THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2026
Unless you were watching The Five: Another day, another poll—though of course, it's only one poll.
The new Michigan poll is only one poll. But here's what the new poll says:
SHOCK POLL: El-Sayed Opens Up 7-Point Lead Over GOP Rival After Recent Data Showed Him Trailing
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) came ahead with a healthy lead on his opponent Republican Mike Rogers in the latest polling following recent surveys showing a much closer race.
According to polling from Susquehanna released on Wednesday, El-Sayed is polling at 46% while Rogers is seven points behind at 39%.
Other recent polling has shown a much closer race. A Fox News survey had Rogers leading El-Sayed at 51%-47%...
Last week, we took note of that Fox News poll. The new poll from Susquehanna has El-Sayed up by seven.
Susquehanna Polling and Research has often been praised for its work in the past. That, of course, doesn't mean that this new poll has to be accurate.
Is El-Sayed actually leading Rogers at this point? There's no way to know for sure! We do know that we all should feel sorry for the messenger children of the Fox News Channel, who found themselves forced to go deep into the blarney on the day that new survey appeared.
Friends, is there anything Dana Perino won't say at this point? Surrounded by a gang of spear-chuckers, she was assigned the unlovely task of leading the second pseudo-discussion on yesterday's edition of The Five.
Their mission, should the panelists choose to accept it:
Convince the largest audience in all of American "cable news" that El-Sayed's efforts are coming undone.
Perino was hosting the segment. Because there's nothing she won't read from prompter for pay, she wittily started with this:
PERINO (8/19/26): So he's Chucky [?] mission overboard!
Chuck Schumer sure sounds like he's already hedging his bets on far-left Abdul El-Sayed, the candidate he did not back in the primary, telling the Washington Post [text appears on the screen]:
"A path to winning back the Senate clearly goes through Michigan, but we have a whole bunch of different paths."
Inevitably, a witty Fox chyron said this:
SCHUMER CHUCKS EL-SAYED
With Perino politely reciting, that's what millions of viewers were told.
Having said that, hold on! Did that statement really make it sound like Schumer has given up on the Michigan Senate race? As the segment proceeded, the other children agreed to pretend that it did.
It didn't quite sound that way to us. When we went to the Washington Post report in question, this is the larger passage we found:
Backlash in Michigan complicates Democrats’ road to retaking the Senate
[...]
Schumer said he was confident El-Sayed would win, citing the enthusiasm of his supporters. Still, Schumer and J.B. Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC, the lead Democratic super PAC in Senate races, both disputed that Democrats had no shot at retaking the majority without Michigan.
“A path to winning back the Senate clearly goes through Michigan, but we have a whole bunch of different paths,” Schumer said.
We don't know what Schumer actually thinks, but that's the actual Post report about what he actually said. He may even believe, as some observers may be coming to do, that Democratic candidates suddenly seem to be alive in an unexpected number of traditional red states.
(That would include some Independent candidates who would caucus with Democrats.)
We don't know what Schumer thinks, but that's what Schumer said. Unless you were watching The Five, where Dana Perino was reading text designed to please Fox viewers.
Increasingly, we're struck by the things Perino seems to be willing to do on The Five. In that opening volley, she pleasured viewers with the thought that it's all over in Michigan—did so on the very day when a poll arrived showing El-Sayed ahead by seven points!
The new poll went unmentioned by Perino, but also by the day's other performers:
The Five: Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Emily Compagno: co-host, Outnumbered
Harold Ford: increasingly hard to explain
Jesse Watters: host, Jesse Watters Primetime
Dana Perino: co-host, The Five
Tom Shillue: comedian
Her initial presentation hadn't seemed to make sense, but the other children played along as the segment continued.
It fell to Harold Ford to say the following. Allegedly, he was sitting in the program's Democratic Party/non-MAGA chair. It fell to him to say this.
PERINO: Harold Ford Jr., if Michigan is off the table, do the Senate Republicans breathe a little easier, even if they're having to spend a lot of money in Ohio and Texas?
FORD: So, for the leader of the Democrats in the Senate to say that about Michigan, I think it gives a window, not only into his thinking, but I think some of the things Jesse said in his remarks about, his comments about, the swing vote there...
Did Ford know what Schumer had actually said? Later, the persistently puzzling Emily Compagno improbably pitched in with this:
PERINO: Emily, Bernie Bros—and Bernie Sanders himself strikes again. And I imagine that Chuck Schumer doesn't want to be seeing him in the lunchroom.
