Politics
Thanedar becomes latest incumbent to fall to a progressive challenger
Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar lost his primary to democratic socialist Donavan McKinney on Wednesday — the latest victory for progressives who’ve been on a hot streak of ousting incumbents in safe-blue districts.
Thanedar’s 13th District was a top priority for groups like Justice Democrats that are committed to primarying incumbent members that they believe aren’t in line with the areas they represent. Justice Democrats helped recruit McKinney into the race and spent nearly $1 million on his behalf, making his campaign one of its biggest targets this cycle.
McKinney, a state representative, had secured the backing of a number of progressive House Democrats, including some members of the Congressional Black Caucus who bucked party leadership, which was standing behind Thanedar in the heavily Black Detroit-based district.
Some of Thanedar’s colleagues were also frustrated by his efforts to force a vote on impeaching President Donald Trump last year, an effort he ultimately backed away from.
The district is a safe seat for Democrats, and McKinney is expected to win easily in November.
President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate lost a top battleground Republican primary in Michigan — to a candidate who suspended his campaign last month.
Amir Hassan, a Navy veteran and former law enforcement officer from Flint backed by Trump, finished significantly behind Tom Smith on Wednesday. Hassan rallied with Trump in Milford, Michigan, just last week.
Smith, a retired engineer, had dropped out in mid-July and endorsed another candidate who ended up in third in the primary. Smith told Blue Light News that he would now return to challenge first-term Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet for the purple 8th District.
“I look forward to working with Speaker [Mike] Johnson and the entire Republican team to expand our House majority and advance President Trump’s America First agenda to lower costs for working families and make America affordable again,” Smith said in a statement.
McDonald Rivet is among the more than a dozen Democratic incumbents seeking reelection in a district Trump won in 2024. But a GOP strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, characterized her as a “powerhouse.” The strategist added that Hassan had “clear flaws as a candidate” and the “GOP base was reluctant to support a dude named Amir Hassan.”
A handful of Trump-endorsed candidates have lost state-level races this year — including the governor’s races in Iowa and Georgia — but Hassan is the first congressional candidate to lose despite the president’s support this cycle.
Abdul El-Sayed is Democrats’ Senate nominee in Michigan, a seismic victory for progressives that carries massive implications for both the Senate battlemap and the Democratic Party’s future.
The progressive former public health official on Wednesday narrowly defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens, who was boosted by a record-breaking $32 million in spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
His margin was far slimmer than progressives had anticipated based on polling that had shown him with a double-digit lead ahead of the election, blunting what they hoped would be an emphatic capstone to a series of high-profile wins that had tilted the party’s ideological civil war in their favor.
El-Sayed will have to work overtime to convince skeptical centrists that a progressive can win in purple territory against former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers in a critical battleground that will decide Senate control.
His victory comes after a contentious primary that was defined by clashes over everything from Israel to immigration to health care. Stevens and her allies lobbied accusations ofsexism and antisemitism against El-Sayed, whose supporters in turn accused the moderate Democrat of Islamophobia.
Wednesday’s result is a setback for the pro-Israel lobby as well as for leaders within the Democratic establishment — most notably Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who had thrown their weight behind Stevens.
El-Sayed’s win has the potential to scramble Schumer’s gameplan for November; Democrats need to keep retiring Sen. Gary Peters’ seat if they have any hope of retaking the chamber.
And it’s emboldening Republicans who hold a cash advantage heading into November and are growing bullish about their chances for a flip against a progressive who was their preferred nominee. State Republican Party Chair Jim Runestad said the GOP plans to paint him as a “far-left democratic socialist.”
Jason Roe, a longtime Republican operative in Michigan, previously told Blue Light News that “El-Sayed is not doing very well outstate and I think that’s what a lot of Republicans are banking on. It will be very difficult for him to beat Rogers with those rural counties.”
Still, El-Sayed’s emergence from the bruising primary that became ground zero for Democrats’ ideological war stands as progressives’ biggest win yet in a year when the left has harnessed a wave of anti-establishment angst to deliver a series of stunning upsets. And it carries significant implications for how Democrats will approach a state that will have an outsized role in picking the party’s next presidential nominee in 2028.
El-Sayed has sought to position his win as a springboard for growing progressives’ influence ahead of 2028.
Progressives didn’t get the earthquake they expected. Moderates are relishing in their stronger than expected showing.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, with Michigan’s marquee Democratic Senate primary still in limbo, one of Democrats’ key questions of the midterms remains unresolved: Can the party’s most progressive faction successfully compete — and go on to win — in a battleground state?
