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The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is ascendant. What we showed is that the power
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of our many is greater than the power of their money.
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That's Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El Sayed, speaking to supporters this morning after that race was called. But what does his win and the success of other progressives mean for November? The general election starts now. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.
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I'm Ashley Lopez. I also cover politics.
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And we've got results from primaries all over the country on today's pod. But we're starting with Michigan, where we find Colin Jackson of the Michigan Public Radio. Hey, Colin.
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Hey.
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Late night, early morning, huh?
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Very late night, early morning. I got back home at about 6am
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today and then we still had to wait hours for the race to be called. So tell us about what happened in that Senate race we've been watching so closely between Abdul El Sayed, an epidemiologist, and Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
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Well, you saw Abdul El Sayed come out victorious. This was a very hard fought battle. This is one of the most, if not the most expensive Senate primary race in the country. Um, you know, according to AD Impact, you had, you know, over $80 million total in outside spending sent on this race. The vast majority of that went to Stevens over El Said. And, you know, a lot of people were tempted to frame this as a progressive. You know, people framed El Said as a progressive. He campaigned with Bernie Sanders, with Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. A lot of people tried to frame this as, you know, the progressive versus the establishment's clear choice, which was Haley Stevens, who had Governor Gretchen Whitmer's endorsement. She had the endorsement of many other Democrats in Michigan's congressional delegation. She had the Congressional Black Caucus endorsement. And you saw her fall short despite having a lot of those extra resources spent on her.
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Colin, this race had so much outside money poured into it, and a lot of it came from a group associated with aipac. Now, that's an organization that lobbies for closer ties between Israel and the US and that became an issue in this race. Tell us about it.
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I think that was a big factor in how especially young people felt about this race. You know, during debates against Stevens, El Sayed constantly made the Point that he felt like Israel had an outsized influence in this country's politics and where this money, where the country's money goes. And he was saying a lot of that military support that the US has traditionally given Israel could be better spent here at home on social programs, on building up the social safety net, et cetera.
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Yeah. This is why this race got so much money and so much attention. It was a test case for a couple things. One, whether progressives, the left flank of the Democratic Party, has juice in places like Michigan, purple states, states where Republicans often win. And Abdul, yes, won narrowly. But the fact that someone from the left flank, someone who supports stuff like Medicare for all, a big one, the US Revisiting its relationship with Israel, that is another big test. These are some big litmus tests in the Democratic Party right now. And the fact that someone was able to bring in a lot of outside money and could not, you know, win her primary against someone who came out of nowhere. I mean, I think if you remember,
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he ran for governor before, for sure,
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a very crowded governorship where he did not perform very well in that primary. But a very impressive come from behind win here. And, you know, moving forward, the Democratic Party is going to have to figure out, okay, how do we bring in a lot of these Democratic voters who were suspicious of whether someone from the left flank of the party could win in a state like Michigan statewide? Because now the race is between Abdul Al Said and a Republican, former Congressman Mike Rogers. And so that is a tough hurdle because it is August and November is not far away. And so the big question now is, okay, where do we go from here? How do we bring in this, this very, very motivated party right now? Because the reason, another reason this was a very close race, another reason it was a very interesting race is because Democrats are very motivated. And you saw that last night.
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So we've talked about social issues, but I think it's also very important to emphasize just how relentlessly focused on the economies El sayed was with his messaging, tying all of these issues in into the economy, into the fact that people feel like they work hard and can't get ahead. So I think that that was a big theme, even as there were all of these other issues as well. And I guess the other thing I would say is just, you know, 2026 ain't 2018. And in 2018, Democrats thought Donald Trump was an aberration. And all you needed to do was return to the norms and be field moderate candidates who would make Trump voters come back, feel comfortable voting For a Democrat. Well, this is not that. This is a very different thought, which is that voters are angry. Trump wasn't an aberration. He won. Again, the Democratic establishment who, you know, has been telling people the way to win was wrong. And voters, Democratic primary voters are willing to take a risk on someone who is not the establishment candidate.
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Well, the Democratic brand is also not doing very well right now. Voters across the board are unhappy, including Democrats, including the die hards in the Democratic Party are really unhappy with the party. The brand is not doing well. And candidates like Abdul Al Sayed are saying, hey, I'm going to run against the things that you're angry about with the party. And I am not going to flinch when I have to say that I'm angry with the party too.
