“NO OATH, NO SEAT” RULE BOMBSHELL — SOCIALISTS COULD BE IN THE CROSSHAIRS
Steube Targets New York Democratic Socialist With Oath Proposal — but the Constitution Already Sets the Rule
Rep. Greg Steube says the House should bar any member-elect who refuses the constitutional oath, directing the proposal at Democratic nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier. The oath is already mandatory. The harder question is whether Congress could use a new rule to judge a candidate’s sincerity or past activism before she has actually refused to take it. At the same time, a separate New York housing fight cited in the same political narrative is months old: the Pinnacle bankruptcy sale was approved in January, not blocked this week.
A new congressional controversy surrounding New York democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier is raising a straightforward constitutional principle — and a much more complicated legal question.
Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, said this week that he intends to pursue a House rules change aimed at member-elects who refuse to swear the oath required before serving in Congress. His comments came during an interview with conservative commentator Benny Johnson and were later repeated on Steube’s official X account.
“The oath to defend the Constitution isn’t optional,” Steube wrote. “If you’re elected to Congress but refuse to swear it, you shouldn’t be sworn in.”
On that narrow point, Steube is describing existing law rather than creating a new constitutional obligation.
Article VI requires members of Congress and other federal and state officials to be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution. The House itself explains that representatives must take that oath before exercising the duties of office.
But Steube went further by directing the proposal at Avila Chevalier, who defeated longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th District Democratic primary and is now the party’s nominee for November.
That is where the factual and legal distinctions become important. There is no public evidence that Avila Chevalier has said she will refuse the constitutional oath if elected.
Steube Announces an Idea — Not Yet a Filed Rule Text
Steube’s proposal emerged in real time during his interview with Johnson. After arguing that anyone unwilling to take the oath should not be seated, he said the program had given him the idea to file an amendment to House rules.
His later social-media post repeated the principle and called for a rules change. As of Aug. 16, however, no publicly available text explaining the exact mechanics of that proposal has been identified.
That matters because there are at least two very different versions of what such a rule could mean.
The first would simply restate existing practice: a member-elect who affirmatively refuses to take the oath cannot begin exercising the duties of a representative.
The second would empower the House to decide in advance that an elected candidate cannot sincerely support the Constitution because of political views, associations or past statements.
The first proposition is relatively straightforward. The second would create serious constitutional questions.
The Constitution Requires an Oath — but Also Limits Added Qualifications
The House has broad authority under Article I to judge the elections, returns and qualifications of its members and to adopt rules governing its proceedings.
But the Constitution itself establishes the basic qualifications for a representative: at least 25 years old, seven years a U.S. citizen and an inhabitant of the state when elected. Article VI separately requires the constitutional oath or affirmation.
The Supreme Court’s 1969 decision in Powell v. McCormack sharply limited the House’s ability to exclude a duly elected member who satisfies the Constitution’s qualifications. The case arose after the House refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell Jr. despite his reelection.
The Court concluded that the House could not use its qualifications power to create additional substantive eligibility requirements beyond those fixed by the Constitution.
That does not mean Congress is powerless to discipline members. After a member is seated, the House can censure, reprimand or, with a two-thirds vote, expel a member for serious misconduct.
But a rule saying a person may not serve because colleagues doubt the sincerity of an oath would be legally different from a rule dealing with someone who literally refuses to take the oath.
Avila Chevalier Has Not Publicly Refused the Oath
The central factual problem with the original narrative is its implication that Avila Chevalier is already refusing the constitutional oath.
She is not yet a member-elect. The general election has not taken place, and no reliable public report identified during this review shows her stating that she would decline to swear or affirm support for the Constitution if she wins.
Avila Chevalier is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and won the June 23 Democratic primary in NY-13, defeating Espaillat. NY1, citing the Associated Press, reported her leading 49.4% to 45.9% with most of the expected vote counted when the race was called.
Her politics are far to the left of Steube’s, and her record gives Republicans ample material for criticism. But ideological disagreement is not the same thing as a declared refusal to take the oath.
That distinction should remain explicit in straight news coverage.
The CUAD Connection Is Real — but Attribution Matters
Steube’s attack focuses heavily on Avila Chevalier’s history at Columbia University and her role in the organization that became Columbia University Apartheid Divest, or CUAD.
Avila Chevalier has publicly described herself as helping launch Columbia’s boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign while she was a student. Later reporting has characterized her as a co-founder or early organizer of the coalition that became CUAD.
Years after her student activism, CUAD became a central force in Columbia’s 2024 pro-Palestinian protests and posted increasingly militant rhetoric online. A now-deleted 2024 post declared, “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.”
CUAD and affiliated activists also circulated language praising resistance and revolutionary struggle, and some rhetoric associated with campus protests included “Death to America.” Columbia eventually suspended or severed recognition of organizations involved in disruptive protests.
Those facts are legitimate subjects for scrutiny. But the chronology matters.
