Democrats face test over future of party in Michigan Senate primary

Democrats increasingly see Michigan’s Senate race as the first major test in the party’s fight over its identity as it looks beyond the midterms to the presidential race in 2028.

The primary battle between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and Abdul El-Sayed (D), who is backed by progressives including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), is already drawing warnings from moderates.

They’re worried El-Sayed may win next month’s primary but then lose the general election to likely GOP nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers.

“I want my party to win but I don’t think my party can win by running a candidate like El-Sayed who is so far left, it turns everyone else off,” said one Democratic strategist. “If we lose the general in Michigan, that should send shock signals to everyone that we won’t be able to win a national election in 2028 if we run those kinds of candidates.”

Democratic strategist Steve Schale agreed, arguing El-Sayed is well positioned to win the primary but will be vulnerable in the fall.

“I do worry that in a general election, that the positions [El-Sayed] has taken — like defunding the police — may be popular in a Democratic primary. I don’t think that plays well in a general,” he said.

Progressives in general are on the move in the Democratic Party following primary wins in New York and Colorado. But the left wing took a blow last week in Maine, where progressive oyster farmer Graham Platner dropped out of the Senate campaign after a former girlfriend accused him of rape. Platner has denied the accusation.

This has exacerbated tensions between the party’s moderate and progressive wings, sharpening the debate over whether Democrats can afford to nominate left-wing candidates backed by democratic socialists in a critical swing state.

“It’s pretty evident that running far to the left is extremely dangerous in a place like Michigan,” said Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at the moderate think tank Third Way.

Bennett said that if El-Sayed loses in November it will be “blindingly obvious” that candidates can’t run that way in Michigan.

Bennett highlighted Third Way’s analysis from May, which found that presidential candidates need to win roughly 60 percent of self-identified moderates to capture the White House. In 2024, he said, Democratic nominee former Vice President Kamala Harris fell short of that marker.

“We will make that point as much as we can for the next two years,” he said.

In the 2020 election, Bennett noted that several presidential candidates attempted to lean left on policies during the primary after believing that that’s where the party was ideologically.

“Everybody got it wrong except for Biden, and he wiped the floor with all of them,” Bennett said.

But progressives say they have a good candidate in El-Sayed, and he has appeal across the coalition and beyond.

“Abdul El-Sayed has run statewide in Michigan and has mainstream super majority positions on healthcare, fighting political corruption and the Israel-Gaza war,” said Joel Payne, Democratic strategist and chief communications officer at the progressive grassroots organization MoveOn.

“The guy played lacrosse at the University of Michigan, and he’s running at worst even and, in most cases, more competitive than his opponent with the likely Republican in every general election poll I’ve seen,” Payne added. “I’m desperately searching for the logic that any pro-Stevens interest groups could apply to an electability argument against him that wouldn’t cause embarrassment.”

Nomiki Konst, a progressive strategist, said that “the progressive message is a message of economic investment in working people,” and noted that El-Sayed is “the only one presenting solutions to working people.”

“Moderates aren’t offering an economic message, which is what pulled many working voters from the party when the recession hit,” Konst added.

But Susan Del Percio, the veteran Republican strategist who does not support Trump or the MAGA movement, said even if a candidate like El-Sayed wins the primary but loses in the general election, moderates can’t brush past the fact that progressives have the energy.

“They can’t be complacent, they can’t ignore it,” Del Percio said. “Establishment Democrats have to wake up and realize these voters are not going away and the message is not going away.”

No matter the outcome of the midterms, Del Percio added, the left wing “has been mobilizing and they have to respect it, not dismiss it.”

“It doesn’t mean they can’t overcome it, but they can’t turn their backs on it,” she said.

In the Michigan race, polls released in recent days show Stevens and El-Sayed in a statistical dead heat. El-Sayed argues that political observers have been too focused on the tension within the Democratic Party.

“This ideology thing — people think too deeply into it,” El-Sayed told CNN.

“I don’t think most voters walk around thinking where they stand on the ideological spectrum,” he said. “I think most voters are just being like, ‘Damn, I can’t afford my healthcare.’ ‘Damn, I’m worried about losing my job.’ ‘Damn, this AI stuff feels scary. Who’s going to do something about that?'”

Democratic strategist Eddie Vale agreed, arguing that neither side is right in the larger debate about which candidates are right for the party.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here,” Vale said.

“I think regardless of what happens in the midterms in both primary and general elections, we’re going to keep having this circular debate of stupidity because people are stuck in their D.C.-centric think tank boxes in a way that no actual voters care about,” he added. “What works in one district or one state, can and should be different.”

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