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This was something where El Sayed is not afraid of ruffling feathers. He made that very clear early on in the race. And as much as people want to make this about progressive versus moderate candidate outside himself has rejected the term progressive, he's rejected the term Democratic socialist. He said he's a capitalist. I think it's kind of you saw where the coalitions fall and where those fault lines fall. You know, Stevens ran what I would describe as a very like 90s esque or very traditional Democratic campaign. And what I mean by that is her coalition, the base of her support, she really heavily relied on older voters, the ones who would typically show up in a primary election or who they thought would typically show up in a primary election. Black voters were a major part of the Stevens coalition. You know, I think back to a Democratic nominating convention we had back in April here in Michigan where when they brought all the different, you know, they brought reporters to go scrum with the candidates to talk with them. The room that Stevens was in, she was maybe one of three white people that weren't reporters in that room. You know, she was surrounded by black folks. And she made it very clear that that black support was going to be central to her coalition. Same with working class voters. You know, she pitched herself as a manufacturing geek that was going to save Michigan's auto industry, that helped President Obama with the auto rescue plan. And to that point, every single ad that you saw from the Stevens campaign or on behalf of the Stevens campaign, at least here in Detroit, where I live, every single one of those ads had at least two black faces in it and a reference to one of the Obamas, whether that's, you know, a reference to her being part of President Obama's auto rescue plan or an attack on El Sayed for allegedly criticizing the Obamas. And I think that what you saw in terms of the delivery from that message, you did see her win a sizable amount of black voters. But in some of the main population areas, like Wayne county, home of Detroit, she only came out with about 51% of that vote. You know, in metro Detroit, in her home county, she came out with about 52% of the vote.
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You know, so now they're headed into a general election, and El Sayed needs to win. Those voters needs to win the older voters, the working class voters, the black voters in Detroit. How does that repair process work? And. And is that a problem for him headed into a general election against a Republican who. Who faced no opposition and has Trump's strong endorsement?
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Well, that's the hard part, right? Because Steven's campaign was about, we need to unite. We need to beat Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee in November. That was her campaign from the beginning. That was much of her message yesterday, even when she ended the party thinking she had a serious chance at winning. And so a lot of folks I talked to said that they were going to support the other person. Now, there's also folks who El Sayed has rubbed the wrong way, especially around his criticisms of Israel. There's a sizable Jewish population in metro Detroit that Democrats have also counted on for a long time, who some folks are concerned could be turned off by Abdul's style, especially campaigning with people like Streamer, Hassan, Piker.
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Yeah, the electability argument was really strong among these voters. And now this is a great test case for the left flank of the party who argues that actually someone who doesn't sound like a normal Democrat might actually do really well. Because guess what? Kamala Harris sounded like a normal Democrat when she was running for president and she lost Michigan. So this is a good test case for them. You know, I think no matter which way this went, whoever won was going to be like, okay, let's see if you were right. It's a tough one. But you have to remember also, just taking a step back, it is unlikely the economy is gonna get better. It is unlikely the president and his party are gonna become more popular or vastly more popular or vastly more popular. Right. Enough to, you know, change the direction of where most voters are going. And it's also worth remembering that most of the Democratic Party and a lot of the electorate agree with Abdul Al said on the. On issues related to Israel. So, you know, this might be a liability with some voters. And look, as we see, elections in Michigan are very close margins matter, I don't wanna dismiss that, but you know, it might not be quite the liability we think it is now, especially moving into a economic focused election.
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I wanna turn to a couple of other House races in Michigan quickly because I think that they speak to this Trend. In Michigan's 7th Congressional District, William Lawrence beat two more moderate candidates in the Democratic primary. He is a co founder of the Sunrise Movement, which is an environmental activist group. And now he faces first term incumbent Tom Barrett in November. That race is a true toss up. And so this will be another really big test of whether progressives can win. But you know, he argued in an interview with me that playing it safe is actually the electability issue not standing for something. And then Colin, I'm hoping you can tell us what happened in Michigan's 13th congressional district.
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You saw Donovan McAnius, two term state representative take on incumbent Sri Tanadar and he ended up winning that vote. And again, McKinney ran a campaign from the left of Tanadar. So when you talk about can progressive politics win in Michigan, this is still the same city, the same district that voted mostly for Stevens McKaney was able to unseat who also had benefited from AIPAC money in his career. And so there's a lot of different factors here. You know, there have been criticisms ahead of the last campaign that Tanadar hadn't been showing up for his constituents and that, you know, people were having trouble reaching his office. There was criticisms that last time around he had won that Democratic primary because of heavy APAC spending. I think there's a lot going on here. I don't want to discount just the fact that McKinney is black and Tanadar is Indian American. And this is a district that represents, you know, the blackest city in the country. And so I think to a certain extent, not to be reductive here, but I do think being a black candidate in Detroit does help. Not to say you can't win as a non black candidate. You know, we saw Rashida Tlaib win heavily here many times. But I think that this is kind of one of those signs that El Sayed might not necessarily have so much ground to gain when it comes to winning over some of these black voters, especially in Wayne county where he lost to Stevens.