Avila Chevalier graduated from Columbia years before the 2024 encampment and the most notorious CUAD statements. Evidence that she helped create an earlier divestment campaign does not automatically prove that she authored, approved or personally adopted every statement later issued in CUAD’s name.
A careful article should therefore attribute those statements to CUAD rather than silently converting them into direct quotations from Avila Chevalier.
The American-Flag Post Is Also a Separate Issue
Republicans have also highlighted old social-media posts attributed to Avila Chevalier, including one in which she joked about using an American flag as a napkin.
Avila Chevalier has faced questions about inflammatory posts from her younger years and has said publicly that she regrets some of her earlier language.
Those posts can be politically damaging and may shape how voters assess her judgment or patriotism.
They still do not establish that she intends to violate or refuse the oath of office.
That is the legal line Steube’s proposal would have to confront if it moves from a political statement to actual House text.
The House Cannot Simply Convert Political Speech Into a New Qualification
If Steube’s eventual amendment merely says no one may exercise the office without taking the Article VI oath, it would largely reinforce an obligation that already exists.
If it creates a test under which House leaders decide whether a member-elect’s ideology, associations or prior rhetoric proves insufficient loyalty, the proposal could collide with Powell and with the Constitution’s deliberately limited qualifications for House membership.
There is also a broader First Amendment concern. The government generally may not treat lawful political beliefs or associations as automatic proof that a person cannot faithfully carry out a public oath.
None of that prevents voters from rejecting a candidate over those views. It does not prevent political opponents from attacking them. And it does not prevent the House from using its disciplinary powers if an actual member later engages in punishable conduct.
But denying an election winner a seat before she has refused the oath would raise a substantially harder constitutional issue than Steube’s rhetoric suggests.
The Pinnacle Housing Fight Is a Separate — and Older — Story
The original article then pivots from Steube’s proposal to another dispute involving Mayor Zohran Mamdani: the bankruptcy sale of thousands of rent-regulated apartments formerly controlled by Pinnacle Group.
That section contains a major timeline problem.
The decisive bankruptcy-court fight did not occur “earlier this week.” It occurred in January 2026.
Pinnacle had entered bankruptcy in May 2025 under the weight of roughly $560 million in mortgage debt. The company’s portfolio included thousands of mostly rent-stabilized New York apartments.
After Mamdani took office, his administration asked the bankruptcy court to delay the auction and objected to a proposed sale to Summit Properties USA. City lawyers argued that the deal might leave the new owner without enough financial capacity to maintain the properties and address housing-code violations.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones rejected the city’s attempt to delay the auction. He later approved Summit’s purchase of more than 5,000 units in a deal valued at approximately $451 million.
The City Tried to Influence the Sale — Not ‘Confiscate’ the Properties
The phrase in the source article saying Mamdani wanted to “essentially confiscate” privately owned properties is commentary, not an accurate description of the court filing.
The city intervened as a creditor and as a government responsible for enforcing housing standards. It argued that Pinnacle owed roughly $12.7 million tied to housing-code violations and that tenants could face additional instability if the sale went forward without stronger protections.
Tenant groups also pressed the court to require binding commitments on repairs and management.
The court rejected the attempt to stop or materially delay the bankruptcy sale. That was a defeat for Mamdani’s administration, but it was not a ruling that New York City had attempted an unlawful seizure of the buildings.
Nor was it a ruling that the city could never intervene in the bankruptcy at all. The judge resolved specific motions and ultimately allowed the sale process to proceed.
The Pinnacle Story Has Moved On Since January
The housing story also did not end with the court order.
By June, Gothamist reported that Summit, the new owner of more than 5,000 mostly rent-stabilized apartments, agreed to forgive millions of dollars in back rent owed by tenants from before the sale.
Meanwhile, Mamdani scored a separate housing-policy victory in late June when the Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 to freeze rents on roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments beginning in October.
Those later developments make it misleading to present the January Pinnacle ruling as a new setback occurring in the same week as Steube’s announcement.
Two Political Fights, One Article — but They Should Not Be Blurred
The original piece tries to frame Steube’s oath proposal and the Pinnacle ruling as a single bad week for Mamdani.
That framing is too loose.
Mamdani did endorse Avila Chevalier, and her June primary victory is part of his growing influence over New York Democratic politics. Steube is using that connection to attack both Avila Chevalier and the democratic-socialist movement around the mayor.
But Steube’s proposal is a current August controversy, while the core Pinnacle bankruptcy ruling happened seven months earlier.
Combining them can work as political commentary. In a factual news article, the timeline needs to be explicit.
What Is Actually at Stake
Steube has identified a principle with broad constitutional support: members of Congress must swear or affirm that they will support the Constitution before they exercise the office.
The Constitution already says that.
The unresolved question is whether his eventual rule would stop there or attempt to create a new loyalty test based on lawmakers’ judgment about a candidate’s ideology and prior speech.
Avila Chevalier’s ties to Columbia’s divestment movement, CUAD’s later radical rhetoric and her own controversial past posts are all legitimate campaign issues. They can be examined, criticized and debated.
They are not, on the current public record, proof that she has refused the Article VI oath.
