Michigan Hands the Democratic Establishment Another Brutal Loss

Democrats will remember 2026 as the year their party’s establishment lost its once total control of the primary process.

Instead, it was outmaneuvered and overwhelmed by a progressive insurgency whose chosen candidates, backed by a furious liberal base, smashed their way to victories.

It’s a low point for the center-left that Democratic leaders can climb out of, party strategists say, but only with a radical readjustment of how they operate.

The result of Michigan’s Senate Democratic primary Tuesday — in which outspoken progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens — was arguably the sharpest blow yet. Stevens lost despite having a huge cash advantage, outspending him 11-to-1 in ads, and running a playbook that had worked for moderate candidates for years, including during Hillary Clinton’s and Joe Biden’s presidential campaigns. El-Sayed winning only narrowly, despite his own campaign’s expectations of a blowout victory, just poses more questions of what if anything the party establishment could’ve done differently to head off the rising left.

The choice to support Stevens was emblematic of a larger problem with how party leaders anoint candidates, said some Democratic strategists, and a failure to properly understand just how angry their own party’s voters were with the old way of conducting politics.

“They value seniority over talent, a fundraising rolodex over ability to make genuine voter connections, institutional comfort over the anger and change that voters are actually demanding,” said Lis Smith, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked for a candidate in the race who dropped out, Mallory McMorrow. “If you put up establishment slop against DSA candidates who may have bad ideas but are exciting and speak to the anger of American voters, Democratic voters are going to choose DSA and far-left candidates, until we get our act together.”

Democratic voters, said another party strategist, were “shouting from the rooftops” about their anger.

“If we don’t actually respect and respond to this frustration, we’re gonna wind up with heads in a basket,” said the party operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Democratic Party leaders counter that they have mostly gotten their way in primaries this year and more importantly, could be poised for a big midterm election in November in part because of successful candidate recruitment. Democratic Senate candidates from Texas to North Carolina lead in public polling as President Donald Trump’s approval rating sags to all-time lows. Gas prices are still high, and voters say they’re still feeling the cost-of-living pinch. Those environmental factors have put not just the House in play but also the Senate, an unlikely possibility just two years ago.

Both the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee quickly rallied around El-Sayed after his win. DSCC chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Democratic Senate leader Sen. Chuck Schumer said in a statement that El-Sayed had “inspired thousands of Michiganders” and that the party is united behind him.

But Tuesday’s result in Michigan was only the latest setback for Democrats in Washington this year. In June, Maine Gov. Janet Mills lost her primary race in an embarrassing landslide to political newcomer Graham Platner, despite an endorsement from the DSCC. (Platner later exited the race.) Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado failed to clinch his gubernatorial race, which revolved around his closeness to Washington leadership.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has lost three races in California, Arizona and Maine, where it spent money on its preferred candidate. The party has also seen progressive candidates win some House races in which the party establishment split its support among multiple candidates. That happened again on Tuesday night in Michigan, where progressive activist Will Lawrence beat two moderates in a swing district.

And a handful of incumbent Democratic House members, from Colorado to New York, have lost their reelection races to Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated candidates, a rarity in a party that traditionally has valued its incumbents.

“It’s not the end of the center-left, but they need to do a better job of consolidating earlier rather than letting multiple go in the same lane,” said Kevin McKeon, a Democratic strategist who works on Senate and House races.

Of course, establishment Democrats still have successes to claim this cycle. Of the 13 candidates on the DCCC’s coveted Red to Blue endorsement list, 10 have won their respective primaries. The DSCC recruited former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola into their respective Senate races without any incident, instantly putting the trio of states into play. In Iowa, the establishment-backed candidate, state Rep. Josh Turek, also won a contested primary.

That’s something DSCC aides are all too happy to point out.

“Senate Democrats created a path to win a majority thanks to all-star candidate recruitment, formidable campaigns, and a winning message,” Tommy Garcia, a DSCC spokesperson, said in a statement. “Democratic candidates are out-polling and out-raising their Republican opponents, and in November we will win the majority — which no one thought was possible a year ago.”

Democrats are even more bullish on taking the House majority than the Senate, in part because of investments in many key races.

“Everyone agrees that the stakes could not be higher for November,” Viet Shelton, a DCCC spokesperson, said in a statement. ”The DCCC is doing everything possible to ensure Democrats win the biggest majority possible and Congress can actually deliver for the American people again. Every poll is proving we are (still) well positioned to do just that.”

Center-left Democrats are quick to point to November as the ultimate scorecard for the wings of the party.

“It’s worth remembering,” said a Democratic consultant granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, that progressive won primaries in Omaha, Nebraska, and Syracuse, New York, a pair of battleground House districts. But Democrats “went on to win the majority in 2018 without winning either of the Omaha or Syracuse seats.”

Some Democratic leaders expressed optimism that the party losing some primaries was ultimately good — that it could help expose leaders in Congress to new ideas and energy.

“I actually think this is a healthy debate to have,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who has endorsed candidates running against the party establishment this year and previously served as the chair of both the DCCC and DSCC. “I think we need this kind of churning in the Democratic Party.”

Even so, party leaders have problems beyond this year’s primaries. Schumer has faced calls from some candidates and activists to step aside, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has been on the receiving end of frustration from some activists and candidates. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin has been beset by crises since taking over last year, dogged by controversy over the party’s fundraising tactics and a botched 2024 autopsy report.

And Michigan isn’t the last crucial test the party will face this primary cycle. In Wisconsin, a democratic socialist candidate is favored to win the gubernatorial primary next week, in part because other Democratic candidates failed to consolidate support or gain traction.

“Since I’ve been paying attention to politics, the Democratic Party has never been as weak and unpopular as it is now,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, a liberal grassroots group. “And I think that’s just an empirical fact.”

Levin has been critical of Democratic Party leadership since Trump’s inauguration last year, arguing they haven’t been forceful or creative enough in their opposition to the president. He, like others interviewed for this story, said he thought the base’s frustration with party leadership was more about its failure to defeat Trump in 2024 and the perception it has done little to thwart him while in office.

Even among Democrats who have represented battleground districts, there’s a concern the party isn’t offering “bigger, bolder policy ideas this year” and the party hasn’t “been inspiring enough,” said former Rep. Susan Wild.

“Voters are looking for [an] actual strategy for how we are going to be different, what our plan is,” Wild said, citing “Medicare for All” and subsidized child care as potential policy platforms. “You can’t just talk about an affordability agenda without talking specifics.”

During the second Trump administration, Danielle Butterfield, president of Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, voters have identified a “vacuum in Democratic leadership.”

“In a world where our party doesn’t have any lever of government, our leadership is failing in crazy ways,” Butterfield said. “It has created this circular firing squad of everyone else saying, ‘Maybe someone else will step up.’ And progressive Democrats are the ones who are meeting the moment, and people want that.”

Butterfield pointed to the difference she saw in the ads from El-Sayed’s and Stevens’ campaigns. She believed El-Sayed did a better job explaining to voters exactly how he proposed to make their lives better, centered on passing “Medicare for All” and abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“As a whole, progressive candidates are meeting that anger more vividly,” she said. “And we’re seeing that play out in these primaries.”