This is a great example of where a different kind of primary could get a better result. With three candidates, Michigan Dems could end up with a winner who has just 33%+1 of the vote, with the other two thirds of primary voters unhappy. Ranked choice voting or approval voting (you can vote for more than one candidate) would better reveal the preferences of the electorate and also lead to a more positive primary campaign.
I'm having a harder and harder time grasping what weed the "Medicare for All" folks are smoking. We watched 100s of thousands of unnecessary deaths in 2020 as Trump & Alex Azar clustered the US Covid response--Ivermectin with a bleach chaser, anyone? Now he's put RFK Jr in charge. Ya'll seriously want Trump and RFK, Jr to have MORE control of our health care and what insurance covers? Single payer NHS in the UK and single payer Italian health system had far more ventilator shortages and covid issues than multi-payer Germany, Netherlands, Australia, etc.
Since affordability is the point, what insurance plan pays the MOST for drugs--Medicare! When Bush and Pelosi negotiated adding the Medicare Drug Benefit (which Boomers had not paid for with their prior FICA taxes) Republicans banned the government from negotiating for the same prices the VA, Medicaid and DoD health programs already pay https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/27/medicare-drug-price-value-00111346, leading Medicare to pay double what the VA pays for the same drugs. https://www.gao.gov/prescription-drug-spending
The Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to reducing fossil fuel demand and prices by getting solar panels and heat pumps in houses and EVs on the road, finally broke through the big pharma lobby and got negotiation for the 10 biggest drugs for next year--but you didn't hear about those obvious inflation wins from Kamala or Karinne JP. https://www.kff.org/medicare/explaining-the-prescription-drug-provisions-in-the-inflation-reduction-act/ However, that leaves all but 10 drugs with unilateral pricing surrender to pharma--we want THAT for everyone?
Note the banner at the top of the GAO link that work on research like this and auditing the government https://www.gao.gov/ig/audit-reports is shut down, and the Senate bill funds it and Low Income heating assistance (LiHeap) right as the country is in a severe cold snap with AI driving up electric bills in addition to getting government workers paid so they can pay bills without racking up more interest and late charges or being evicted.
You know what I want? Someone who will win. Period. This is why Nancy Pelosi was so effective. She didn't do purity tests. She didn't go hand-wringing over what kind of Democrat she wanted to win. Just win, come into the fold, and be a team player.
To be sure, I wish things weren't this way. In my ideal world, we wouldn't have political parties; generally speaking I abhor factionalism just like our Founders did. People ought to vote their consciences instead of what the party decides. But that's the ideal.
And this is the modern reality. The Republican Party now acts like a monolithic cult at the elite level because they're too afraid of their voters to check Trump's power. A united Democratic front is now needed to oppose them. We need to have a big tent party, one that knows when to squabble internally and when to display a strong, cohesive resistance to the malign forces on the right.
And I'm sorry, but this "MRI of the soul" stuff doesn't land with me. This is pure strategy. Unless you honestly expect to have the kind of Senator who will buck the party at crucial times, it doesn't matter what they support, or what their differences are with other Democrats. You want another Fetterman? Someone who stands apart with his/her own agenda? Fine. But consider all of the downsides, which Fetterman seems to be ably demonstrating at the moment.
Pelosi was effective at inside baseball and getting donations from liberal donors. I admired how a stay at home Mom entered the fray and rose so far, but in swing states "Pelosi Democrat" was an effective Republican campaign message. She picked an ancient leadership team of Hoyer & Clyburn, and never had an economic message blue collar workers could relate to. Democratic losses of union support under her watch were bad.
The disastrous luxury tax on boats and planes she settled for with HW Bush instead of demanding a rollback of Reagan tax cuts cost thousands of blue collar machinists, mechanics and electricians their jobs while losing more in income tax and unemployment payments than it brought in. I worked for the last Dem to represent NJ-2 where many boat builders were located.
For a guy who bills himself as a campaign strategist, that was an oddly opaque label. I suspect he means independents and some Dems who might label themselves as either "progressive," "moderate," or "conservative" (in the old Michigan Republican sense of Gerald Ford or Romney's dad who was Governor of MI) who want a modest social safety net, strong defense, law & order, environmental protection, oppose unlimited deficit funded tax breaks for the rich, but believe that most jobs and all government revenue ultimately come from the private sector and want pro job and business policies. Bill Clinton and Obama general election voters who wouldn't vote for Bernie or Trump.
Thank you, apologies for the snark. I should have mention in my original post how much I liked the article. I am #TeamMallory all the way. I think she also has a slight edge on lower info voters given that, as a State Sen, she can lean in to “Sen McMorrow” in ads and media.