Likewise, Mamdani’s effort to influence the Pinnacle bankruptcy sale was an aggressive intervention on behalf of tenants and the city’s financial claims, but describing it as an attempted confiscation overstates what the administration asked the bankruptcy court to do.
The sharper story is therefore not that one socialist political movement has suddenly been declared incompatible with the Constitution.
It is that Republicans are testing how far they can turn ideological conflict into institutional rules — while the Constitution itself sets both a mandatory oath and limits on Congress’s power to decide who may serve after voters have made their choice.
Massachusetts Removes Its 24-Week Abortion Cutoff — and Nine Democrats Break Ranks
Gov. Maura Healey has signed a law replacing Massachusetts’ prior four-part test for abortions at 24 weeks or later with a physician’s professional judgment. The change is sweeping and politically significant, but claims that it authorizes abortion 'for any reason' or makes Massachusetts uniquely the most permissive state go beyond what the statute itself says.
Massachusetts has enacted one of the most consequential changes to its abortion law since the fall of Roe v. Wade, removing the state’s 24-week statutory boundary and giving physicians broader authority over abortions later in pregnancy.
Gov. Maura Healey signed the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act on Aug. 10, turning H.5595 into Chapter 188 of the Acts of 2026. The law is scheduled to take effect 90 days after signing.
The political reaction was immediate because the measure did more than expand access at the margins. It deleted the state’s previous list of four medical circumstances that governed abortions at 24 weeks or later and replaced that language with a much broader standard: an abortion may be performed by a physician “based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”
That change was enough to split Massachusetts Democrats in a way rarely seen on abortion policy. Nine Democratic state representatives joined Republicans in opposing the bill during the House’s July 22 vote, even as the measure passed overwhelmingly, 119-33.
One of those Democrats, Rep. Jeffrey Turco of Winthrop, called the new law “barbaric” and described it as an “extremist and dangerous position.” Rep. Chris Markey of Dartmouth called the measure “a very slippery slope” and said pro-choice voters could still view it as going beyond acceptable limits.
Those quotes are real, and the split is politically striking. But several of the most dramatic claims surrounding the law need to be separated from what Massachusetts actually enacted.
What the Old Law Required
Before Chapter 188, Massachusetts law generally treated the 24-week mark as the point at which a more specific legal test applied.
For pregnancies at 24 weeks or later, an abortion could be performed only by a physician and only if, in that physician’s best medical judgment, one of four conditions was present: the procedure was necessary to preserve the patient’s life; necessary to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health; warranted because of a lethal fetal anomaly or diagnosis; or warranted because of a grave fetal diagnosis indicating that the fetus could not sustain life outside the uterus without extraordinary medical intervention.
Those exceptions already made Massachusetts more permissive than states with near-total bans or early gestational limits. But supporters of the new law argued that the statutory list was still too rigid for complicated pregnancies that did not fit neatly into one of the four categories.
Supporters cited cases in which patients facing severe or uncertain fetal diagnoses were reportedly told they could not obtain the care they sought in Massachusetts and had to travel elsewhere.
The House press release supporting the bill said dozens of patients each year had been forced to leave the state for later abortion care because of the existing legal framework.
What Chapter 188 Changes
The new law removes the four-category test from Section 12N of Massachusetts General Laws and substitutes a single sentence allowing a physician to perform an abortion based on the physician’s professional judgment.
It also changes the state’s medical-review framework. A hospital or other medical review process may no longer override the judgment reached by a treating physician and the patient, or the patient’s health care proxy, when the abortion is consistent with the statute.
That is a major shift in legal structure. The state no longer requires a physician performing an abortion after 24 weeks to fit the case into one of four specifically enumerated medical grounds.
But the phrase “no justification required” is not found in the law.
The statute does not say that a physician may perform an abortion without medical judgment, without professional responsibility or without being subject to ordinary licensing and standard-of-care rules. It says the decision may be made based on the professional judgment of the physician.
That distinction is important because critics often describe the law as allowing abortion “for any reason or no reason.” The new statute unquestionably removes a gestational cutoff and broadens physician discretion. It does not literally eliminate professional medical standards.
Does the Law Allow Abortion ‘Until Birth’?
Opponents have repeatedly said Chapter 188 allows abortion “until the moment of birth.” That language reflects the fact that the statute no longer contains a gestational age limit.
In that narrow legal sense, there is no longer a week number after which Massachusetts law automatically prohibits abortion.
But the phrase can also create a misleading picture if readers take it to mean late-pregnancy abortions are expected to become routine or that the law instructs doctors to provide them without clinical justification.
Abortions late in pregnancy are rare, medically complex and often connected to serious maternal or fetal circumstances. The new law changes who makes the legal determination and how much discretion physicians have; it does not make every late-pregnancy procedure medically identical or practically available on demand.
The Associated Press summarized the change more precisely: Massachusetts is moving from a statutory list of reasons to a system in which the physician has the final professional judgment.
That is still a sweeping expansion. It simply should be described accurately.
