Bernie Sanders endorses anti-establishment Democrat for governor in Michigan
By David Weigel
July 25 at 6:33 PM
Fresh off a Kansas tour with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is endorsing one of the left’s last high-profile challengers of the year — Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for governor of Michigan in the Aug. 7 primary.
“Under Abdul’s leadership, Michigan can help lead the nation in guaranteeing health care for all through a Medicare for All single-payer type system; tuition-free public colleges and universities; a minimum wage of $15 per hour; and strong environmental protections,” Sanders said in a statement.
El-Sayed, 33, launched his campaign early in 2017 after leaving the Detroit Health Department, which he reestablished after budget cuts had shut it down. He enjoyed early attention from national media outlets, which were intrigued by his age, his Muslim faith — there has never been a Muslim governor of any state — and a Sanders-style platform in one of the largest states Sanders won in the 2016 presidential primaries.
Momentum didn’t immediately follow the media spotlight. El-Sayed spent weeks fighting to prove his Michigan residency because he had relocated to New York for work before moving back to the state. Gretchen Whitmer, a former state Senate leader who would be the state’s second female governor, locked up endorsements from labor unions and Democratic legislators. Shri Thanedar, a wealthy chemical testing executive, self-funded a series of ads that sold him as the race’s true “progressive” candidate. For a few weeks, he led El-Sayed and Whitmer in the polls.
But El-Sayed, whose campaign is led by veterans of Sanders’s 2016 bid, positioned himself as the next breakout star of this year’s Democratic primaries. His campaign organized a “People’s Summer” program, modeled on the 2016 Sanders operation, to out-organize Whitmer with volunteers. This weekend, El-Sayed will campaign in four Michigan cities alongside Ocasio-Cortez, the upset winner of a Democratic House primary in New York; before his primary, he will campaign with Sanders.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/07/25/bernie-sanders-endorses-anti-establishment-democrat-for-governor-in-michigan/
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