Who we're voting for

Two candidates who aren't bought

That is the whole reason we are working on this race. Before you look at anybody's policy list, ask the simpler question: who is paying for them, and what have they actually delivered?

Start with the money

Almost everything people are furious about — rent, groceries, your utility bill, who gets listened to — runs back through the same question. Not left or right. Bought or not bought.

It is also the most common thing people say would make them participate: get corporations and their money out of the way. So this is not a side issue we are raising to seem principled. It is the reason these two are worth your Tuesday.

U.S. Senate

Abdul El-Sayed

He has never taken a dime of corporate PAC money or DTE money. In a race where that is not true of everyone else, it is not a talking point — it is the entire difference.

What he says he's there to do

Three things, in his order:

  • Get money out of politics.
  • Put money back in your pocket.
  • Pass Medicare for All.

Notice the first one. Most candidates put campaign finance last, in the section nobody reads. He leads with it, which is the tell that he means it.

What he has already done

Anyone can promise. This is the part that matters, and it has numbers attached:

  • Cancelled up to $700 million in medical debt for roughly 300,000 Michiganders — debt that was wrecking people's credit for the crime of getting sick.
  • Got lead out of school drinking water.
  • Got free glasses to kids who needed them and could not afford them.

His own line, and it's the right one

"Life in Michigan shouldn't be this hard or expensive."

That is the whole argument in one sentence. It is not a slogan about democracy in the abstract, and it is not a five-point plan. It is the thing you already think every time you look at a receipt.


Governor

Chris Swanson

One promise you can actually check: a six-month freeze on DTE and Consumers rate hikes. Not "energy policy." Not a task force. Your bill, held still.

Go look at your bill

Find what you paid DTE or Consumers five years ago and what you pay now. Nobody put that increase to a vote. Somebody approved it, and somebody took their money.

A rate freeze is the rare campaign promise that passes the only test worth applying: a year from now you will be able to tell whether it happened. "Fighting for working families" fails that test. "Freeze the rate hikes" passes it.

He is not running like it's owed to him

He has said plainly that this race is not a coronation, and that voters want actions rather than talking points from establishment candidates.

For a lot of people that is the most important sentence in the race — not because of who it is aimed at, but because somebody finally said the obvious thing out loud. He has also run this deliberately as "options, not opponents," which is a strange way to run if you are only in it for yourself.

Name the object

If you take one thing from this page: this is about the number on your utility bill. Everything else is downstream of who gets to set that number and who they answer to.


The rest of the slate

Down-ballot

Twenty-three more races, on the same Democratic primary ballot. You will only see the ones drawn for your address — so check your districts first, then open the chamber you need.

Find my districts mvic.sos.state.mi.us — official state site

U.S. Congress 5 seats
  • District 1 Kyle Blomquist Site
  • District 4 Diop Harris Site
  • District 7 Will Lawrence Site
  • District 12 Rashida Tlaib Site
  • District 13 Donavan McKinney Site
State Senate 6 seats
  • SD 1 Abe Aiyash Site
  • SD 2 Abbas Alawieh Site
  • SD 3 Eboni Taylor Site
  • SD 7 Shadia Martini Site
  • SD 9 Ren Nushaj Site
  • SD 10 Amanda Treppa Site
State House 12 seats
  • HD 3 Alabas Farhat Site
  • HD 7 Tonya Myers Phillips Site
  • HD 8 Chris Gilmer-Hill Site
  • HD 9 Arthur Harrington Site
  • HD 11 Michael Howard Site
  • HD 15 Leslie Herrick Site
  • HD 32 Jimmie Wilson, Jr. Site
  • HD 42 Bill Korb Site
  • HD 54 Sarah Pounds Site
  • HD 58 Katrina Manetta Site
  • HD 74 Tyjuan Thirdgill Site
  • HD 107 Melissa Perron Site

Every candidate on this slate links to their own campaign site. Open one and read them in their own words — we would rather you did that than take ours.

Vote the whole card

Down-ballot races are where turnout drops off hardest, which is exactly where one ballot counts for the most. Nobody wins a State House seat by forty thousand votes.


Not on Tuesday's ballot — these are November 3

Two proposals worth knowing about now

Neither is on the August 4 primary ballot. Both go to voters in November, and both are about the thing this whole site is about: who pays your utility, and who pays your politicians.

Statewide · November 3

Money Out of Politics

Would bar regulated utilities — DTE and Consumers among them — from giving to state officeholders and party committees, and bar companies holding government contracts worth more than $250,000 a year from giving to candidates.

It is, more or less, the argument at the top of this page written as law.

Where it stands: the Board of State Canvassers certified it 3–1 on July 25, clearing the signature threshold by 657. The Legislature now has 40 days to adopt it outright. If it doesn't, it goes to voters.

Michiganders for Money Out of Politics mopupmichigan.org

Ann Arbor only · November 3

Public Power (A2P2)

Would amend the city charter to create a municipal electric utility and a nine-member board — five elected by ward, four appointed by Council, with Council approving rates and borrowing.

It does not buy DTE's poles and wires. Doing that would take a separate vote later. This one sets up who would run it.

Where it stands: not on the ballot yet. Signatures are with the city clerk, who needs 6,500 validated by August 13 for it to go before voters. Treat it as likely, not settled.

Ann Arbor for Public Power annarborpublicpower.org


Two minutes

How to vote the whole slate

All of it is on one ballot. Here is the whole process, including the two things that stop most people.

01

You don't need to be a Democrat

Michigan does not register voters by party. Nothing about you is on file. You walk in and ask for the Democratic ballot — that is the entire qualification process, and it binds you to nothing.

How the ballot works →

02

You can register the same day

Not registered? Go to your city or township clerk's office — not your polling place — any time through 8 p.m. on Election Day. Register and vote in the same visit. Bring an ID or something with your address on it.

What to bring →

03

Stay in one column

The primary ballot is split by party. Vote in only the Democratic section for partisan races — marking candidates in two parties' sections voids the whole partisan part of your ballot.

More →

Official state lookup — mvic.sos.state.mi.us

Worth more than any ad

Send this to three people

Three specific people you can picture — not a broadcast. And lead with the mechanics, not the pitch: "you can still register" and "you don't have to be a Democrat" are the two things standing between them and a cast ballot.

Then ask the only question that matters: "When are you voting?"

Pick your day.

Naming a specific day is most of the work. It takes forty seconds.

Make my voting plan