Nine Democrats Said the Bill Went Too Far
The most politically significant part of the story may be the Democratic opposition inside one of the nation’s most heavily Democratic legislatures.
On July 22, the House passed the bill 119-33. The nine Democrats voting no were Brian Ashe, Lisa Field, Michael Finn, Dennis Gallagher, Russell Holmes, Christopher Markey, Francisco Paulino, Alan Silvia and Jeffrey Turco.
Turco delivered the sharpest criticism after Healey signed the measure.
He told Fox News Digital that the law was “extremist and dangerous,” said it permitted abortion throughout pregnancy and called it “barbaric.” He also argued that it had moved too quickly through the Legislature and did not reflect the views of average Massachusetts voters.
Markey emphasized a different concern. He said the bill created a “slippery slope,” placed physicians in a difficult ethical and legal position and went beyond what many pro-choice constituents would accept.
Rep. Dennis Gallagher similarly argued that the prior law already covered cases involving the life or health of the mother and severe fetal anomalies, and he questioned why a broader standard was necessary.
Those lawmakers did not suddenly become Republican abortion opponents. Their objections matter precisely because they came from within the Democratic caucus and from legislators who described themselves as willing to support abortion rights under narrower rules.
The Legislative Process Was Fast — but Not Secret
Another claim in the source article needs qualification.
The final version of H.5595 did move rapidly. The House advanced the new draft on July 22, the Senate passed it on July 31 and Healey signed it on Aug. 10.
That compressed final schedule gave critics reason to complain that the decisive version moved quickly.
But it is not accurate to say the issue received “zero opportunity for public comment.” The underlying proposal had been introduced in January 2025 as H.2370 and S.1563, and the legislative process included a public hearing before the final draft emerged.
So the more accurate criticism is that the final bill moved rapidly once legislative leaders settled on the language, not that the broader proposal appeared without prior public consideration.
Public Funding Is Real, but the Claim Needs Precision
Turco also said abortions under the law can in many cases be publicly funded. That has a factual basis, but it should not be read to mean every abortion performed under Chapter 188 will automatically be paid for by taxpayers.
MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program, covers medication and surgical abortion services. Massachusetts has also enacted policies designed to ensure abortion coverage without cost-sharing in many insurance plans.
That means some patients receiving abortions, including later abortions where covered and medically provided, may have the care financed through public programs.
But payment depends on eligibility, insurance coverage and the circumstances of the patient. Chapter 188 itself is principally a change to the legal standard governing when later abortions may be performed; it is not a stand-alone appropriations law requiring the state to pay for every procedure.
Massachusetts Is Not Uniquely the ‘Most Extreme’ State
The source article calls the new law “the most extreme abortion law in the country.” That is a political judgment, not a clean factual ranking.
Massachusetts is now among a group of states and jurisdictions that do not impose a statutory gestational-age cutoff on abortion. Other states already had similarly broad legal frameworks before Healey signed Chapter 188.
That does not minimize how consequential the Massachusetts change is. Removing a previously explicit 24-week threshold is a major policy shift.
It does mean the law should not be presented as uniquely unprecedented when other states also permit abortion without a fixed gestational limit.
The sharper factual claim is that Massachusetts has moved from a post-24-week exceptions model to one of the broadest physician-discretion models in the country.
What the Polling Actually Asked
Supporters have pointed to a 2024 statewide poll showing 66% support for changing Massachusetts law to expand abortion access after 24 weeks.
The wording matters.
The poll, commissioned by the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation and conducted by EMC Research among 500 Massachusetts voters in December 2024, asked about expanding access throughout pregnancy “based on the professional judgment of a licensed physician.”
That language is much closer to the law Massachusetts ultimately enacted than critics sometimes suggest.
At the same time, the poll was sponsored by an abortion-rights organization, and a single survey should not be treated as definitive proof of how voters would react to every real-world case arising under the new law.
Still, it undercuts the argument that voters were only asked a vague question about modestly “expanding access.” The poll explicitly tested the physician-judgment concept now reflected in Chapter 188.
Healey Makes Abortion a Political Issue for November
Healey has defended the legislation as a measure designed to keep complex medical decisions between patients, families and physicians rather than politicians or hospital committees.
At the signing, she said abortion would remain safe, legal and accessible in Massachusetts and tied the issue directly to the broader national conflict that followed the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision.
That framing ensures the law will remain part of Massachusetts politics through the fall.
Supporters will present Chapter 188 as a safeguard for patients facing devastating diagnoses and uncertain medical circumstances late in pregnancy.
Opponents will present the absence of a gestational cutoff as evidence that Democratic abortion policy has moved beyond what even some pro-choice voters consider acceptable.
The nine Democratic no votes give that argument unusual political force because the criticism cannot be dismissed as coming only from Republicans or anti-abortion organizations.
The Real Divide Is Over Who Sets the Limit
The most useful way to understand the new law is not through slogans about one side supporting women and the other supporting extremism.
The actual policy dispute is over who should set the boundary for abortions later in pregnancy.