Since we're coming off of Cheney's recent passing, I'll make a comparison between Democratic voters' thinking and that of Cheney. There was one thing that Cheney was unwilling to do to suppress the insurgency in Iraq, that was to reassess his assumptions about what would weaken the insurgency. Likewise, the Democratic activists have one thing they are unwilling to do to stop the Trumpists. That is reassess their assumptions about how to defeat them at the polls.
El Sayed is probably like Mandela Barnes from Wisconsin. How did that turn out?
I'm another Michigander for Mallory McMorrow. She's a happy warrior -- a proud mother who also has experience in the business world -- and someone whose intelligence and commitment are blazingly evident to those who've ever heard her speak. Not only can she win, I think she, together with Elissa Slotkin, would have real shake-up impact in a body that really needs it.
This probably belongs to Lauren, but try something similar with the gubenatorial candidates in Georgia. The primaries are going to be wild down here next year.
I live part time in an inner Detroit suburb and part time in the second poorest county in the state, up in the northwest lower peninsula. I vote in my very blue inner suburb but man do I hear about politics from my rural friends in the deep red agricultural county.
In rural areas, none of these candidates will gain much traction. So the dem nominee really needs to draw as many votes from the urban and small city areas as possible. I think McMorrow has the best shot at that - she doesn't have the scary commie label/Bernie association that El-Sayad does, nor the AIPAC association of Stevens. We'll see what happens there.
The Michigan governors race is going to overshadow the senate race. I have no idea what will happen there - as of now it's wide open.
Don't forget other states. I am in NC, and we have Roy Cooper, our former wonderful 2-term Dem governor now running for a Senatorial seat in a close race. I have relatives from other states who have given to his campaign as I have for other candidates across the country. I'm broadening my thinking at this poing.
Great piece; fair and very informative. One caveat, though: the choice in the primary will reflect what Democrats in Michigan think it takes to win a general election—in Michigan. Not everywhere else.
Every choice Democrats make, anytime, anywhere, somehow portends the future direction of the party? This framing has become so tiresome. Mandami wins NYC, Sherrill wins New Jersey. Meaning?
I have said for a while that Michigan's Democratic Party has an unusually strong bench right now -- mostly because of 2018 and all the younger people who got into politics as a reaction to Trump, as all three of these Senate candidates did.
The downside is that it does create a logjam, which we're seeing play out right now -- including in the governor's race. But that's a story for another day.
This is also due to winning the battle for fair maps, which led to far more Democratic reps winning seats and getting in the pipeline to move up. That one woman who started a campaign for the fair maps on Facebook is a true American hero. So inspiring.
Yes, I absolutely get that choosing is much easier the fewer choices one has. But in the overheated public "discourse" of "Them Bad! Us Good! Smash smash!" a surfeit of credible candidates seems like rain after drought. I recognize this creates a problem for the party and the voters. As I'm a Canadian citizen and resident it's one I'm removed from. Thank you for your coverage of these candidates.
Good candidate analysis, although I seriously doubt that control of the Senate turns on Michigan. Jon Ossoff’s Georgia seat is in peril, and it’s probably no better than a coin toss to topple to Susan Collins. Even if those work out, I’m not seeing three more flips to get to 51. Remember, R’s actually gained Senate seats in the 2018 “blue wave.”
Having said all that, it is absolutely critical that Dems don’t dig the hole any deeper in ‘26. The Senate map going forward is treacherous.
Michigan voter here. This is going to be a hard one. I don't think El-Sayed is electable statewide in any universe I recognize, so I have eliminated a vote for him. Normally I would gravitate to the safest choice, which would be Stevens, but between her being a poor communicator and the AIPAC support, I don't think I can pull the lever for her. That leaves McMorrow, who will probably get my vote unless she does something disqualifying. My fear is that El-Sayed will win the primary with a plurality because his voters are committed to him and no-one else, while Stevens and McMorrow split the rest of the vote. And PS to whomever said we have closed primaries in Michigan: We don't have party registration here, so you are handed a ballot and allowed to vote in either the Dem or Republican primary as you see fit. If the Republicans have settled on Rogers, they could engage in some troublemaking by voting in the Dem primary for whomever they think would be easiest to defeat. That would be a small number of voters, but could make a difference.
Michigander here as well. The GOP has a hotly contested primary for Governor, and also in certain U.S. House and state legislature seats. Although both parties have been known to tamper in their opponents’ primaries in the past, I don’t see it happening in 2026. There is too much at stake on both sides this time.
This is a great example of where a different kind of primary could get a better result. With three candidates, Michigan Dems could end up with a winner who has just 33%+1 of the vote, with the other two thirds of primary voters unhappy. Ranked choice voting or approval voting (you can vote for more than one candidate) would better reveal the preferences of the electorate and also lead to a more positive primary campaign.
