Your fear is that rural Michigan voters won't vote for El-Sayed? Because of his name or ethnicity? Or because of his policies?
I am in the most conservative district in the state, and have been for a long time. By way if contrast I can remember elections downriver where the Democratic candidate got 70%-80% of the vote (John Dingell). I worked in agriculture and have a lot of contacts. From what I am hearing and have observed for decades, it is cautious middle of the road Democrats who fare poorly. We can and have succeeded here. But not by pandering or playing it safe.
In 2006 Democrats won precincts across the northeast lower peninsula and all of the precincts in the UP. Obama did very well in rural precincts, winning many of them. Trump did well here, yes, but so did Sanders and Dean. I remember people saying about Dean "I may not agree with everything he says, but he says what he means and he is a fighter." In 2008, I would say to workers who had been voting Republican but were now supporting Obama, "but Rush said he is a Socialist" the answer was often "maybe that's what we need."
People don't care about ideology and don't talk about it. Crushing poverty, lack of access to healthcare, lack of access to anything but right wing media, collapsing infrastructure, inroads by wealthy outsiders, are all bigger factors than ideology. Sure, we can mock and ridicule the "anti-establishment" sentiment as ignorant and naive. Where does that get us? We can point out that there are a lot of low information voters here. True enough. Of course racist appeals work here (they work in the big city white suburbs, too.) All true.
I don't know that El-Sayed will do well here, but I do know that there is a growing sentiment that a radical shakeup is needed, especially among younger people. Too often Democrats have been listening to the consultants who want to fine tune the message to appeal to different constituencies. That approach has failed. Looking at you, James Carville. I wonder if he would have thrown a fit over FDR and the New Deal? "Too radical!! We need to move to the middle where the swing voters are!! That's how you win!"
I think we are going to flip the 1st district. If we did, El-Sayed would very likely win the state.
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