The old Massachusetts system put the boundary in statute: after 24 weeks, a physician had to identify one of four legally specified circumstances.
The new system places substantially more authority in the physician’s professional judgment and prevents third-party medical review from overruling the physician and patient when the procedure is lawful.
Supporters see that as a necessary recognition that pregnancy complications cannot always be reduced to four categories written into law.
Opponents see the removal of any explicit gestational limit as the abandonment of a safeguard that should remain even in a state committed to abortion rights.
That disagreement is real, serious and politically potent.
And it is more revealing than the most exaggerated claims on either side.
Massachusetts did not pass a statute saying abortions require “no reason.” It did remove the 24-week statutory cutoff and the four specific grounds that previously controlled later procedures.
Nine Democrats concluded that change went too far. Healey and the legislative majority concluded that physicians needed the discretion.
That is the conflict the law has now placed squarely before Massachusetts voters: not whether abortion should exist, but how far legal protections should extend and whether the final line should be drawn by lawmakers or by physicians treating individual patients.
Old Abdul El-Sayed Clip Saying ‘I Hate Mackinac’ Resurfaces as Michigan Senate Race Turns to November
The Democratic nominee really did say he hated Mackinac Island while campaigning for governor in 2018. But the viral footage comes from a 2020 documentary about that earlier race, and El-Sayed’s campaign now says his frustration was aimed at the elite-heavy Mackinac Policy Conference rather than the island itself. Republicans are using the clip to argue he is out of touch; El-Sayed is responding with jokes, class-based criticism and a broader defense of his Michigan roots.
An eight-year-old campaign moment has suddenly become one of the first culture-war flashpoints of Michigan’s 2026 U.S. Senate general election.
Abdul El-Sayed, who narrowly won the Democratic Senate nomination on Aug. 4, is facing fresh attacks over footage in which he says, “I hate Mackinac so much,” while walking on Mackinac Island during his unsuccessful campaign for governor.
The words are genuine. What requires correction is the timeline and the context surrounding them.
The source article described the clip as coming from El-Sayed’s “2020 gubernatorial campaign.” There was no such campaign. El-Sayed ran for governor in 2018 and lost the Democratic primary to Gretchen Whitmer. The footage later appeared in “How to Fix a Primary,” a documentary released in 2020 that followed his yearlong 2018 campaign.
That distinction matters because the clip is not a newly recorded comment made during the Senate race. It is old campaign footage that resurfaced only days after El-Sayed became the Democratic nominee for one of the most competitive Senate seats in the country.
The timing has given Republicans an obvious opportunity: take a blunt remark about one of Michigan’s most famous destinations and make it part of a broader argument that El-Sayed is culturally out of step with the state he wants to represent.
The Clip Is Real — and the Words Are Hard to Miss
In the brief footage circulated by The Midwesterner and later amplified by national outlets, El-Sayed is shown walking with campaign staff on Mackinac Island.
“I hate Mackinac so much,” he says.
He then jokes about the governor’s official summer residence, saying that if he won the election it would become the summer home and adding that every time he had visited Mackinac he had hated it and wondered why he was there.
The comments were captured during El-Sayed’s 2018 gubernatorial run. The documentary containing the footage, directed by Brittany Huckabee, was released two years later in 2020 and chronicles El-Sayed’s challenge to the Democratic establishment in that primary.
Republicans did not need to manipulate the words to make them politically awkward. Taken on their face, El-Sayed plainly says he hates Mackinac.
But whether he meant Mackinac Island as a place, the political conference being held there, or the broader culture surrounding that annual gathering is now the central dispute.
El-Sayed’s Campaign Says He Meant the Policy Conference
El-Sayed’s campaign has told Bridge Michigan that the old remarks were directed at the Mackinac Policy Conference, not at the island itself.
That explanation is not invented after the fact out of thin air. El-Sayed has a documented history of criticizing the conference, which brings together business leaders, lobbyists, elected officials, journalists and other influential figures each year at the Grand Hotel.
At the 2026 conference, months before the old clip went viral, El-Sayed told Bridge Michigan that the event was “not my cup of tea” and “for the most part, not where I do business.” He said he was not interested in the “sit with corporate lobbyists” model of politics and attended that year because he was participating in a Senate primary debate.
The Detroit Regional Chamber describes the Mackinac Policy Conference as Michigan’s premier statewide policy event. Its supporters view it as an important venue where political, civic and business leaders can tackle major state issues. Critics have long argued that the gathering can feel inaccessible to ordinary voters because attending, staying on the island and participating in private networking events can be expensive.
The campaign’s explanation therefore fits El-Sayed’s broader political message: he has built much of his Senate campaign around attacking concentrated wealth, corporate influence and establishment politics.
Still, the short viral clip itself does not explicitly say, “I hate the Mackinac Policy Conference.” It says, “I hate Mackinac.” That is why critics argue the campaign is trying to narrow the meaning of a statement that sounded much broader at the time.
Without the full surrounding conversation, it is difficult to establish precisely what El-Sayed had in mind in that moment. The strongest factual version of the story should acknowledge both facts: he undeniably used the words, and his campaign says the target was the conference culture rather than the island.
