By Judson Berger
Friday, August 07, 2026
Dark days have fallen on the Democratic establishment.
At official headquarters, DNC Chairman Ken Martin is in
“survival mode,” the AP reports, avoiding media appearances amid fundraising woes
and calls for his ouster. The organization’s troubles keep getting featured in
the New York Times (with details Jeff Blehar says point to a party in crisis).
Socialists are winning primaries and flexing muscle, amid lingering consternation over the DNC’s misbegotten 2024
“autopsy.”
It is perhaps an added cruelty, then, that the Midwest,
the region Martin calls home, is the site of the party’s latest trials and
humiliations. In Michigan this week, the radical Abdul El-Sayed narrowly pulled off a victory over establishment choice Haley Stevens in the hard-fought
primary race for Senate. From National Review’s editorial:
His win is an ill
omen for the current direction of the Democratic Party — and a terrible
development for Michiganders and Americans alike — but an enormous and deeply
symbolic victory for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
As Jeff wrote ahead of the result (which ended up being closer than
expected), the coming general election battle will be competitive, despite
President Trump’s unpopularity, “because Detroit cares a lot more about the
fate of the auto industry than it does the fate of Gaza.” Mike Rogers, the
Republican nominee, is by no means a lock but says he is confident he can break
Democrats’ 25-year hold on Senate seats in the state.
“The crazy train has arrived in Michigan, and AOC is the
engineer, and Bernie Sanders throws coal in the fire, and my opponents, with
all of their endorsements are riding that train. It’s just not who we are
here,” the candidate said in an interview with NR’s Kamden Mulder.
Then again, as the editorial cautions, “the problem with
a major political party losing its mind is that a goodly number of the
candidates it nominates will, if the circumstances are right, make it into
office.” Either way, Michigan is now critical for the GOP’s hopes of holding onto the chamber.
While El-Sayed has denied he’s a socialist, Kamden notes he’s been outspoken about far-left beliefs:
He supports
abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expresses anti-Israeli
sentiments, and wants to end the Senate filibuster. He also supports Medicare
for All, which is one of his most talked-about issues — aside from Israel —
with supporters on the campaign trail.
El-Sayed’s
rhetoric is out of step with the more moderate stances of his [now-defeated
primary] opponent, and many establishment Democrats in the state.
That’s just Michigan. Wisconsin is up next, with a
gubernatorial primary next week that, in the words of NR’s editorial, could mark the return of so-called sewer socialism, but worse.
Again, the establishment is in danger of being steamrolled:
Marquette’s latest
polling for the state’s gubernatorial race, published on July 29, has
Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong at 38 percent, 22 points in front of
second-place Mandela Barnes, the former lieutenant governor who lost a Senate
race against Ron Johnson and just dropped out. Wisconsin’s Democratic
leadership prefers the third-place David Crowley (7 percent), the current
Milwaukee County executive. Governor Tony Evers endorsed Crowley after his
lieutenant governor, Sara Rodriguez, also withdrew from the race because of
gross financial mismanagement. The single primary debate saw Hong go
unchallenged while Barnes and Crowley did yeoman’s work convincing viewers that
neither of them is up to the job.
In short, the field is a mess in Wisconsin’s Democratic race, with
voters now “seriously considering a journalism dropout” and holiday-hating weirdo in Francesca Hong, despite the
party’s historical success with more boring candidates, as was the case in Michigan for years.
Primary voters are making ever-riskier bets, and by all
indications, party leaders cannot do a thing about it.
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