Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has a unity event in Detroit on Sunday. He also has a list of people who aren't invited to it. The list has one name on it, and it's the person he's supposed to be unifying with.
El-Sayed said Saturday he did not want Rep. Haley Stevens, the congresswoman he beat in the August primary, to join him at the party unity event, according to The New York Times. Newsmax reported his campaign went further and asked Stevens to stay away from its remaining events, three days before Tuesday's election.
That's not a unity event. That's a birthday party where you forgot to invite the cake.
Here's how we got here. Stevens has been demanding El-Sayed reject an ad from Rebellion PAC that ties U.S. aid to Israel to the price of groceries, a spot critics have called antisemitic. El-Sayed's campaign distanced itself from the ad. Stevens wanted more than distance. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz called it "incomprehensible" that he won't condemn it, per Breitbart.
So the man asking Michigan for a Senate seat has an ad problem about groceries and a guest-list problem about his own party. Two problems down. The third is Tuesday.
The Sunday event at a Detroit church was set to feature Rep. Jim Clyburn. The one Democrat who most wanted to talk about the ad is now the one person told to stay home. Somebody in Detroit printed "UNITY" on a banner and then hired a bouncer.
Think about the campaign meeting where this got decided. Somebody said, "We need to show the party is together." Somebody else said, "Great, and to make it look together, we'll remove the part that isn't." That's not strategy. That's how my uncle fixes a squeaky door. He takes the door off.
Michigan voters have felt this exact move before. You call the cable company to fix the bill. They transfer you to "customer unity." Then they hang up. That's El-Sayed's whole closing argument: the line is busy, and Haley Stevens is on hold forever.
El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers in a race that could help decide control of the Senate. Three days out is a strange time to start cutting people. Most campaigns wait until after they win to stop returning calls. El-Sayed is ahead of schedule on that, if nothing else.
And Stevens? She's a sitting Democratic member of Congress from Michigan who ran statewide and got a lot of Democratic votes doing it. El-Sayed needs those voters on Tuesday. He just told the woman they voted for that she's not welcome at the event named after getting along.
That's the Democratic Party in Michigan heading into the weekend: one candidate, one church, one unity rally, and one chair with a "reserved" sign that means the opposite.
So Sunday's event is still on, still in Detroit, and still called unity. It's just going to be a lot easier to be unified when everybody who disagrees has been asked to leave the cake at home.
The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is parody and commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations, and fictional details are not factual claims.
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