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We have to take a quick break, but we will have many more results when we return.
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Terms may apply Support for this podcast and the following message come from Made in Cookware President and co founder Jay Kalik shares why he was inspired by his family's fourth generation kitchen supply business.
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Learn more about Made in Cookware at M a d e I-ncookware.com
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and we're back. And we've talked about the influence of AIPAC money in some of these races or in some cases the lack of influence. But in Missouri, there was a rematch between incumbent Congressman Wesley Bell and former Congresswoman Cori Bush, who was a top target for aipac. The aligned group spent a lot of money there, according to Ad Impact. So what happened? Ashley?
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Well, she did not win, which was this is an interesting race to watch, mostly because Cori Bush was very early on one of the few folks in Congress who was criticizing Israel. And politics has changed a lot since then. So when AIPAC spent a lot of money on her race two years ago, she was unseated by now Congressman Wesley Bell. And that was seen as an indicator that the electorate was not where Cori Bush is with Israel. But now we know, as I mentioned, polling shows that, you know, more voters tend to agree with Cori Bush than they do the the leadership of the Democratic Party. That was not enough for Cori Bush to win reelection, which is interesting because this was a race that progressives were hoping to win. They were hoping that this could be the opportunity now that tides have changed. Polling is more on the side of progressives on this race in this safe blue seat that Cori Bush could win. And interestingly, she did not. Which, I mean, it gives the picture right now that, you know, the left flank of the party is racking up a lot of wins. And this is just one place where, like, you see limits to that.
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And it wasn't even close.
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No, it was not.
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Okay. I also want to turn to Washington State, which has top two primaries. So you could get a Democrat and a Democrat or a Republican and a Republican. We didn't see that, but basically top two. And in the third Congressional District, Democratic Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp Perez fended off challenges to her left and advanced to the November election. So, Ashley, this is a break with the trend we've been talking about. You know, she's a moderate.
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Glusenkamperez is kind of like in the ilk of John Fetterman in that, you know, they kind of vote against the party. They clash a lot with the left flank of the party. But you have to remember, unlike the Cori Bush race, where this is a safe blue seat, where it's mostly, mostly Democrats voting, the thing with top two primaries is they're nonpartisan. Right. So you have Republicans and independents and Democrats all voting on the same ballot. So this is not exactly apples to apples. And so it is not surprising that, you know, you ended up with a Republican and a Democrat coming up. Especially because remember, Gluzing Cab Perez flipped a Trump district in 2022. This was already a district that was not favorable to Democrats or it's at least a swingy district. So I don't know. I would not put this in, in the roster of like places where progressives had a surprising loss. This is a place where, yeah, maybe progressives wanted to win this because they have personally beef with, with Glsen Camp Perez, but it was not an easy one for them.
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Another race we were watching and we talked about on the pod Yesterday was Washington's 4th congressional district. Uh, that was an open seat that is likely, very likely to go Republican and had a competitive primary. The Trump endorsed candidate there, Amanda McKinney, she's a Yakima county commissioner. She move on to the next round. She will face Democrat John De Reski in November. But notable here that we talked yesterday, these candidates in some ways were distancing themselves from Trump. But in the end, the Trump endorsed candidate won.
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I know this is like my hobby horse, but this is a function of nonpartisan primaries. You just have to run a little differently. You know, the ideologues don't do as well in these kinds of structures. So it is not totally surprising that just because you are backed by Trump, you're gonna do well in a seat that in a seat like this.
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So, Colin, this brings me to perhaps the most quirky result of the night, if you can help us with that. There is a Michigan swing district where President Trump's endorsed candidate did not win. Tell us what happened.
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This is a really interesting race because in Michigan, you know, ballots have to go out a certain amount of time before election Day. We have early voting, et cetera. And so that that means sometimes candidates appear on the ballot who have dropped out. That happened in the governor's race, that happened in the Senate race. And this happened in this 8th congressional race where the winner, Thomas Smith, had dropped out and actually endorsed one of his opponents in this race. Meanwhile, Amir Hassan is a veteran. He's in Flynn. He ended up losing. He posted a video on Twitter earlier just saying, you know, in the military, you got to take accountability, and the loss is the loss. You know, it wasn't just a loss, though. The Thomas Smith, the person who dropped out had won over 50% of the vote, according to at least AP, with 99% of the votes in. And I think there are some factors here, one of them just potentially being the name itself. You know, Amir Hassan, he's a black American, versus Thomas Smith, who, you know, we talk about resume names sometimes. And so I think that could have been some of a factor here. This is just an interesting district in itself, though, where it does include, you know, it includes Flint, includes parts of Saginaw, it includes parts of Midland, Flint, and Saginaw especially do have a decent black population. I'm curious to see who was motivated to turn out in this Republican primary in the first place and what this means going forward for this upcoming general election where Democrats seem to be doing a decent job holding what was supposed to be a tough seat to hold every time.
