Throughout the current election cycle, the pundit class has made much of an enthusiasm gap that purportedly bedevils the Republicans. The Democrats, they tell us, are far more motivated to vote in the midterms than are their GOP counterparts. Oddly, we have heard very little about recent polls showing that the gap between extremely motivated Republicans and Democrats has narrowed considerably. Even more puzzling is the absence of any serious commentary on the very real lack of enthusiasm among Black voters for far-left Democratic candidates. Two recipients of this lukewarm Black support are Democratic Senate nominees Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico.
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These voters increasingly believe the Democrats take their votes for granted and that Senate nominees Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico personify that attitude.
El-Sayed is, of course, the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s open seat. He won the nomination by less than a single percentage point in the party’s primary, but his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), handily defeated him by 28 points in the heavily black Detroit area. And the news gets worse. A recent Washington Post-Schar School poll found the following: “Among likely Black voters, 83 percent say they want Democrats to control the Senate but 67 percent back El-Sayed.” And the portentous polling news for the Democrats just keeps on coming: “A Fox News poll conducted in late September found that just 77 percent of African American voters were supportive of El-Sayed, significantly below the usual Democratic benchmark for the demographic.”
To illustrate exactly how lethal these numbers are for El-Sayed’s campaign against his Republican opponent, former U.S. Congressman Mike Rogers, Vice President Kamala Harris received 89 percent of the Black vote in Michigan during the 2024 presidential election — and still lost the state to Trump. Thus, as many as 15 to 20 percent of them may sit this one out. Why? One participant in an MS Now focus group summed it up succinctly: “I think he’s taking advantage that we as Black people are Democratic, and he think we gonna vote for him anyway. And I’m like, ‘No sir, I’m gonna put uncommitted down on that little circle and move on.’” Meanwhile, Detroit’s second largest newspaper, the Detroit News, firmly refuses to endorse him:
Our gravest concerns involve El-Sayed’s associations with figures who have excused or minimized terrorism, his reluctance to unequivocally condemn dangerous rhetoric, and his support of extreme policies. At a time of rising anti-semitism, Democrats deserve leadership that unequivocally rejects rhetoric threatening Jewish communities … During the Oct. 8 Senate debate, El-Sayed also declined to identify whether Iran or Israel posed the greater threat to America, dismissing the comparison as hypothetical. Such evasiveness is unacceptable given the Iranian regime’s decades-long record of killing Americans, sponsoring terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East.
A loss by El-Sayed would substantially reduce the Democratic Party’s chances of winning a Senate majority because the seat is now held by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. The Republicans now enjoy a 53-47 majority, and they have the advantage of a GOP vice president who can cast a tie-breaking vote on legislation and presidential appointments. Consequently, in order to retake the Senate, the Democrats must hold every seat they now control, and flip four seats currently held by Republicans. If El-Sayed loses, the net number of Senate seats they need to flip will increase to five. Unless, of course, they manage to flip a Republican seat in some other state. This brings us to the truly weird Democratic nominee for the Senate seat in Texas.
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James Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) for the Democratic Senate nomination last March in a rancorous primary, the result of which was not accepted gracefully by the latter. As the Washington Times reported at the time, “Rep. Jasmine Crockett said this week that her failed bid for the Democratic Senate nomination in Texas was marred by racism, and made clear she does not intend to campaign alongside the man who beat her, state Rep. James Talarico.” He now faces Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the general election, after Mr. Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in a less than amicable Republican runoff in May. Crockett’s response to Democratic pressure to campaign with Talarico was reported by The Austin Independent:
The best thing that I can do for James Talarico isn’t me standing on a stage with him. It is the fact that I endorsed five candidates in the runoff who all happen to be Black men in the state of Texas and every single one of them won and they’re going on to November, meaning that they will pull out more Black people to vote. People keep trying to say, ‘well, Jasmine has to go and hold his hand.’ Nah, I don’t. And, honestly some people (are) just not gonna be sold on certain people that are running in the state of Texas. So the best thing I can do is take down ballot candidates, who no one’s ever heard of, and do my best to uplift them and increase the voter participation.
Not only will Rep. Crockett not campaign with him, but Talarico has been blasted by a Black civic group for cancelling a campaign event during his bizarre 12-day disappearance from the campaign trail. According to a Fox News report, the Central Texas African American Civic Engagement Symposium is profoundly frustrated that the Talarico campaign shows no interest in rescheduling the event: “It was a missed opportunity for Representative Talarico to directly address community skepticism and demonstrate the sincerity of his commitment to Central Texas African Americans.” Much of the frustration involved Talarico’s July pledge to spend $25 million on Black voter outreach. Only 2 percent of these funds ever arrived.
All of which brings us to the distrust with which Black voters view the Democratic Party. These voters increasingly believe the Democrats take their votes for granted and that Senate nominees Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico personify that attitude. They are not wrong. If elected, both of these candidates will revert to extreme positions that many Black voters don’t support and will be absent from their communities until the next election rolls. Voters, regardless of race, don’t like to be taken for fools. El-Sayed and Talarico may very well learn that lesson soon.
READ MORE from David Catron:
James Talarico’s 12-Day Campaign Absence Deserves Scrutiny in Texas
Democrat Donor Strike Comes Home to Roost
Ketanji Brown Jackson Throws a Fit As Supreme Court Backs SAVE Voter Verification
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