I'm having a harder and harder time grasping what weed the "Medicare for All" folks are smoking. We watched 100s of thousands of unnecessary deaths in 2020 as Trump & Alex Azar clustered the US Covid response--Ivermectin with a bleach chaser, anyone? Now he's put RFK Jr in charge. Ya'll seriously want Trump and RFK, Jr to have MORE control of our health care and what insurance covers? Single payer NHS in the UK and single payer Italian health system had far more ventilator shortages and covid issues than multi-payer Germany, Netherlands, Australia, etc.
Since affordability is the point, what insurance plan pays the MOST for drugs--Medicare! When Bush and Pelosi negotiated adding the Medicare Drug Benefit (which Boomers had not paid for with their prior FICA taxes) Republicans banned the government from negotiating for the same prices the VA, Medicaid and DoD health programs already pay https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/27/medicare-drug-price-value-00111346, leading Medicare to pay double what the VA pays for the same drugs. https://www.gao.gov/prescription-drug-spending
Canada's single payer system doesn't cover drugs https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-health-care-system.html
The Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to reducing fossil fuel demand and prices by getting solar panels and heat pumps in houses and EVs on the road, finally broke through the big pharma lobby and got negotiation for the 10 biggest drugs for next year--but you didn't hear about those obvious inflation wins from Kamala or Karinne JP. https://www.kff.org/medicare/explaining-the-prescription-drug-provisions-in-the-inflation-reduction-act/ However, that leaves all but 10 drugs with unilateral pricing surrender to pharma--we want THAT for everyone?
Note the banner at the top of the GAO link that work on research like this and auditing the government https://www.gao.gov/ig/audit-reports is shut down, and the Senate bill funds it and Low Income heating assistance (LiHeap) right as the country is in a severe cold snap with AI driving up electric bills in addition to getting government workers paid so they can pay bills without racking up more interest and late charges or being evicted.
You know what I want? Someone who will win. Period. This is why Nancy Pelosi was so effective. She didn't do purity tests. She didn't go hand-wringing over what kind of Democrat she wanted to win. Just win, come into the fold, and be a team player.
To be sure, I wish things weren't this way. In my ideal world, we wouldn't have political parties; generally speaking I abhor factionalism just like our Founders did. People ought to vote their consciences instead of what the party decides. But that's the ideal.
And this is the modern reality. The Republican Party now acts like a monolithic cult at the elite level because they're too afraid of their voters to check Trump's power. A united Democratic front is now needed to oppose them. We need to have a big tent party, one that knows when to squabble internally and when to display a strong, cohesive resistance to the malign forces on the right.
And I'm sorry, but this "MRI of the soul" stuff doesn't land with me. This is pure strategy. Unless you honestly expect to have the kind of Senator who will buck the party at crucial times, it doesn't matter what they support, or what their differences are with other Democrats. You want another Fetterman? Someone who stands apart with his/her own agenda? Fine. But consider all of the downsides, which Fetterman seems to be ably demonstrating at the moment.
As Nancy would say, "Just win, baby."
Pelosi was effective at inside baseball and getting donations from liberal donors. I admired how a stay at home Mom entered the fray and rose so far, but in swing states "Pelosi Democrat" was an effective Republican campaign message. She picked an ancient leadership team of Hoyer & Clyburn, and never had an economic message blue collar workers could relate to. Democratic losses of union support under her watch were bad.
The disastrous luxury tax on boats and planes she settled for with HW Bush instead of demanding a rollback of Reagan tax cuts cost thousands of blue collar machinists, mechanics and electricians their jobs while losing more in income tax and unemployment payments than it brought in. I worked for the last Dem to represent NJ-2 where many boat builders were located.
What on earth is a center left behavioral Democrat?
For a guy who bills himself as a campaign strategist, that was an oddly opaque label. I suspect he means independents and some Dems who might label themselves as either "progressive," "moderate," or "conservative" (in the old Michigan Republican sense of Gerald Ford or Romney's dad who was Governor of MI) who want a modest social safety net, strong defense, law & order, environmental protection, oppose unlimited deficit funded tax breaks for the rich, but believe that most jobs and all government revenue ultimately come from the private sector and want pro job and business policies. Bill Clinton and Obama general election voters who wouldn't vote for Bernie or Trump.
Would it have killed the author to mention the date of this primary???
Ah, sorry -- must have fallen out when I was revising.
Tuesday, August 4 2026
Thank you, apologies for the snark. I should have mention in my original post how much I liked the article. I am #TeamMallory all the way. I think she also has a slight edge on lower info voters given that, as a State Sen, she can lean in to “Sen McMorrow” in ads and media.
McMorrow. Duh. Dems need to quit run re-treads. OMFG.