Republicans Turn the Island Into a Campaign Symbol
The resurfaced clip quickly became useful material for Republican nominee Mike Rogers and conservative allies.
Rogers, a former congressman who narrowly lost Michigan’s 2024 Senate race, posted photographs of himself and his wife enjoying Mackinac Island. Republican gubernatorial nominee John James began selling pro-Mackinac merchandise. Kid Rock joined the criticism on television. Other conservative commentators treated the remark as evidence that El-Sayed disdains a place many Michiganders regard as part of the state’s identity.
The political logic is straightforward. Mackinac Island is not an obscure location known only to political insiders. It is a major tourism destination, a historic community in Lake Huron and a place closely associated with Michigan summers, horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, fudge shops, Victorian architecture and the Grand Hotel.
The island’s most famous peculiarity is its lack of ordinary automobile traffic. Local leaders first banned “horseless carriages” in 1898 after carriage operators complained that early automobiles frightened horses. The car-free tradition has continued for more than a century, with limited exceptions for emergency, utility and other authorized vehicles.
That history became part of El-Sayed’s own response to the controversy.
El-Sayed Jokes About the Car Ban — and Changes the Subject to Cost
After the conservative account End Wokeness described Mackinac as the most American place in Michigan, El-Sayed responded sarcastically that he was not sure the “most American” place could be somewhere that bans cars.
The joke is based on a real feature of the island. Mackinac has restricted automobiles since the late nineteenth century, and most visitors travel by bicycle, horse-drawn carriage or on foot.
But El-Sayed also offered a more politically pointed response when Rogers and Kid Rock joined the criticism.
“Both of these multimillionaires can afford a weekend on Mackinac Island,” he wrote. “How about you and your family?”
That answer shows how El-Sayed is trying to handle the attack: rather than apologize for the old wording, he is reframing the dispute around affordability and class.
The strategy is consistent with the campaign that carried him through the Democratic primary. El-Sayed ran on Medicare for All, campaign-finance reform and a populist critique of wealthy interests, while presenting himself as a candidate willing to confront both Republican power and Democratic establishment institutions.
Whether that response works in a general election is a different question. Joking about an iconic Michigan destination can reinforce the original controversy even while trying to redirect it.
The Label ‘Socialist’ Needs More Precision
The source article referred to El-Sayed as Michigan’s new “socialist Democratic Senate nominee.” That wording is politically loaded and less precise than the available record.
El-Sayed is best described as a progressive Democrat. He has received support from major figures on the democratic socialist left, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and his platform includes policies such as Medicare for All that are strongly associated with that wing of the party.
But news coverage should distinguish between a candidate’s stated identity, endorsements and policy positions rather than collapsing them into a single ideological label.
The Associated Press described El-Sayed’s Aug. 4 victory as a major breakthrough for the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. He defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens by less than one percentage point after a bitter primary in which outside groups spent tens of millions of dollars.
That narrow win is now part of the general-election story. El-Sayed must hold the progressive voters who powered his upset while persuading moderates and independents in a state Donald Trump carried in 2024.
An Old Comment Lands in a Much Bigger Race
The Mackinac controversy would probably have remained a quirky piece of old documentary footage if El-Sayed had not just won a nomination with national consequences.
Michigan’s Senate seat is open because Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is not seeking reelection. El-Sayed now faces Rogers in November, and the outcome is expected to play an important role in determining control of the U.S. Senate.
Republicans have already made clear that they intend to define El-Sayed through years of podcasts, videos and public commentary from the period when he was outside elected office. The Mackinac clip is only one example. Rogers and national Republican groups have also highlighted El-Sayed’s past comments about football, fireworks, policing and foreign policy.
Some of those attacks rely on real quotes but broaden their meaning. Bridge Michigan recently reviewed several of the claims and concluded that El-Sayed did make negative comments about football, fireworks and Mackinac Island, but that Republican portrayals sometimes remove the public-health or political context surrounding them.
That does not make the old material irrelevant. A candidate’s past words are legitimate subjects for scrutiny. But the difference between quoting someone accurately and assigning a broader position they did not advocate is essential in a competitive election.
Mackinac Is Now a Test of Political Identity
The reason this particular clip has traveled so quickly is that the dispute is not really about tourism advice.
Republicans want the phrase “I hate Mackinac” to stand for something larger: that El-Sayed is disconnected from ordinary Michigan culture and more comfortable with national progressive politics than with the traditions of the state.
El-Sayed wants the same footage to tell the opposite story: that he has always disliked elite political gatherings where lobbyists and wealthy insiders gain access that ordinary families cannot afford.
Both interpretations are campaign narratives built around a real but very short piece of footage.
The full factual record is narrower. El-Sayed said he hated Mackinac during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign. His campaign now says he was referring to the Mackinac Policy Conference. His prior criticism of that conference supports the plausibility of that explanation, but the viral clip itself uses the broader word “Mackinac.”