COMPAGNO: It's so telling that he's not saying—Schumer's not saying, "OK, come on, guys! We can still win!" Or, "We can still win without Michigan."
He's explaining how they can win without Michigan. So this is not sort of cheerleading to me. This is not championing, this is crisis management.
In fairness, Compagno is a famous fast talker. We aren't sure if the word "or" was included in her initial jumble or not.
Either way, we have no idea what she meant, and neither did anyone else. It was "close enough for cable news work" on the day when that new poll appeared.
("I think they've already given up" on Michigan, Compagno eventually said.)
Regarding Perino, she advanced two other points to tell Fox viewers what Fox News wanted its viewers to hear:
Additional points from Perino:
1) A 20-year-old staffer for El Sayed had made a stupid remark on X. According to several panelists, this would surely be enough to doom the campaign all by itself
2) Back in May, the candidate had "compared himself to Jesus."
The silly remark by the 20-year-old is likely to affect as many as zero votes. The children were really reaching when they wailed about that.
Regarding El-Sayed as Jesus, Perino voiced that claim as soon as she had finished pretending to report what Schumer had said. We're going to leave it to you to decide if El-Sayed had drawn some such comparison in some sort of troubling way.
You can click here to see what The Five's viewers were shown. For a somewhat fuller presentation of the interview session in May, you can simply click this.
As for yesterday's presentation, we would tell you this:
Schumer had told the Washington Post that El Sayed is going to win. Also, a new poll had him up by seven points:
Unless you were watching The Five!
Tomorrow: Days of "socialism" (and what the Sam Hill is that?)
ReplyDeleteOne word: boring.
...although indeed: the ongoing splintering of the Dumbocrat pseudo-party into fascist and trotskyite factions might turn interesting at some point. Let us grab some popcorn, and keep our fingers crossed...
There is no B in dum you fucking idiot. This is a well known unknown. Ask Dear Leader!!!
DeleteThe agent who murdered Trotsky in Mexico is still considered a hero in Russia.
DeleteTrump tanks the economy with policies that make as much sense as changing the catapults on aircraft carriers, then hand picks politicians that wholeheartedly back the disaster he has created. Save your popcorn for November, MAGAt. You'll be choking on it.
DeleteRussia has been a right wing country engaging in imperialism for hundreds of years.
DeleteSocialism was never going to take hold there, much less communism.
The USSR, even by its own admission, operated under state capitalism headed by a right wing authoritarian regime.
The most popular aspects of the US government are things that fall more on the socialism spectrum than capitalism.
Capitalism leads to greater wealth inequality, so it is increasingly unpopular.
Trump, aside from his corruption and crimes, is a big cheerleader for capitalism, which explains in part why Trump is the least popular president in history.
Has it been a whole day without Somerby attacking the dirty Muslim? Time to get back on message.
ReplyDeleteGood point. Except that there was no attack on El Sayed in today's post. Zero. But otherwise, you're spot on.
DeleteSomerby did hint that maybe the poll showing him ahead is wrong. Because anything can happen. Why would there be so much money spent conducting and publicizing poll results, if they were so unreliable that no one can say for sure what will happen in an election? Somerby wants 100% certainty before he will pay attention to a favorable poll for Democrats, but how much certainty do real human beings need? Poll margins-of-error are estimates of likelihood that the actual lead is within a range of numbers. I doubt the margin of error on this poll is greater than 7, so it seems relatively safe to say that El Sayed is ahead.
DeleteSomerby pretends to understand statistics, except when it comes to polls showing a candidate he does not support ahead in a race. Then it is all Greek to him.
It seems to me Somerby always attaches the same caveats to a poll.
DeletePolls come with caveats of their own. Somerby's amount to denying the info provided by the poll. That is incorrect to do, statistically speaking.
DeleteJust you wait, Hector. El-sayed will probably be prickly again, which will send Somerby back to gnashing his teeth and clutching his pearls.
DeleteSomerby's whole shtick is that he never says things directly.
DeleteToday was an attack on El-Sayed, Somerby is indicating where he thinks Fox News gets it wrong in the way they attack El-Sayed, and then he suggests his preferred angle of attack.
These trolls are all the same, they demand nuance when it benefits their agenda, but then demand people take Somerby at face value. Hilarious!
