• stickly@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    On one hand, true. But some things to consider:

    • Only about 1.4 million votes were cast, ~13% of the state’s registered voters. If you look at a map of the volume of El-Sayed’s votes, this low turnout let a relatively small number of local hot spots swing the election with higher-than-normal turnout due to his focus on them
    • That moneyball strategy succeeding is a good sign regardless of the margin; the opposition spent millions of dollars in big market cities (notably Detroit) and on state wide campaigns and still failed to keep up. Spending from AIPAC and corporate interests was something like 11:1 vs his total campaign spend ($95 per non El-Sayed vote vs $9 for)
    • Michigan has open primaries, meaning any voter could ignore the red side of the ballot (mostly uncontested and landslides) to poison the opponents primary. I’m not sure if this is quantified anywhere, but it’s definitely a factor considering republican strategists view the nascent progressive wing as a larger threat than establishment dems