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Colin, another primary where the candidate that President Trump endorsed one is the Michigan governor. Tell us about that.
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Yeah, this was a case where now you see John James, who is now running his third statewide campaign. He lost two U.S. senate bids starting in 2018 and again in 2020 before winning his congressional seat. He beat businessman Perry Johnson. And James has been the wire to wire front runner here. And I think one of the biggest factors of why James has been the wire to wire front runner is purely name recognition. You know, he's someone that, again, since 2018, has run statewide campaigns here in Michigan. He's been serving in Congress. He was able to win some key endorsements from that. He was able to get the Trump endorsement this time around. Meanwhile, you know, Perry Johnson, he's a businessman. He's largely self funded. You know, he was able to flood the state's airwaves with a lot of commercials. But James has really just been able to be omnipresent in a lot of this race. You know, he didn't debate his opponents when this was a huge field. He only recently started debating when it was basically down to a two person race. So he didn't have to take all the heat and all the attacks head on for not being there previously. And he won in nearly every county in the state. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Jocelyn Benson, the current Secretary of State, she had a very easy path against Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson to winning this nomination. And again, she was also the wire to wire front runner.
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Well, because this is Michigan, it's a swing state, this governor's race is going to be pretty competitive. It's leaning Democratic, but it's one of those races that's going to be important for Democrats because Democrats right now, their governorships are really important. It's the few places where they have power in the second Trump administration.
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And historically it's been hard for Democrats to hold the governorship for three straight times here in Michigan. We typically go from party to party between governors. And so we'll see if Governor Whitmer's lingering popularity can carry Benson forward through this election or if John James can overcome some of Trump's negatives here in Michigan to bring out his supporters in that way and flip the state.
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Ashley, before we close out, I wanna give you a chance to talk about ballot measures. Cause I know you love ballot measures.
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My favorite thing.
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Woo. So in Missouri, voters rejected a Republican backed initiative making it harder to amend the state constitution by referend, sort of a referendum on referenda. So what happened there?
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It lost big, something like 80%. The last time I checked, voter, 80% of voters voted no on this. It was put on the ballot by the state legislature. And the state legislature was basically asking voters to make it harder for them to engage in direct democracy. It would raise the threshold instead of 50 plus 1 to pass a constitutional amendment requiring it to pass in every congressional district, which is a very hard metric to pass. It would make it nearly impossible for any constitutional amendments to pass, which is what Republicans in the state legislature wanted because in their view the state constitution was getting amended too much. And this is a gripe that you're hearing from Republicans all over the country. The reason why I think this is interesting is that there are a couple of ballot measures that are going to be before voters this fall, asking voters to reconsider how easy it should be to amend their constitution. Voting rights advocates are really opposed to these measures because direct democracy is is the only way that a lot of voters get issues like Medicaid expansion passed, marijuana legalization, abortion rights passed, especially in Republican led states. So it's something to watch. That's, I think, pretty interesting. But I will say, like, I did not, I had a feeling this would not be popular. I did not expect an 80% no vote.
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Yeah, I mean, I guess it turns out people like direct democracy. Yeah.
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And they're not as concerned about a cluttered constitution as the Republican leaders are. So go figure.
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All right, we're going to leave it there for today. Colin, thank you so much for sharing your reporting.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.
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I'm Ashley Lopez. I also cover politics.
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And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.
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The midterms are coming and that means the news cycle, which is already intense, is about to get more intense this fall. So this summer is a perfect time to make sure your news diet is calibrated. I'm Layla Faldel. On up first, we unpack the three biggest stories every morning so you can stay informed and get on with your day in less than 15 minutes. Follow or subscribe to Upfirst Today wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever been so upset that you can't even think straight? When we're distressed and in high anxiety, we tend to breathe from our chest, which is actually more hyperventilating and is the opposite of relaxing.
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So we want to breathe from our belly area.
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This week on the Life Kit podcast, tips for those painful, stressful moments. Listen to Life Kit on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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