The razor-thin margin between progressive Abdul El-Sayed and moderate Rep. Haley Stevens will leave Democrats arguing about the answer regardless of who ultimately prevails.
The finger-pointing within the party has already begun.
“These guys are unbelievably cocky,” said a Democratic operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. The person was frustrated over El-Sayed’s decision to attend a pool party with progressive streamer Hasan Piker on Monday, hours before polls opened.
El-Sayed led by three points by the time both candidates addressed their supporters around 1 a.m. Wednesday, with thousands of votes yet to be counted. He performed best in the state’s wealthiest and most highly-educated places, while Stevens outperformed him in areas with lower average incomes and where fewer voters have college degrees.
But that marginal lead was a far cry from what El-Sayed and his allies had expected.
Public polling in the campaign’s closing stretch showed El-Sayed ahead of Stevens by double digits. And his campaign projected confidence they would deliver a decisive win that would cement the strength of the progressive movement in Michigan, a state crucial to the Democratic Party’s prospects of retaking the Senate in November and, eventually, the White House in 2028.
The progressive wave never materialized on Tuesday night, igniting fresh questions about the potency of the movement. Progressive candidates have notched a series of wins throughout the spring primary season in safe and competitive districts, from California to Maine. Michigan, however, was widely viewed as their biggest test yet.
“The Democratic Party is a coalition that spans everything from center to socialist,” Democratic strategist Tré Easton wrote on social media Wednesday morning in response to Tuesday’s results. “Each part needs the other.”
El-Sayed has maintained a steady lead after the polls closed, and could very well still pull off a win for his progressive coalition and advance to the general election — but instead of kicking off the next phase of his campaign with a victory lap, he’ll emerge limping out of a closer-than-foretold primary.
Even beyond the Senate race, the results were mixed: Progressive Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence won his primary for Michigan’s 7th District, but largely because two more moderate candidates had split the vote. Democratic socialist Donavan McKinney is still locked in a tight race with incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar for Michigan’s 13th District. And over in Missouri, progressive Cori Bush’s comeback bid fell apart.
“Bottom line is if [El-Sayed] wins, the DSA brand beyond major urban areas is not popular,” a national Democratic operative granted anonymity to speak candidly said early Wednesday morning. “Certainly puts a dent in the movement especially with Cori Bush’s loss.”
Stevens sent her own supporters home on an optimistic note Wednesday morning: “I’m feeling good about this race.”
El-Sayed, for his part, quickly recast his narrow lead as a victory against the barrage of spending against him from pro-Stevens groups — despite projecting enough confidence to declare he would beat Rogers “by seven” percentage points in the general election earlier on Tuesday.
“I wish I could tell you that I was declaring victory right about now. Turns out it takes a long time to count some votes in Michigan,” El-Sayed told supporters at his election night party in Detroit.
For some El-Sayed allies a win is a win, even if the final margins are close. “Any win is good, as long as it’s called tonight,” Bhaskar Sunkara, a 2020 Bernie Sanders surrogate and former DSA vice chair, told POLITICO.
Regardless of the final outcome, the race’s narrow margin ensures that the winner will have significant work to do to unify the party after an acrimonious primary riddled with personal attacks from both sides — a reality both candidates appeared to acknowledge in remarks to supporters.
“To all of our supporters here tonight, watching on TV, tomorrow we begin to mend fences,” El-Sayed said. “If your instinct is to be like, ‘I told you.’ Nope. Let’s come together to build a movement that’s even bigger, that’s even stronger, that’s even more powerful, that reaches into the very depths of this state, that reminds us the best of who we are and who we can be.”
Democrats across the state had already set their focus on uniting their deeply fractured party ahead of another likely bruising contest in the general election.
“It’s no secret that this has at once been a contentious and bruising primary, but Democrats through it all have shown resilience towards coming together following primaries,” said Chris Herweyer, an organizing director for the Kent County Democratic Party.
Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who ran for Senate before suspending her campaign a month before the primary, endorsed El-Sayed early Wednesday as he maintained a narrow advantage over Rep. Haley Stevens — another sign of swift efforts to reconcile, even as the race remained in limbo.
Republicans, meanwhile, are still hoping for an El-Sayed win. Rogers’ primary proved a bright spot for Republicans on the Senate map, where the party successfully avoided a costly and heated primary of their own and could focus early on the general election.
“El-Sayed is the preferred candidate” for Republicans, Jason Roe, a longtime Republican operative in Michigan, said in a text message. “El-Sayed is not doing very well outstate and I think that’s what a lot of Republicans are banking on. It will be very difficult for him to beat Rogers with those rural counties.”
Andrew Howard and Will Steakin contributed to this report.
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