He has responded to the new attacks with sarcasm about the island’s car ban and with criticism of the cost of visiting. Republicans have responded by celebrating the island and treating the remark as a window into his character.
Voters will decide how much any of that matters.
A Small Clip With a Large Political Purpose
The strongest version of this story does not need to claim that El-Sayed secretly hates Michigan, nor does it need to dismiss the clip as completely meaningless.
The comment is real. The context is disputed. The documentary is from 2020, but the campaign shown in it took place in 2018. And the political importance of the footage comes entirely from 2026, when a candidate once considered a long-shot progressive is now one election away from the U.S. Senate.
For Rogers and Republicans, Mackinac offers a memorable way to portray El-Sayed as culturally alien to the state.
For El-Sayed, the challenge is to convince voters that the clip captures irritation with an insider political conference rather than contempt for a beloved Michigan landmark — while explaining why, in the unguarded moment preserved on film, he chose the much broader words he did.
That is why a few seconds from an old documentary have suddenly become more than an internet joke.
In a Senate race likely to be decided by voters who may know little about either nominee beyond what they see in advertisements and viral clips, “I hate Mackinac” is exactly the kind of line campaigns know can stick.
Milwaukee Primary Results Delayed After USB Download Error — but Officials Say the Votes Never Disappeared
Five of nine flash drives carried tabulator audit logs instead of election-result files, delaying a razor-thin Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary. The mistake renewed criticism of Milwaukee’s election administration, but paper ballots, printed reports and data preserved on the tabulators allowed officials to recover and verify the results without recounting the affected ballots.
A human error inside Milwaukee’s central absentee-ballot counting operation delayed the release of results from Wisconsin’s closely watched Aug. 11 primary, forcing election officials to return to the counting facility after discovering that five USB flash drives contained the wrong data.
The mistake landed at the worst possible moment. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and state Rep. Francesca Hong were locked in an exceptionally close Democratic primary for governor, and the remaining Milwaukee absentee results were expected to play a major role in deciding the race.
When city election officials arrived at the Milwaukee County courthouse with the data from the city’s central count operation, county staff discovered that five of nine flash drives did not contain the vote-result files they expected. Instead, the drives contained audit logs — records documenting activity on the tabulators.
Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez called the episode “human error” and said an employee had pressed the wrong option during the export process.
The error delayed reporting by more than an hour and generated immediate frustration among television analysts, Republican lawmakers and election-integrity critics. But the most important distinction is one the original article blurred: the roughly 15,000 affected ballots were not missing, erased or altered.
They had already been tabulated. The result files remained on the machines. Paper ballots remained available, and officials had printed reports that could be used to confirm the totals after the correct files were exported.
What Actually Happened to the Five USB Drives
Milwaukee uses a central-count system for absentee ballots. On election night, absentee ballots are processed through high-speed tabulators, and result files from those machines are transferred to secure flash drives for delivery to the county, where the totals are incorporated into the broader election results.
According to city officials, staff were supposed to download result files from nine tabulators. Five of the nine flash drives instead received audit logs.
The difference is important. An audit log records what happened on a voting or tabulation machine. It is not the file containing the vote totals needed for election-night reporting.
The mistake was discovered only after the drives had been transported to the county courthouse. Gutiérrez then explained the problem publicly and returned with election staff, members of the bipartisan election commission and a Milwaukee Police Department escort to the central-count facility.
Officials re-exported the proper files from the five tabulators, compared the new information with paper reports that had already been printed and then returned the corrected data to the courthouse.
Urban Milwaukee reported that the city had brought in results associated with almost 28,000 absentee ballots overall and that the five incorrect drives represented results from approximately 15,000 ballots.
The city’s statement said the problem delayed the reporting of the results but did not affect the results themselves. No ballots had to be recounted or retabulated.
That is a materially different situation from 15,000 votes being “lost.”
A Mistake Worth Scrutiny
The fact that the ballots were secure does not mean the administrative failure should be dismissed.
Five separate drives carried the wrong export. That prompted former Milwaukee election administrator Claire Woodall to tell Votebeat that the repetition looked more like a training issue than an isolated accidental click.
Her questions were practical: was the person responsible properly trained on the export procedure, and was the employee sufficiently familiar with the machines to recognize that the wrong information had been downloaded?
Republican state Rep. Scott Krug was harsher, calling the episode “complete incompetence” and arguing that the drives should have been double-checked before staff left the facility.
Those criticisms point to a legitimate election-administration problem. In a major battleground state, especially during a race separated by a fraction of a percentage point, officials have strong reasons to build procedures that detect a wrong export before election materials leave central count.
The same fact that makes the incident less sinister also makes it more frustrating: the error was simple enough that a verification step could likely have caught it earlier.
Why the Error Did Not Change the Ballots
The safeguards surrounding the mistake are central to understanding what happened.
Wisconsin uses voter-verifiable paper ballots. The Milwaukee results were not created solely by whatever happened to be stored on a USB drive. The ballots existed independently of the transfer media, and the tabulators retained the result information.
