The farmers market in Detroit is an unlikely crucible. Certainly Abdul El-Sayed, the freshly (and narrowly) minted Democratic Senate candidate for Michigan, was not expecting it to be one when he went glad-handing in Eastern Market in the hours before the polls closed. But it was clear that the buyers and sellers of fresh fruit and vegetables that he encountered had quietly put him and his policies on the scales and found them both to be a little lightweight. Not that they’d be rude enough to say so to his face. Of course, El-Sayed would go on to win the primary. But his predicted margin of victory – up to 20 points – evaporated as the night turned into a scrappy contest with his rival Haley Stevens, who represented the more mainstream wing of the party.

I encountered him by pure chance at the market soon after I arrived in the city, looking to take the temperature of the electorate. Suddenly there he was, the man from the newspaper stories and social media. Smiling, surrounded by journalists – in his element. We got off to a good start, I thought. He told me that his best friend lives in Burnt Oak, a London suburb not far from my house there. He mentioned that he’d attended Oxford University and I remembered he had been captain of the lacrosse team there. He told me a little about the origin of the game, almost unknown in the UK outside private girls’ schools, and I lightly ribbed him about how easy it must be for an American who had grown up with the sport to win a blue in this way.

Then I asked him how he would tackle his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, if he were to win. He replied that he was going to “beat the shit” out of him in the November election. He leaned toward me and said he would “staple his [Rogers’s] sins to his forehead.” What those sins were, El-Sayed sadly wouldn’t outline, because it was at this point that he cut our conversation short, saying he had been unaware that I was a journalist. Remarkable, really, considering I had stepped out of a small press gaggle around him and introduced myself as one. I’m pretty sure his video team were recording the exchange, possibly for his popular and lucrative podcast, so he can run the VT back if he’s that bothered.

I do wonder what he regretted saying, though. Swearing is so commonplace these days in political discourse that it’s not immediately clear a single voter would bat an eyelid. And threatening his opponent with a small office appliance is, again, unlikely to lose him votes – let alone attract the interest of the police. Was it the alpha male – slightly Trumpian – rhetoric that might not play so well outside his fighty progressive and DSA-aligned base? Perhaps his political sixth sense was reading the signals from the farmers market and divining all was not quite as well as the towering lead the polls had, at that stage, afforded him. He did not receive an organic warm welcome. Few recognized him, and those who did weren’t greatly impressed. He was trailed by press rather than people. Not for him the adoring crowds that mobbed his fellow young progressive Zohran Mamdani wherever he went in New York last year before his big win.

Monique, 50, who runs the Heauxlistic Juice stand – tagline “our juices are really flowing” – said at first she thought the gathering was something to do with publicity for the market. “Once he started talking to me, yeah, I recognized him. We talked about the election. I told him I’m down with the Democrats.” Monique said he had bought everyone in his team juice from her stand. I asked her if she was going to vote for him. She looked at me blankly. “Wait, I’m talking about the journalist guy. I’m talking about the MS NOW guy. Who you talking about?” I explained that I was referring to El-Sayed, who at the time was standing a few yards away from us. “Oh, I didn’t recognize him at all.” The great hope of the Democratic party in Michigan, outshone by a TV reporter. That said, Monique was in the process of packing up her stand to go and vote for him. Although hazy on his policies – “on the specifics, I’m not sure” – she was voting for him because her daughter told her to. “My daughter’s heavily into politics. She said, ‘Ma, that’s who we are voting for.’”

This was another common theme. Pressure exerted by children on their parents – who often, it appeared, did not know what exactly they were voting for. Julie, 60, who lives in rural Sanilac County and has a produce stall at the market three days a week, said her son had told her to vote for El-Sayed. She had to read texts from him to remind herself of the Democrat’s policies. What will happen when Republicans begin to inform the attendees of the farmers market about some of El-Sayed’s provocative positions and edgier friends, such as Hasan Piker, who once said America “deserved” 9/11? They might decide that, rather than being lightweight, there is something a bit rotten about him.