Is Michigan a Reckoning for the Democratic Establishment?

The Democratic Establishment went all in for Stevens, tonight we find out if it worked.

Tonight, one of the longest, most divisive Senate primaries in recent memory will finally come to an end.

The voters of Michigan will choose between Abdul El-Sayed and Congresswoman Haley Stevens to take on Republican Mike Rogers in a must-win race, with control of the Senate potentially on the line.

It’s been a long time since a statewide Democratic primary brought out so much intensity and where the stakes felt so high. There is, of course, the question of whether Michiganders will pick the best candidate, something people have been debating on social media for months, and both sides could not be more dug in. But the race feels bigger than that. It has become a proxy war for the future of the Democratic Party — the most important battle in the Democratic civil war that has been taking place since at least 2024.

The fact that the primary is taking place in Michigan, a major swing state and now one of the five early states that will help determine the Democratic nominee in 2028, only magnifies the stakes. This isn’t one of those congressional districts that Kamala Harris won by 50 points. It’s a major swing state, so what happens tonight and in November is going to have major influence on the 2028 primary.

The RealClearPolitics polling average shows El-Sayed with a 10-point lead, but Michigan is a notoriously hard state to poll, so anything can happen. We don’t know who is going to win.

Everyone has a lot on the line tonight, but the stakes are particularly high for the Democratic establishment. If El-Sayed wins tonight, it will be a devastating blow for Chuck Schumer and the DSCC, and it will raise real questions about their influence and relevance going forward.

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The Establishment Went All In for Stevens

It’s hard to overstate how much the Democratic establishment has gone all in for Haley Stevens. Schumer and the DSCC backed her from the get-go, even though Mallory McMorrow (whom I supported) was also running. They clearly had concerns about El-Sayed’s electability, but given the choice between staying out of the race, backing McMorrow, or supporting Stevens, they went with Stevens. According to CNN, Senator Gary Peters, at Schumer’s implicit direction, tried to get McMorrow to drop out, and Gillibrand falsely told donors that McMorrow had been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

I will forever be mystified by that choice, but it may have had something to do with the fact that El-Sayed and McMorrow said they would oppose Schumer as leader, while Stevens would support him.

But I digress.

In addition to the behind-the-scenes and fundraising support of the DSCC and Schumer’s Rolodex, Stevens had the support of national Democratic leaders like Jim Clyburn, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senator Gary Peters, former Senator Debbie Stabenow, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, and EMILY’s List. Her candidacy was supported by tens of millions of dollars in Super PAC spending, with more than $40 million coming from AIPAC alone.

This is a truly stunning statistic. More than $60 million was spent on ads supporting the Stevens campaign, and 97% of it came from Super PACs. This is an ungodly sum. The Stevens side outspent El-Sayed 11 to 1.

The establishment pushed all their chips to the middle in an effort to elect Stevens and defeat El-Sayed.

What It Means if El-Sayed Wins

I want to reiterate that we don’t know who is going to win, and the polls may be wrong. But if they aren’t, it will be a devastating blow for the Democratic establishment.

First, a Stevens loss would raise questions about whether Schumer has lost touch with the voters. There have been three primaries this year where Schumer and the DSCC picked a candidate — Iowa, Maine, and Michigan. This would be the second time that a Schumer-handpicked candidate was rejected by the voters. An El-Sayed win would mean that, like in Maine, Schumer had picked a candidate particularly ill-suited to the politics. We’ll see what happens, but it may turn out that picking one of the more pro-Israel Democrats to run with the backing of AIPAC in Michigan, of all places, was an easily foreseeable blunder.

Second, an El-Sayed win would show that voters do not trust the Democratic establishment on questions of electability. Ultimately, the putative reason the establishment is backing Stevens and opposing El-Sayed with such fervor is that they believe she is more electable than he is. Stevens has made this a very public part of her campaign. In the past, Democratic voters have been very sensitive to questions of electability. It’s what powered Biden to his primary win in 2020. If you listen to focus groups or interviews with Michigan voters, they are very interested in winning. They want to pick a winner; they just don’t trust Democratic politicians to tell them who can really win. This is a very understandable impulse after 2024 and every Democratic leader backing Biden when he clearly shouldn’t have run.

Finally, an El-Sayed win would be a massive blow to AIPAC. To spend this much money and lose would be embarrassing, but it would also be evidence that AIPAC can be beaten. This would send a message to the rest of the Democratic Party not only that AIPAC can be defeated, but that AIPAC’s support is a net negative. According to one poll, AIPAC had a 49% unfavorable rating among Michigan Democrats, and only 12% had a favorable view. They can try to hide their ads behind innocuously named Super PACs like the United Democracy Project, but El-Sayed, win or lose, has drawn a roadmap for how to fight back. It’s worth noting that the Democratic leadership on the Hill is more pro-Israel than its voters, and that’s going to have real consequences in the months and years to come.

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I am going to say it for a third time: we don’t know what is going to happen. Polls can be wrong. A Stevens win would send shockwaves, because just about everyone expects the opposite. That outcome would be a sign that maybe politics hasn’t changed as much as many people think, and that some of the old rules still apply.

The stakes are high for everyone, but the old guard of the Democratic Party has real reason to be nervous tonight. A loss in Michigan, after all of the endorsements and money, is going to reverberate well beyond that state’s borders.