Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is leading opponent former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) by a few points in the battle for a seat in the upper chamber, according to new polling. In the EPIC-MRA poll, 43 percent of…
Page A9From§Eachthe late evening edition — 31 August 2026
Bernie says some Democrats want their nominee to lose; that nominee then takes the poll lead.
As it ran on the front
Excuse me — sorry, one second, I had it right here. [flips pages] Here it is. I wrote this down because it bugged me, the wording of it. Senator Sanders says, and I'm reading it straight off the page, that 'some Democrats may want their own Senate nominee to lose.' Some. Not most, not a few troublemakers he's willing to name — some. That's the word I keep coming back to. In thirty years of carrying a notebook I have never once heard a number that vague used with that much confidence.
So I got to thinking about it at home, the way I do. I got out a jar of marbles — my wife keeps them for the grandkids — and I dumped 'em on the kitchen table. Say the jar's the Michigan Senate primary. Say some of the marbles are voters who, per the Senator, would rather lose the seat than let a particular fella win it. Now, how many marbles is 'some'? Two? Twenty? I couldn't tell you. Senator Sanders couldn't tell you either, not on the page I've got.…
…(cont) But here's the other page — this one's dated a little later. Same fella, the one some Democrats supposedly want to lose. Mr. El-Sayed. And what's the headline? He's edging ahead. In the poll. The actual poll, with the actual numbers, taken after the Senator's comment went out over the wire.
Now I'm not a numbers man, I leave that to my nephew, he does taxes. But I keep looking at these two pages side by side on my kitchen table, the marbles still sitting there where I left 'em, and something's not sitting right with me. If some meaningful chunk of the party wanted this fella to lose bad enough for a sitting Senator to go on the record about it — and then the same fella turns around and takes the lead — either the some wasn't very many marbles, or the marbles didn't do what they said they wanted to do.
I don't know. I'm just an old man with a notebook and a jar. But — oh, and one more thing, before you go — if 'some' Democrats wanted him to lose, and the poll's dated after the comment ran, what changed the marble count?
“Bernie's not warning anybody, he's naming a wing of his own party out loud, and then the numbers come back and make him look like he was talking about the wrong guy. Watch who keeps quiet once the poll drops.”
“This is exactly the chaos you get when the far left picks its own nominees — even their own leadership doesn't trust the process. Wait, did I just say Bernie Sanders proves Democrats are chaotic? That's... actually not a bad line for us.”
The receipts
Bernie Sanders claims Democratic donors and party leaders are undermining Abdul El-Sayed's Michigan Senate bid over progressive threats to oligarchy.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.