There are candidates who run on economic justice and there are candidates who run on economic justice with a 2025 household income of $686,069, which is nearly 10 times Michigan’s median household income of approximately $71,000, and Abdul El-Sayed, the Bernie Sanders-backed progressive running for Michigan’s open Senate seat, is the second kind, which Fox News described today as “champagne socialism accusations” in a headline that El-Sayed’s opponents have presumably already converted into a campaign mailer.
El-Sayed, a physician, public health advocate, and former candidate for Michigan governor in 2018, is running on a platform that includes Medicare for All, housing affordability, and economic equity for working Michigan families, per Fox News. He was endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. His household income for 2025 was $686,069, which he disclosed on financial forms as required for Senate candidates, which is the disclosure mechanism that exists specifically to produce exactly this kind of story in the seven days before a primary election. His income derives primarily from speaking fees, book royalties, and consulting arrangements, all of which are legitimate income sources and none of which involve a factory floor in Michigan.
Michigan’s median household income is approximately $71,264, per the most recent Census Bureau figures. El-Sayed’s household income is $686,069. The ratio is approximately 9.6 to 1, which Fox News rounds to “nearly 10 times,” which is accurate and which is also the number that his primary opponents repeated in every available format following the disclosure. El-Sayed’s campaign has not yet addressed the income figure with a number of its own.
Sanders’s previous Senate endorsee this cycle was Graham Platner, who dropped out of the Maine race 35 days after winning the primary amid a Nazi tattoo, a sexting scandal, and two sexual misconduct allegations. El-Sayed does not have a Nazi tattoo, per available reporting. He does have a $686,069 household income, which is a different kind of primary liability in a race premised on economic justice, and which the Republican nominee will presumably address in the general election regardless of who wins Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
The primary is Tuesday. The general election is November. Michigan’s median household income is $71,264.
When the economic justice candidate’s household income is nearly 10 times Michigan’s median and the primary is Tuesday, what exactly is the message?
Sources
Breitbart: Fetterman: Can’t Support ‘Pro-Hamas’ El-Sayed
Raw Story: Polls show surge in Michigan Senate race after opponents’ smear campaign ‘backfired’
HuffPost: The GOP Is Boosting A Progressive Candidate In Michigan. He Says He’ll Make Them ‘Rue The Day.’
