Michigan’s Primary Reckoning for the Democrats
Mother Jones · L · trust 58/100
No congressional candidate in Democratic history ever had as much outside money dumped on them in one primary as Abdul El-Sayed. But El-Sayed has now survived the onslaught in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. Barely. The Bernie Sanders-endorsed champion of Medicare for All defeated Rep. Haley Stevens by about a one-point margin on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
The dynamics of the election in Michigan were not new. Like in other recent primaries spanning from Manhattan to California’s Central Valley , a populist outsider ran against an establishment Democrat backed by millions of dollars of super PAC money—much of it from AIPAC allies that aim to keep critics of Israel out of Congress. What sets El-Sayed’s victory apart are the stakes and the scale of the effort to defeat him.
Democrats need to keep the Michigan seat that Sen. Gary Peters is retiring from if they hope to take back the Senate. To do that, they now have to defeat former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in a swing state that has gone for Donald Trump twice, and where Rogers barely lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024. It is far from certain that El-Sayed will prevail in November—just as there were no guarantees that Stevens would have won.
After a polarizing primary, El-Sayed has just three months to consolidate Democratic support and make his case to independent voters. El-Sayed began that work in an election-night speech before the race was called. “However much we might disagree with our Democratic opponent, there is so much more that unites us than divides us,” he told supporters. “Tomorrow, we begin to mend fences.” In a Wednesday speech after the race was called, El-Sayed said he had a “great conversation” with Stevens, and called his former opponent “one of the most committed public servants that you’ll ever meet.”
El-Sayed’s margin of victory was much smaller than expected heading into Tuesday: Polls tracked by the New York Times showed El-Sayed leading by double digits in eight surveys in a row. Instead, the results closely resembled Michighan’s 2016 presidential primary, when Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton by 1.4 points. As of Wednesday morning, El-Sayed is leading Stevens by an even smaller margin.
Stevens, who was endorsed by Peters and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, was the favorite of much of the Democratic establishment including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But the results on Tuesday were yet another reminder this primary season that much of the Democratic base wants to go in a different direction than party leadership.
The general election will provide a rare chance to help answer a question that is often litigated online but rarely tested offline: Can progressive populists win a swing state like Michigan? A loss by El-Sayed, on the other hand, would likely lead to many warnings from moderate Democrats about what kind of candidate the party should nominate for president in 2028. Republicans have not won a US Senate election in Michigan in more than three decades; the seat El-Sayed is running for has been held by Democrats since 1979—five years before the 41-year-old candidate was born.
El-Sayed’s victory was not the only win for the left wing of the Democratic party in Michigan on Tuesday. In Michigan’s 7th congressional district, which is centered around Lansing, Will Lawrence pulled off a shocking win. The 7th district is a tossup seat held by Republican Rep. Tom Barrett that Democrats hope to flip in November. To do that, Democratic primary voters had two traditionally safe picks: Bridget Brink, who resigned as the US Ambassador to Ukraine soon after Trump returned to office, and Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL who carried the so-called nuclear football for Barack Obama.
Brink and Maaasdam ended up roughly tied with each getting about 28 percent of votes on Tuesday. That may have allowed Lawrence, a millennial founder of the Sunrise Movement who capitalized on local opposition to AI data centers, to prevail with only about 43 percent of the vote. Many Democratic strategists like David Axelrod believe the seat will now be harder to flip in November.
In the Detroit area, Rep. Shri Thanedar narrowly lost his primary to state Rep. Donavan McKinney, who was endorsed by Sanders, El-Sayed, and the Democratic Socialists of America. Thanedar was a notably weak incumbent who has irritated fellow Democrats in Congress. As a largely self-funding Indian American multimillionaire, he was also an unusual fit in a district where more than 40 percent of residents are Black and more than 40 percent of children live in poverty.
The race between El-Sayed and Stevens was one of the most closely watched primaries this year, but it did not attract record spending because super PACs wanted Democrats to control the Senate. About half of the roughly $60 million spent by outside groups came from the AIPAC-backed United Democracy Project, which has worked to elect pro-Israel members of both parties. The Michigan race was UDP’s top priority; the group spent twice as much as it ever had in a single race. (Overall, super PACS favored Stevens by a more than 10-to-1 margin.)
The total amount put into the race by pro-Israel groups may be even higher: A recently formed dark money group called the Center for Democratic Priorities spent a reported $6.5 million backing Stevens, whose views on Israel are captured by her claim that the country “comes to me in my dreams.” As I reported last week, little is known about the Center for Democratic Priorities beyond the fact that its low-profile director apparently served in a similar role for an AIPAC-backed super PAC in Michigan in 2024.
El-Sayed, a doctor and public health expert who served as the health director for Wayne County, is an unapologetic critic of Israel who has accused the nation of committing genocide in Gaza. If elected, he could quickly become Israel’s most vocal opponent in the Senate—as well as one of its most charismatic members. He would also be…
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