In a reversal of longstanding assumptions, strong criticism of Israel’s actions may have helped put candidates over the top

“You took a chance on the unlikeliest of candidates,” Abdul El-Sayed told a Detroit crowd on Wednesday, declaring victory in Michigan’s hard-fought, often ugly, Senate race. In what was predicted to be a squeaker, the Democrat beat his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, by a healthy seven points.

In some ways, El-Sayed was an unlikely candidate. At 34, in his first Congressional run, he set his sights almost cockily on a US Senate seat. He ran on what has become an uncontroversial affordability platform but also championed the socialist-adjacent Medicare for All.

Endorsing his opponent while the US risks plummeting into fascism, she reveals the one issue that triggers her to take destructive action

“Did you talk to anyone? Did you have a long night of the soul? Were you up all night? ... Did you have a dream?”

Interviewing the Michigan US representative Haley Stevens on CNN on Sunday, Anderson Cooper was casting about for explanations. What caused the Democrat’s radical change of heart between a Saturday night promise to her House colleague Debbie Dingell that she would stand with the Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and a public endorsement on Sunday morning of his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers?

Sites like Kalshi and Polymarket offer faux populism as elites reap the benefits – and voters risk being misled

Online betting is a bit like Donald Trump.

The prediction markets – platforms where users bet on whether events will occur – pretend to be populist, pushing the nabobs aside and representing the “wisdom of the crowd”. “This data is bottom-up, not elites-driven,” a Kalshi ​spokesperson told Reuters. But in fact, the markets are controlled by a few, skillful traders.