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) appeared to reluctantly support El-Sayed last month, despite recently calling him out for making Israel the “central villain” in his public gripes. Nessel said she “couldn’t consider” voting for a Republican, but she said she had to ask El-Sayed if he believed Jewish Zionists “belong” in the Democratic Party before supporting him.

El-Sayed answered:

So look, I believe in a big tent, and there are Democrats who are going to believe different things about different issues, Israel being one of them. And I am committed to having a tent where we march in lockstep on the 95% of things we agree on, and where we continue to have the conversation in that tent about the spaces where we disagree. So, yes.

And I will also say that it is critical for people to have the belief in our democracy, they have the right to advocate for what they believe in peaceably, and without risk of violence, regardless of what it is. And we can disagree, but we have that debate in public.

Nessel officially endorsed El-Sayed a few minutes later.

On Monday, Peters reported the polls may be overestimating El-Sayed’s odds of winning by oversampling college-educated voters. The Michigan native added he has heard people are reluctant to tell polsters they’re going to be voting for a Republican for the first time in their lives.

Most of the polls tracked by the Times show El-Sayed has a one- to four-point edge on Rogers.

Watch above via Morning Joe.

Jason Cohen contributed to this story. 

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