Since we're coming off of Cheney's recent passing, I'll make a comparison between Democratic voters' thinking and that of Cheney. There was one thing that Cheney was unwilling to do to suppress the insurgency in Iraq, that was to reassess his assumptions about what would weaken the insurgency. Likewise, the Democratic activists have one thing they are unwilling to do to stop the Trumpists. That is reassess their assumptions about how to defeat them at the polls.
El Sayed is probably like Mandela Barnes from Wisconsin. How did that turn out?
Excellent breakdown on
these candidates
Jonathan.
I'm another Michigander for Mallory McMorrow. She's a happy warrior -- a proud mother who also has experience in the business world -- and someone whose intelligence and commitment are blazingly evident to those who've ever heard her speak. Not only can she win, I think she, together with Elissa Slotkin, would have real shake-up impact in a body that really needs it.
Very nice breakdown.
This probably belongs to Lauren, but try something similar with the gubenatorial candidates in Georgia. The primaries are going to be wild down here next year.
I live part time in an inner Detroit suburb and part time in the second poorest county in the state, up in the northwest lower peninsula. I vote in my very blue inner suburb but man do I hear about politics from my rural friends in the deep red agricultural county.
In rural areas, none of these candidates will gain much traction. So the dem nominee really needs to draw as many votes from the urban and small city areas as possible. I think McMorrow has the best shot at that - she doesn't have the scary commie label/Bernie association that El-Sayad does, nor the AIPAC association of Stevens. We'll see what happens there.
The Michigan governors race is going to overshadow the senate race. I have no idea what will happen there - as of now it's wide open.
So, so hard to know what will happen in the governor's race
Don't forget other states. I am in NC, and we have Roy Cooper, our former wonderful 2-term Dem governor now running for a Senatorial seat in a close race. I have relatives from other states who have given to his campaign as I have for other candidates across the country. I'm broadening my thinking at this poing.
Great piece; fair and very informative. One caveat, though: the choice in the primary will reflect what Democrats in Michigan think it takes to win a general election—in Michigan. Not everywhere else.
Every choice Democrats make, anytime, anywhere, somehow portends the future direction of the party? This framing has become so tiresome. Mandami wins NYC, Sherrill wins New Jersey. Meaning?
I've no skin in this game, but I'm deeply heartened that there are *three* interesting, capable, and smart candidates.
I have said for a while that Michigan's Democratic Party has an unusually strong bench right now -- mostly because of 2018 and all the younger people who got into politics as a reaction to Trump, as all three of these Senate candidates did.
The downside is that it does create a logjam, which we're seeing play out right now -- including in the governor's race. But that's a story for another day.
This is also due to winning the battle for fair maps, which led to far more Democratic reps winning seats and getting in the pipeline to move up. That one woman who started a campaign for the fair maps on Facebook is a true American hero. So inspiring.
Yes, I absolutely get that choosing is much easier the fewer choices one has. But in the overheated public "discourse" of "Them Bad! Us Good! Smash smash!" a surfeit of credible candidates seems like rain after drought. I recognize this creates a problem for the party and the voters. As I'm a Canadian citizen and resident it's one I'm removed from. Thank you for your coverage of these candidates.
Good candidate analysis, although I seriously doubt that control of the Senate turns on Michigan. Jon Ossoff’s Georgia seat is in peril, and it’s probably no better than a coin toss to topple to Susan Collins. Even if those work out, I’m not seeing three more flips to get to 51. Remember, R’s actually gained Senate seats in the 2018 “blue wave.”
Having said all that, it is absolutely critical that Dems don’t dig the hole any deeper in ‘26. The Senate map going forward is treacherous.
Michigan voter here. This is going to be a hard one. I don't think El-Sayed is electable statewide in any universe I recognize, so I have eliminated a vote for him. Normally I would gravitate to the safest choice, which would be Stevens, but between her being a poor communicator and the AIPAC support, I don't think I can pull the lever for her. That leaves McMorrow, who will probably get my vote unless she does something disqualifying. My fear is that El-Sayed will win the primary with a plurality because his voters are committed to him and no-one else, while Stevens and McMorrow split the rest of the vote. And PS to whomever said we have closed primaries in Michigan: We don't have party registration here, so you are handed a ballot and allowed to vote in either the Dem or Republican primary as you see fit. If the Republicans have settled on Rogers, they could engage in some troublemaking by voting in the Dem primary for whomever they think would be easiest to defeat. That would be a small number of voters, but could make a difference.
Michigander here as well. The GOP has a hotly contested primary for Governor, and also in certain U.S. House and state legislature seats. Although both parties have been known to tamper in their opponents’ primaries in the past, I don’t see it happening in 2026. There is too much at stake on both sides this time.