El-Sayed’s prickliness is his problem. If he were just more humble in the face of Trump’s gutter attacks, instead of launching smug prickly attacks, surely swing voters would listen to him then. I’m sure it would stop the republican Islamophobia in its tracks.
ReplyDeleteIf only it were just the Republicans.
DeleteWait, I thought it was Ossof who was prickly...
DeleteOssoff is the angry one.
Delete"A prickly person is someone who acts unfriendly, gets annoyed very fast, and reacts with sharp words. They are hard to approach because they seem defensive, like a plant with thorns."
DeleteEl-Sayed smiles too much for this to fit his personality.
Who goes around telling Democrats not to defend themselves from insults?
“About Natalie Harp: These White House staffers are adults. Public officials paid by the taxpayer with immense power in positions of public trust. And whether it’s Natalie Harp printing out Donald Trump’s daily dose of delusion and flattery. Or Peter Navarro steering taxpayer funded loans to Trump family investments. Or Pete Hegseth deluding the president daily into deepening this quagmire in the Middle East, no one cares about their feelings.”
DeleteOssoff then compared the plight of U.S. service members fighting in Iran based on Trump’s falsehoods with the “circle of sycophantic aides” who tell Trump “what he wants to hear.”
Keep it coming.
As AOC explains, for Dems to win they need to attack Republicans aggressively, particularly on their racism, sexism, and xenophobia, but also on their incompetence and corruption.
Delete"Surrounded by a gang of spear-chuckers, she..."
ReplyDeleteSomerby knows that the word spear-chucker has offensive racial overtones because it has been used to refer to African Americans using a word describing them as primitive hunters using spears. It is akin to when Natalie Harp pictured the Obamas as apes.
We understand that there are very few African Americans on Gutfeld's show. Just Tyrus and occasionally someone like Sherrod Small. So it isn't as if Somerby were using the term to insult Gutfeld's crew. So, who is he trying to insult?
Such a term is way too weird to have been used innocently. Somerby appears to be thumbing his nose at those on the left who think derogatory racially charged terms should be avoided because they are offensive to all of us who have worked so hard to improve the status of black Americans and other people of color. And it isn't as if there weren't other terms that would convey his meaning more effectively.
That makes this a juvenile insult aimed at the very same lefties that Somerby claims to be one of, blue America. And that makes him an asshole. But we already knew that about him. He apparently thinks it is silly when black Americans complain about being likened to near-naked savages with bones in their noses, tossing spears at rocks and an occasional marmot.
Today Somerby is rearing up to his full 5'4" with is hands on his hips, asserting "you can't stop me from being a full-on bigot and Ima gonna say whatever I want, just you watch me!"
And those A-rabs better not be getting prickly about it.
I'll bet it would please Fox viewers to hear Somerby refer to spear-chuckers. Almost as much as hearing someone say the n-word.
DeleteWhy do good decent people avoid using offensive slurs in public? Somerby's mother perhaps never taught him that bit of etiquette.
Harold Ford Jr. may be identified as African American. Was Somerby referring to him? If so, that was doubly inappropriate.
DeleteFord was a Sinema, Manchin sort of Democrat, allying himself with Republicans fiscally, ignoring the Black Congressional Caucus and "making friends across the aisle" according to Wikipedia. He now works in finance and is free to come out as a Democrat in name only. He is a very light skinned African American person of mixed heritage (by his own self-description).
Having lived in TN, it is hard to find anything good coming from Tennessee, but Justin Jones and Justin Pearson are two.
DeleteFord was a Fetterman.
DeleteThe path to taking back the senate goes through all 50 states.
ReplyDeleteIf Fox doesn't convince viewers that Michigan is not a lost cause, they may not go to the polls, which will hurt all Republicans on the ballot. So they are trying to urge their base to get out and vote, even when it won't change the outcome for El-Sayed. Talking about the race with the Muslim in it will be more motivating than talking about candidates with less appeal to bigotry.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it obvious why Fox is doing this? And should there be any surprise that they would lie about election prospects, when they lie about so many other things? I do not see why Somerby bothered to write today's essay, except that it is his job as an influencer to advance the talking points on Gutfeld.
Somerby says: "Her initial presentation hadn't seemed to make sense, but the other children played along as the segment continued."
And so does Somerby play along too, as if there were anything worth saying about any of this.
I don't think it's any more brilliant strategizing than feeding feel-good sneering to people who are always on the lookout for it. They have an audience to entertain.
