Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued a striking warning about the direction of the Democratic Party late last week, saying she plans to skip her own party’s state convention over concerns for her personal safety. Despite the significance of the remarks as Michigan voters headed into a closely watched primary election, the comments received little attention from much of the national media.
Nessel made the remarks during a roundtable discussion on antisemitism held last Thursday. According to reporting by Michigan Advance’s Katherine Dailey, the two-term attorney general said she does not believe she would be welcomed at next month’s Democratic state convention and fears she would face harassment if she attended.
“I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed,” Nessel said during the discussion.
She went on to explain that she did not want to be yelled at, screamed at or booed regardless of what she had to say, adding that she believed such treatment would occur because, according to her, it has already been happening.
Dailey also reported that Nessel criticized Democratic Party leadership for failing to adequately address concerns she had raised about harassment from individuals within her own party. According to the report, Nessel compared what she described as a rise in antisemitism on the political left and within the Democratic Party to the growth of neo-Nazi organizations on the far-right fringe.
The comments came just days before Michigan’s high-profile Democratic Senate primary, yet they attracted relatively little coverage from major national news organizations. According to a search of cable news transcripts through the media monitoring service SnapStream, Nessel’s remarks were not discussed on CNN or MS NOW. Fox News aired a segment on the comments Tuesday afternoon.
In recent days, Nessel has appeared in national headlines for other reasons, including lawsuits challenging the Trump administration and prosecutions involving alleged polluters connected to Flint’s water crisis. Even so, her remarks about skipping her party’s convention were not widely covered by outlets such as The New York Times, Politico, CNN.com and several other major digital publications.
Fox News Digital, Jewish Insider and several Michigan-based publications did report on Nessel’s comments.
The attorney general’s announcement also came amid a closely watched Democratic primary between progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens, a race many political observers have viewed as a test of the Democratic establishment’s ability to counter the growing influence of Democratic Socialists.
Nessel has endorsed Stevens in the contest, and her comments have drawn additional attention to broader tensions within the party. They also raise questions about whether moderate Democrats in Michigan would support El-Sayed in the general election if he secures the nomination.
The divisions were further highlighted in a recent Semafor report examining what it described as a “Never-El-Sayed moment in Michigan.” The article focused in part on comments from Rep. Hillary Scholten, who has also endorsed Stevens and said she would not support El-Sayed in the general election.
Scholten told Semafor she would not stand alongside someone she believes has allowed “distinctly anti-American sentiment” into public discourse, citing El-Sayed’s association with far-left commentator Hasan Piker. She also accused El-Sayed and his supporters of engaging in “deeply intense sexism” during the campaign and said he should answer for his own statements.
Against that backdrop, Nessel’s warning has added another layer to the debate over the future direction of Michigan Democrats.
Speaking during the antisemitism roundtable, Nessel said she believes important changes have taken place within the state Democratic Party.
“This cannot continue,” she said. “The fact of the matter is, we have to be able to be a society where we can have intelligent discourse and debate about ideas without people being threatened, and certainly without people carrying out those threats.”
With Nessel preparing to leave office due to term limits and prominent Democrats publicly disagreeing over the party’s direction, her remarks have underscored the internal divisions playing out within Michigan Democrats as the primary battle continues.
[READ MORE: DOJ Tells Rep. Anna Paulina Luna It ‘Never’ Opened Criminal Probe Into VP Pick Allegations]
