Washington Examiner columnist Salena Zito criticized Democrats for supporting candidates such as Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul el Sayed, who are “walking on the edge about socialism.”
El Sayed’s opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), ripped him for not being transparent about his finances, saying he only released a single form, and not his full tax returns or personal financial disclosure.
“Since Abdul refuses to show voters what’s really in his tax return and personal finances, I have some questions,” Stevens said on X Wednesday.
Stevens went on to comb through some of el Sayed’s finances, including capital gains, property sales, and other income sources.
Zito said questions about el Sayed’s finances should be a turnoff to voters, but “that’s not the moment that Democrat voters are in. They are more interested in falling in love with a candidate than sort of being pragmatic and reasonable about it.”
“He’s very charismatic, he’s meeting the moment, he’s walking on the edge about socialism, he’s just like right there with a wink and a nod,” Zito said on Fox Business’s The Bottom Line Thursday.
Zito argued that establishment Democrats do not want a socialist candidate and said primary voters tend to be on the far-left or far-right.
“They tend to show up more than a whole cloth of the party, and that’s the challenge for the Democrats in Michigan,” Zito said.
“They are out of sort of touch with what these grassroots activist primary voters are interested in being swayed by.”
Zito also called out other socialists, such as former Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner, for attempting to appeal to voters as a working man of the people.
“I find it so insulting to the working class that they think that is who Graham Platner is. ‘This is what we think a working-class person is like,’ and they put this guy out there, and he has so many problems,” Zito said. “It’s such a caricature of someone who works with their hands.”
Platner dropped out of the Senate race in Maine last week amid calls that he withdraw after multiple women came forward with sexual assault allegations.