This Politico piece captured the night while the Michigan U.S. Senate race was still too close to call and progressives were realizing they hadn’t delivered the blowout many expected.
Yesterday’s Michigan primaries
Progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly beat moderate Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic Senate primary. The race was far closer than late polls predicted.
In Michigan’s 7th District, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence won the Democratic House primary after two moderates split the vote.
In the 13th District, democratic socialist Donavan McKinney narrowly unseated incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar.
Cori Bush’s comeback bid
Former “Squad” member and democratic socialist Cori Bush tried to reclaim the St. Louis-area House seat she lost in 2024. She faced the same opponent who beat her then, incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell.
Bush ran again as a sharp critic of U.S. support for Israel and as a progressive standard-bearer. The race drew heavy outside spending, much of it from pro-Israel groups backing Bell. She lost decisively, roughly 59% to 37%.
It was one of the clearer setbacks for the progressive left on a night that otherwise produced mixed results for that faction.
h/t Newsalert
Vince Dao’s take
Vince Dao covers the same results and frames El-Sayed’s thin win and Bush’s loss as a reality check for DSA-backed candidates. He argues the night exposed their vulnerabilities outside deep-blue urban strongholds: [VIDEO]
Further thoughts
The conventional wisdom right now is that the energy is with these so-called Democrat Socialist candidates around the country. But El-Sayed’s win was no landslide. The margin was thin, and the expected progressive wave never fully materialized.
I need to look more closely at the numbers in other places where DSA-backed candidates succeeded. Michigan may lean blue in presidential years at times, but it remains a true battleground—Trump carried it narrowly in both 2016 and 2024. That makes El-Sayed’s path to the Senate far from automatic against Republican Mike Rogers this November.
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