Here’s How Abdul El-Sayed Beats Mike Rogers

Dan Pfeiffer: “The first step to winning is unifying the Democratic Party. This has been a bitter primary, and it’s pretty clear there is no love lost between the candidates. Party unity is a two-way street, and Stevens and her supporters have to be willing to reciprocate, but as the winner, El-Sayed needs to take the lead in trying to bridge the divide. This requires him to be a gracious winner, something he didn’t really demonstrate down the stretch when it was clear he was going to win, and he was still calling Stevens the ‘worst candidate imaginable.'”

“Second is building a real base of support with Black voters. According to one pre-election poll, El-Sayed was losing to Stevens among Black voters by 30 points. We don’t have precise numbers from last night, but Stevens did better in the precincts with large numbers of Black voters… To win Michigan, a Democrat typically needs to win about 90% of Black voters, with high turnout. I imagine El-Sayed will be calling Barack Obama before the day is out.”