Gutiérrez said printed precinct reports provided another check showing what had been recorded before the corrected export. Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesperson Emilee Miklas likewise emphasized that the state’s election system contains multiple levels of review and that paper records make an undetected electronic alteration far more difficult.
Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said after the corrected data arrived that transparency and security were the priorities and that the city election director had publicly explained the problem, retrieved the correct files and delivered them.
County officials also said additional audits would be performed.
The sequence demonstrates why a reporting delay and a vote-counting failure are not necessarily the same thing. The public was waiting for results because the county lacked the proper electronic files. That did not mean the underlying ballots had vanished or that the tabulated totals had been rewritten.
The Close Race Made the Delay Look Even Bigger
The timing amplified every concern because Crowley and Hong were separated by only a tiny margin.
Crowley ultimately defeated Hong by roughly half a percentage point — a little more than 3,000 votes statewide — after the Milwaukee results were incorporated. The Associated Press and other networks called the race early Wednesday morning.
For viewers following the election on television, the missing Milwaukee result files meant a statewide contest could not confidently be projected while thousands of Democratic-heavy absentee results remained unreported.
NBC election analyst Steve Kornacki openly expressed frustration on air as the wait stretched late into the night. His reaction reflected a real problem for election administration: even when the votes themselves are secure, preventable delays create a vacuum in which confusion and suspicion can grow.
That is especially true in an era when incomplete election-night totals can circulate instantly online without the procedural context needed to understand why they are incomplete.
Milwaukee Has Made Other High-Profile Election Mistakes
The criticism also gained force because Milwaukee has experienced other highly visible administrative errors.
During the 2024 presidential election, election officials decided to retabulate more than 30,000 absentee ballots after an observer noticed that access-panel doors on tabulators had not been properly secured. Officials restarted that portion of the count as a precaution.
The 2024 episode delayed reporting but did not produce evidence that vote totals had been manipulated. Votebeat reported that election observers and officials identified the problem, after which the city chose to start the affected tabulation over again.
Such incidents can reasonably raise questions about training, checklists, supervision and quality control. They also demonstrate why election systems are designed with redundant paper records and review procedures rather than relying on a single employee or device.
A strong election system is not one in which a human being never makes a mistake. It is one in which mistakes are detectable, correctable and auditable before final certification.
The 2020 ‘Most Secure’ Statement Is Often Misunderstood
The source article began by linking the Milwaukee mistake to the long-running dispute over the 2020 presidential election and the statement that the election was “the most secure in American history.”
That statement was real. On Nov. 12, 2020, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and election-infrastructure partners said there was no evidence that any voting system had deleted or lost votes, changed votes or been compromised.
But the statement did not claim that every election worker in America performed every task perfectly or that no administrative mistake occurred anywhere.
Election security and error-free election administration are not identical concepts. Officials can make procedural mistakes while the underlying ballots and certified outcome remain secure.
Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential result was subjected to recounts, litigation, an audit by the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and other reviews. Those processes did not establish fraud on a scale that would have changed Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
The Aug. 11, 2026 USB mistake therefore does not, by itself, provide evidence that Trump’s broader claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” was correct. It does provide evidence that Milwaukee officials can make avoidable election-night errors — and that those errors deserve serious procedural review.
The Difference Between Skepticism and Proof
Election officials should expect scrutiny when five of nine transfer drives contain the wrong data. The public is entitled to ask how the same incorrect export occurred repeatedly, what training was provided, whether the drives were checked before departure and what will change before November.
Those questions are particularly important because Wisconsin will again be a major battleground in the midterm elections.
But suspicion is not the same as evidence of manipulated votes.
In this case, the public record currently shows a wrong-button export, preserved tabulator results, paper ballots, printed comparison reports, a return trip conducted with election commissioners and police, a corrected transfer and subsequent audits.
No candidate accused the other of stealing the primary. Hong conceded and congratulated Crowley after the result was called.
That does not make the mistake acceptable. It makes the nature of the mistake clearer.
What Milwaukee Needs to Fix Before November
The most useful lesson from the episode is operational rather than partisan.
Milwaukee should be able to demonstrate that result-export procedures have been retrained, that flash drives will be verified before leaving central count and that responsibility for each transfer is documented clearly enough to catch a repeated error immediately.
Former election officials are right to ask whether five wrong exports point to a training weakness. Critics are also right that high-profile errors damage public confidence even when the final totals remain accurate.
At the same time, the safeguards that detected and corrected the problem are part of the integrity story too. The paper ballots did not depend on the flash drives. The tabulators retained the totals. The wrong files could be identified because officials knew what should have been present, and the correct results could be checked against printed records.
The strongest factual version of the Milwaukee story therefore avoids both extremes.
It was not nothing: a preventable human error delayed a major statewide primary and exposed an election-administration weakness that deserves correction.
May you like
It was also not evidence that 15,000 ballots disappeared or that the outcome was secretly altered.
In a race decided by only a few thousand votes, that distinction is not a technicality. It is the difference between documenting a real administrative failure and turning that failure into a claim the available evidence does not support.
