'A Strong Working-Class Agenda With Moral Clarity': UAW Endorses Abdul El-Sayed

Momentum behind Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive hopeful for Michigan's US Senate seat, continued to build on Friday when the candidate won a major endorsement from the state's largest and most influential labor union, the United Auto Workers.The UAW is proud to endorse Abdul El-Sayed for US Senate, the union said in a post to social media. UAW members in Michigan want a fighter in Washington, DC who isn’t afraid to push forward a strong working-class agenda with moral clarity.Having never taken a dime from corporate PACs, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is someone we can trust to have our backs, the union continued. From Medicare for All to banning stock buybacks, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is ready, eager, and well-equipped to move our core issues in the US Senate. Despite stronger establishment backing for his opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8), recent polls show El-Sayed, Detroit's former health director, as a narrow frontrunner for the Democratic primary scheduled for early August, where the winner is expected to face the Republican former US Rep. Mike Rogers for the vacant Senate seat.El-Sayed has won the endorsements of other unions, such as National Nurses United; progressive groups, including the Working Families Party; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); and several like-minded Democrats, such as Michigan’s US Rep. Rashida Tlaib; Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.); and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.But the endorsement of the storied UAW, which boasts over 350,000 active and retired members in Michigan, might be his biggest yet as he seeks to transition fully from insurgent to frontrunner.I am so honored and humbled, El-Sayed said on social media as he prepared to join striking UAW Local 2093 American Axle workers on the picket line in Three Rivers on Friday. Michigan union autoworkers built the American middle class and proved that when people stand together, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. Solidarity forever. Dan Merica, a reporter at The Washington Post, noted that losing the UAW endorsement to El-Sayed was a particularly big blow to Stevens, who is running as a technocrat, often referring to herself as a 'manufacturing geek' because of her work as one of President Barack Obama’s top officials on the 2009 auto rescue.It could have major implications in a race that is not only critical for deciding the balance of power in the Senate this November, but is widely perceived as a battle for the future of the Democratic Party.Michigan's importance is surely not lost on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The New York Times reported on Friday that despite a public stance of neutrality, he is working behind the scenes to push party donors to support Stevens, the most conservative Democrat in the three-way race. The representative for suburban Detroit recently came under scrutiny over her backing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the for-profit health insurance industry.In response to what The Washington Post described as the establishment’s “concerted bid to hew to the political center,” the progressive advocacy group MoveOn said, “Once again the Democratic establishment seems to think it knows what’s best for voters [more] than voters themselves,” and congratulated El-Sayed on his endorsement.There’s a reason his campaign is inspiring people all over the state, said MoveOn's chief communications officer Joel Payne. His economic populism resonates with Michiganders who are sick of lip service, dark money, and politicians who don’t seem to get their day-to-day struggles.Those in congressional cloakrooms and in the establishment class in DC may not like it, he continued, but real Michiganders continue to make their support for El-Sayed’s economic populism and people-centered agenda clear.”