Axelrod: El-Sayed Must Court Voters He Lost in Primary

David Axelrod, the chief strategist for both of Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, said Abdul El-Sayed's Democratic Senate primary victory in Michigan was "very, very impressive" but warned that the narrow margin exposed real weaknesses the candidate must fix before November.

Speaking with NPR's Michel Martin, Axelrod was asked about Sen. Bernie Sanders' assessment on Wednesday's All Things Considered that the win was "the most extraordinary victory in modern American politics." Sanders said El-Sayed "took on everybody and over $60 million."

Axelrod did not go that far. "I don't think it was the most extraordinary victory in history," he said, but noted El-Sayed "was outspent vastly in that race" and survived, calling it "a commentary on the limits of money in politics." Still, he said, "it was a lot closer than the polls suggested and, I think, than he expected."

That, Axelrod argued, carried a benefit. He described El-Sayed as "incredibly talented as a candidate" and passionate, but "very sure of himself in ways that can be off-putting," and said the result was "a humbling element" for both factions of the Democratic Party. El-Sayed performed well with highly educated voters and young people, Axelrod said, but "among rural voters, among African American voters, not so much."

Asked whether Republican efforts to tie El-Sayed to radical politics echoed attacks on Obama, Axelrod said there were similarities, but that Obama was "very much a center-left politician" who focused on unifying, bread-and-butter concerns and the war in Iraq. He urged El-Sayed to "focus like a laser" on cost-of-living issues.

Axelrod also said El-Sayed is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and does not support abolishing police, eliminating prisons or open borders, and should make that separation clearer. The risk, he said, is that Republican Mike Rogers, "who has pledged his fidelity to Trump," uses those associations to change the subject in a midterm that would otherwise turn on a president with a 35% approval rating in Michigan.

He called Rep. Haley Stevens' endorsement of El-Sayed symbolically important and said El-Sayed should embrace it more enthusiastically. "He needs them all now, and that's what a split primary does," Axelrod said.