Democrats ignored him in 2024. Now, he wants to show them how to win [View all]

Democrats ignored him in 2024. Now, he wants to show them how to win
Uncommitted Movement activist Abbas Alawieh is stepping from behind the scenes to run for state Senate in Michigan

By Tatyana Tandanpolie
Staff Reporter
Published June 2, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)


(Salon) Abbas Alawieh is no stranger to politics. The Michigander spent years as a top aide to progressive ex-Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich, and Squad members Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and former Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush. He developed political strategy as a chief of staff, authored bills as a legislative director and worked across the aisle to help deliver results to their constituents. His work largely kept him behind the scenes — until 2024.

Alawieh gained national recognition amid the United States’ support for Israel’s war against Gaza, which a United Nations Commission has since declared a genocide, as a co-founder of the Uncommitted Movement during the 2024 election cycle. The anti-war effort sought an end to the violence through a campaign urging Americans to vote “uncommitted” in their state’s primary to show the Democratic Party the votes they risked losing if they didn’t change course. The campaign’s success resulted in some 30 uncommitted delegates attending the Democratic National Convention that August to represent the more than 700,000 Americans who demanded an end to U.S. material support for Israel.

Alawieh insists he wasn’t the leader of the movement, but there’s no denying he stood at the forefront of it — and was also subjected to the post-election fallout that pushed him and other Uncommitted leaders out of the public eye as President Donald Trump prepared to take office for a second time. Now, just under two years later, he’s stepping in front of the podium to build a campaign for Michigan state senate of his own, and he’s hoping Democrats will actually follow his lead this time.

“The Democratic Party isn’t speaking to the needs of working families more broadly. I feel like anytime I hear about family in the context of our national politics, it’s the Republicans claiming the idea and using it as a way to divide people,” Alawieh told Salon, arguing that Democrats need to reclaim the concept in order to be successful. “So the opening message of my campaign is, ‘My name is Abbas Alawieh. Family is everything to me, and I’m running to represent every single person in Senate District Two like they are family to me.'”

....(snip)....

What inspired you to go from this relatively behind-the-scenes, former high-ranking legislative aide to a Democratic candidate for state senate in your home district?

When I was a chief of staff on Capitol Hill in 2022, I was witnessing from afar the community that I grew up in — working-class communities in southeastern Michigan — being organized by far-right elements using hate and fear around book bans and other anti-LGBT nonsense to convince people that if you ban one book or the other, that’s how you grow your political power. I’m bald, but if I had hair, I would have been pulling it out. It was so difficult to witness that and ask every Democratic official I knew what the party was doing about it, only to learn that the party was doing nothing. For a long time, the Democratic Party has been ceding ground to the politics of the far right or to the politics of disillusionment in key working-class and immigrant communities. ....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/06/02/democrats-ignored-him-in-2024-now-he-wants-to-show-them-how-to-win/