Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. The 2026 environment is very favorable for the Democrats, but a hard leftward shift could spoil their chances.
Aaron Blake and Eric Bradner at CNN:
The progressive effort to remake the Democratic Party triumphed in battleground Michigan on Tuesday, as former public health official Abdul El-Sayed defeated the more moderate Rep. Haley Stevens — and the party’s establishment, which had rallied behind her.
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It’s difficult to completely isolate the Israel and AIPAC factor. And AIPAC did get a win Tuesday, having spent more than $2 million to help Missouri Rep. Wesley Bell easily fend off democratic socialist former Rep. Cori Bush.
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A pair of democratic socialists also won key House primaries in Michigan.
Perhaps the biggest one was climate activist William Lawrence’s win in the 7th district. Lawrence prevailed after two more establishment-oriented candidates — former US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink and Navy SEAL veteran Matt Maasdam — split the rest of the vote.
And this is a battleground general election race. That means the Sanders wing of the party now confronts major proving grounds in both the Senate race and a very important House race.
Lawrence’s campaign was heavily criticized by the Congressional Black Caucus and even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, after the Huffington Post published Lawrence’s 2024 remarks saying that Black political leaders “defang the White left.”
CNN is also now projecting that democratic socialist state Rep. Donavan McKinney ousted Rep. Shri Thanedar in the Detroit-based 13th district.
The result might have been less about policies than racial representation — the majority-Black city had recently been without a Black representative for the first time since the 1950s — but it’s still a win for DSA.