DeleteI agree with Somerby that the discussion mischaracterized what Schumer was saying in his statement. They were saying that Schumer wasn't going to share funding with El Sayed because he thought he was going to lose. El Sayed is raising money for the general election just as he did for the primaries -- from the grassroots. Send him some.
Deletehttps://secure.actblue.com/donate/palpac-abdul-el-sayed
"We're going to leave it to you to decide if El-Sayed had drawn some such comparison in some sort of troubling way. "
ReplyDeleteIn case any of us missed the derogatory stuff that Fox was pimping, here it is again, courtesy of Somerby, but without any rebuttal or commentary or explanation. Just to make sure none of Somerby's readers missed the Fox complaint and the words Somerby calls a mistake by a 20-something staffer.
I suspect that Perino (and maybe Somerby too) does not understand that Jesus is a holy figure to Muslims. But El-Sayed equates only their radicalism. The supposed mistake by the campaign aide was to say "Mike Rogers' campaign has the aesthetics of a 1960s white flight suburb and a KKK cross burning." That isn't only about the display of the flag, as Perino tries to make it, but about the whole red pickup with signs on the side. You can clearly see what he means. We have all seen those trucks on the streets, even if Perino plays dumb about it. Many of us have an emotional reaction to those guys, because they don't own a flag that belongs to all of us, not just Rogers. I know several liberals in my area who deliberately display the flag in order to show that the flag does not symbolize Trump or the right, no matter how many of them are used to decorate ranch rail fences, driveways and mailboxes in rural areas.
Complete with a good-ole-boy in shirtsleeves hanging out of the window.
DeleteRednecks gonna redneck.
DeleteSchumer is telling Democrats that all votes, in all of the states, are important to taking back the house and senate. All Democrats need to get out there and vote. No one can afford to stay home. Republicans are urging their voters to do the same thing. This is how elections work.
ReplyDeleteElectorally speaking, in contemporary times, swing voters are a myth.
ReplyDeleteThe only folks that cling to that myth are old school political consultants that are more focused on profits than Dems winning because their business model depends on misinformation about supposed "swing voters", and Republicans that are trying to fool Dems into a bad strategy focused on "swing voters".
You know more about elections than the political consultants, believe me.
DeleteIt is hard to argue that Carville, for example, knows anything about current elections. I think @2:26 has a point. Are there swing voters during these primaries affecting the outcomes?
Delete"Are there swing voters during these primaries affecting the outcomes?"
DeleteYou can't make this shit up.
Emily Compagno! Emily Compagno!
ReplyDeleteI remember her. She's the one that lied about her background and completely made up her resume.
Hey, grift is in, all the cool kids are doing it.
Trump often compares himself to Jesus.
ReplyDeleteTypical of Republicans, rules for thee but not for me.
Today Somerby takes a break from his usual whining about how Gutfeld is bad for Republican branding, to whine about other Fox News characters.
ReplyDeleteIt may be easier to understand why El-Sayed is increasing his lead, if you know what is going on in MI. From Doktor Zoom at Wonkette:
ReplyDelete"Jake Lang was arrested for assaulting cops with a baseball bat at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but was pardoned by Donald Trump before his case went to trial. On Tuesday, he got a bunch of fellow rightwing bigots to join him for what he billed as a “Christian Crusader March” outside a City Council meeting in Dearborn, Michigan — which as you probably know is a very Arab-American and Muslim city next door to Detroit.
Michigan Advance estimated the crowd of bigoted freaks, counterprotesters, and onlookers outside the Henry Ford Library (the council meeting had been moved in advance for safety) peaked at about 2,000 people; police made 22 arrests of people from both Michigan and from around the country, mostly on misdemeanor charges like breach of peace or disorderly conduct. Being a racist fuckwad remains legal under the First Amendment, not that it’s anything to brag about. For the most part, police lines kept the bigot assholes separated from counterprotesters, although there were moments when scuffles nearly broke out.
Here’s our favorite observation from the Michigan Advance story:
A significant portion of the crowd was uninterested in violence. The Advance observed several women urging their male partners to “shut the f**k up,” and stay calm out of concern that “you’re going to get arrested.”
The report didn’t indicate whether the women were with bigot protesters or with counterprotesters, but either way, blessed be the shut the fuck upmakers."
https://www.wonkette.com/p/its-lucky-dearborns-turn-to-host
This kind of right wing provocation is radicalizing people who normally might not be attracted to El-Sayed as strongly.