How a huge blindspot blew the Michigan primary predictions

Michigan Democrats nominated former public health official Abdul El-Sayed over Rep. Haley Stevens in a fiercely-fought primary on Tuesday. Yet even as pundits from all sides discuss whether El-Sayed is electable, given his progressive ideas, one pollster is observing that the experts who thought the election would hinge on race ignored a key variable — education level.

“It’s not so much about class as it is about education level,” pollster Frank Luntz posted on Wednesday. He then broke down the data.

“Abdul El-Sayed won 58.4 [percent] of the vote in counties where at least 30 [percent] of adults have a college degree,” Luntz wrote. “Haley Stevens won 51.4 [percent] of the vote in counties where less than 30 [percent] of adults went to college.”

In the build up to Election Day, experts in the mainstream media reported an election that was expected to hinge on race, with Black voters expected to prefer Stevens. While race was indeed a variable in terms of the outcome, it is also apparent that having an education made a voter more likely to prefer El-Sayed.

For example, in July, Politico reported on a poll which found El-Sayed leading Stevens by nine points, in a race that he won by less than one point. In continuation of that narrative of less-than-precise political prognostications, experts argued that El-Sayed might struggle to prevail because of Black voters.

“The 41-year-old son of Egyptian immigrants is seeking to deliver the party’s progressive insurgency its biggest win yet in the Michigan Senate primary,” wrote CNN's Eric Bradner and David Wright in July. “But he is running into resistance among Black voters, many of whom say the establishment he eschews has delivered for them in important ways.”

Also in July, MS NOW's Nnamdi Egwuonwu described how Black voters might be repulsed by El-Sayed because of misperceptions about his role in a voter movement from the left that cost Vice President Kamala Harris critical voters during her run in Michigan against former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

“For some Black Michiganders, tensions still linger from the state’s 2024 Uncommitted movement, which urged Democrats to vote “uncommitted” rather than for Joe Biden in that year’s primary, to protest U.S. support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza,” Egwuonwu wrote. “That history — along with the false perception that El-Sayed was among the Uncommitted activists who opposed Kamala Harris in the general election — could also help Stevens, several Black Democrats acknowledged to MS NOW.”