Hi, vote for me because I have a white-sounding name
By 
Thomas J. Smith just won the GOP primary to oppose first-term member of Congress Kristen McDonald Rivet, in what is one of the very few congressional districts in the country that voted a Democrat into the House in 2024 while also voting for Trump for president.
Who is Thomas J. Smith you may ask? Nobody really knows, especially the Republican primary voters who selected him to carry out this crucial mission in the fight for control of Congress:
In an unusual primary upset, President Trump’s favored candidate for a battleground U.S. House district in central Michigan lost to a little-known Republican who had suspended his own campaign, never filed a campaign finance report and had even endorsed someone else. . .
Mr. Smith announced in July that he was suspending his campaign and putting his “full support” behind Al Lemmo, a third candidate. As of Wednesday, Mr. Lemmo’s website still displayed a banner reading, “THANK YOU, TOM SMITH!,” with Mr. Smith’s video endorsement embedded beneath it. . . .
Mr. Smith won despite running no TV ads. In a handwritten letter to federal regulators, he reported raising only $1,850.
How could somebody who had Donald J. Trump’s personal endorsement lose to a candidate who raised no money, and had withdrawn from the race and endorsed somebody else?
On Wednesday morning, Tom Smith, a small-business owner from Flint, was surprised to learn he had soundly defeated Amir Hassan, a Navy veteran whom Mr. Trump endorsed.
Just last week, Mr. Trump had rallied in Milford, Mich., for Republicans, including Mr. Hassan. Republican leaders had also closed ranks behind him, with Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina both endorsing him. . . .
Mr. Lemmo’s campaign posted advertisements calling Mr. Hassan a “Trojan horse,” citing Mr. Hassan’s admissions that he previously leaned Democratic and did not vote in 2024.
In an interview on Wednesday with The New York Times, Mr. Lemmo acknowledged that his campaign staff had also created ads that “didn’t so much appeal to bigotry against Muslims as kind of counted on it.”
He added: “But I really didn’t like that because I live in a community with a lot of Muslims. They’re really nice.”
One ad featured an image of a woman in a niqab, a long Islamic garment that covers all but a woman’s eyes. Another ad was a montage of web pages and news articles that described Mr. Hassan as a “proud Muslim.” (Mr. Hassan said during the campaign that he had “studied other faiths” but was a Christian.)
Mr. Lemmo speculated that voters may have favored Mr. Smith in part for his “plain-Jane American name.”
Makes you kind of puzzle over how Al Lemmo managed to finish a distant third in this edifying and inspiring exercise of the franchise in the middle of the Heartland ™.
All this doesn’t fill me with the warm fuzzies in regard to Abdul El-Sayed’s chances (El-Sayed is an actual Muslim, not just a guy with a very vaguely Muslim-sounding name) against Mike I Am a White Man Rogers in this fall’s senate race. It’s true that Democratic voters in general aren’t a bunch of ignorant racist yahoos, unlike your modal Republican, but to win El-Sayed needs a nice chunk of the Ariana Grande vote, and those people make electoral decisions precisely on the basis of factors such as does this candidate have an American or a terrorist name? (True story: For a long time I used to go to bed bed early I assumed Ariana Grande was Latina because of her name. She’s not, she’s of Italian descent. Also true story: I now know way too much about Ariana Grande for my Ariana Grande theory to be legit any more in regard to me personally. It should now be the Olivia Rodrigo theory of politics, but it’s too late baby, it’s too late to change it).
Democracy! Also, the Aristocrats!