Michigan may be known for Midwestern friendliness, but right now the swing state is home to the most combative Democratic Senate primary of the midterms.
Attacks are flying, prominent Democrats are taking sides, and the bruising contest is causing anxiety in the party. And with about three months left until the primary, the fracas is only just getting started.
The race is a three-way clash between Democrats from distinct wings of their party: There’s a centrist with establishment support, an upstart Bernie Sanders-backed populist, and a state lawmaker whose politics are somewhere in between. The winner of the Aug. 4 primary is likely to face Mike Rogers, a Republican, in November, as Democrats try to keep the seat of Senator Gary Peters, who is retiring. The contest, which is expected to be a major 2028 presidential battleground, could be crucial in the fight for the Senate majority.
Many of the fault lines running through the Democratic Party across the country are on clear display in the race. It will test Democratic voters’ hunger for new voices, their anger at party leaders, their attitudes on Israel and how much they care about candidates’ embarrassing social-media posts from years ago.
“It has become a very personal race,” Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview today, adding: “They’re taking shots at each other, which worries me. We’ve got to figure out when this primary’s done how we’re going to unify everybody.”
In one corner there’s Representative Haley Stevens, 42, a party establishment favorite. She’s running as a counterweight to chaos in Washington and has faced some headwinds in what polls show is a competitive race. Last month she was booed at a state nominating convention by activists unhappy with her support for Israel. Former Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, who represented the state for a quarter-century before retiring last year, endorsed Stevens today.
In another corner, there’s Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, 41, a progressive former health official staging a freewheeling, unscripted campaign that has made inroads with the party’s activist base. El-Sayed has courted young voters — and controversy — by campaigning with the popular streamer Hasan Piker, whose commentary about Israel is seen by some as antisemitic.
And charting a middle path is State Senator Mallory McMorrow, 39. She describes herself as a defender of liberal values, and she is running on a platform that highlights her legislative work to lift the state’s minimum wage. She has been on defense over deleted social-media posts in which she criticized the Midwest.
When they meet up, it can get ugly. At the nominating convention, McMorrow arrived with a marching band. As it passed, El-Sayed said, “That’s what you get when you don’t have a message,” according to Michigan Advance.
“I don’t need stunts to move my message,” El-Sayed said later in an interview with The New York Times.
McMorrow has been the most outspoken in demanding generational change. She began her campaign with a call for Senator Chuck Schumer of New York to step down as leader of Senate Democrats.
Schumer’s influence appeared dented after one of his preferred candidates, Gov. Janet Mills of Maine, quit the Democratic Senate primary race in her state last week. She had been badly trailing Graham Platner, an oysterman running as a progressive outsider.
Officials with the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm have said they see Stevens as the strongest general-election candidate in Michigan. But Schumer has not publicly weighed in on the Michigan race, and Stevens has not said if she supports Schumer staying on as leader after the midterms.
The campaign has turned in large part on debates about Israel’s war in Gaza and the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying organization.
Stevens has called herself a “proud pro-Israel Democrat.” Both McMorrow and El-Sayed have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
In an Instagram video this week, McMorrow targeted Stevens over an AIPAC contribution portal that urges donors to back Stevens and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.
McMorrow called the portal, which included language saying Stevens’s campaign had authorized the fund-raising push, a “slap in the face” to Democrats.
Stevens’s campaign did not immediately respond to the attack. But during a debate last month, she brushed past the issue of AIPAC spending by saying that America needs campaign finance reform but that “this race is about the future of our state.”
McMorrow has been in damage control mode after CNN unearthed social-media posts in which she suggested that she missed living in California and complained about Michigan weather, once writing “I don’t like you, Michigan.”
Stevens suggested on social media that McMorrow was “talking crap about us and our state” and that true Michiganders “love our discounts, our cars, and even our crappy weather.”
After the CNN report, a campaign spokeswoman for McMorrow circulated a headline of a sympathetic column in The Detroit Metro Times: “Complaining about Michigan is actually a very Michigan thing to do.”
Steve Friess contributed reporting.
quote of the day
“We got a little — a little blip in the Middle East.”
That was Vice President JD Vance yesterday, speaking to voters at a campaign event in Iowa about President Trump’s unpopular war with Iran. Vance acknowledged the conflict’s economic aftershocks but insisted the administration just needed to get past them.
Trump flexes his power in Indiana
The president’s political standing may have slipped as the midterms approach, but he remains an overwhelming force within the Republican Party.
That’s the upshot of yesterday’s primary elections in Indiana, where Trump succeeded in unseating most of the state legislators who defied his wishes on redistricting. My colleagues Mitch Smith and Reid Epstein have five takeaways:
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Trump does, in fact, still dominate the conversation. His name and likeness were present in both camps’ messaging.
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Trump succeeded in his first of several attempts to oust Republicans who oppose him.
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Still, Republican voters were split on Trump.
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The fight for the Indiana G.O.P. continues. The divide, Mitch and Reid write, is between the party establishment and an ascendant faction that has modeled its style after the president’s.
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It’s not looking good for Indiana’s two Democratic congressmen, who could face an inhospitable new congressional map.
ONE LAST THING
Obama talks to Colbert about Trump, Mamdani and aliens
As “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” nears its final episode this month, former President Barack Obama appeared in an interview that aired Tuesday to discuss a wide array of topics, including New York’s mayor (“an extraordinary talent”) and whether the government is concealing secrets about extraterrestrial life (no, Obama says).
And when Stephen Colbert joked about running for president himself one day, Obama went along with it.
“The bar has changed,” he said through laughter. “Let me put it this way: I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we’ve seen.”
But, Colbert asked, was that an endorsement of the late-night host?
“It was not,” Obama said.
Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.
