DAVID MARCUS: In booming Detroit, voters skeptical of socialism snake oil

It is rare to find a bartender who knows how to make a good Vuex Carre, but Emily, at Le Supreme Brasserie, knocked it out of the park. She grew up in the suburbs, but loves living her 20s downtown, and the revitalization of the Motor City she enjoys may be a problem for far-left senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

A bit later, on Sunday night, I met Nick, 29, who grew up in Detroit and now works in advertising in Chicago. He marvels at the changes he has seen in his hometown.

"It’s so different now, a bunch of these places didn’t even exist a few years ago," he said.

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I heard it over and over again, and I could see it, as well. Along Washington and Woodward, the shops were buzzing, and even the heavy smoke from Canada couldn’t keep people from strolling the thoroughfares and valleys in the grand, sturdy Midwestern brick castle of downtown.

Not far away, earlier in the day, I had met Sean who was walking his attractive dog, and who moved to Detroit in 2019 from Philly. He lives in one of the fancier downtown buildings and loves his adopted hometown, and the lifestyle in the city.

"It’s easy going," he told me. "There is a lot to do. It’s great."

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Sean is a committed Democrat who hates President Donald Trump.

"All that matters is that we elect a Democrat," he said. "R or D, that’s all it comes down to, which is a shame, but it's how things are."

For Sean, the top priority in the Aug. 4 Democratic Senate primary between Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens is electability. That is not great news for El-Sayed, who has been pushing back against the idea that he is too radical to get elected in purple Michigan.

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He has reason to be concerned, as I learned from James, a retired plumber in his 60s, who is Black and has been involved in civil rights movements.

"This just doesn’t feel like that movement I’ve been a part of, it feels different," James told me. "It feels foreign to me."

And he wasn’t alone, as it turns out. The day before, I had met Kelly, an American woman of Iranian descent who warned that today’s far-left candidates like El-Sayed "are just like in Iran." She said Muslim immigrants in nearby Dearborn, are not assimilating.

"When Joe [Biden] opened that border, they were planted there," she said.

Taken together, these recent encounters, from some very different people around Detroit, painted a picture that seems to be increasingly favoring Stevens, which is presumably why Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did a three-stop tour for El-Sayed.

On Monday, El-Sayid got another boost of sorts as Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed him, although frankly, that is about as surprising as Tony the Tiger endorsing Frosted Flakes.

What is missing for El-Sayed – and all of his socialist out-of-town pals – in this city that is booming in comparison to many others in America, is any real, pressing need for socialism. Unlike New York City, where the rent is always "too damn high," in Detroit, affordability is not proving to be the same magical incantation that it was for Gotham Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Many Democratic voters I talked to wanted a steadier hand on the system, and they want to beat Trump and the GOP. But they don’t want to blow up the system which has been thriving in many ways.

There may be one more trump card to be played in this tight race in the form of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has thus far declined to endorse either El-Sayed or Stevens. As confusing as it may be to Republicans around the country, Whitmer is very popular among Michigan Democrats, in part because of Detroit’s revitalization under her watch.

The stakes of this race for the national Democratic Party could not be higher. It is a true and fair test of whether the far-left wing of the party, led by college-educated Whites and immigrants, can replace the old party of Jefferson and Jackson led by the working class and native minorities.

Another thing that stood out in Motown was that, aside from the Bernie rally itself, not one voter I talked to brought up Israel. One way or the other, this matters because, while El-Sayed’s constant negative focus on Israel may put him on the right side of the issue with most Democrats, these days, it's not a driving issue.

Waiting in the background for the dust to settle is Republican Mike Rogers, who is set to take on the Democratic winner. From his point of his chances.

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