What Abdul El-Sayed’s Win Means for Democrats

Mike Warren and John McCormack discuss the battle between moderates and populists in the Democratic Party and the abuse allegations against Republican Rep. Max Miller. The Agenda: —Michigan primary —Minnesota and Wisconsin primaries —Blue wave possibilities —Trump’s support for Max Miller Show notes: Michael Warren is a politics editor at The Dispatch and is based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he was an on-air reporter at CNN and a senior writer at the Weekly Standard. When Mike is not reporting, writing, editing, and podcasting, he is probably spending time with his wife and three sons. John McCormack is a senior editor at The Dispatch and is based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he was Washington correspondent at National Review and a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. When John is not reporting on politics and policy, he is probably enjoying life with his wife and daughters in northern Virginia or having fun visiting family in Wisconsin. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Mike Warren 0:00 [instrumental music] Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Mike Warren. On today's roundtable, I'm joined by Dispatch senior editor John McCormick to discuss the recent and upcoming Democratic primary contests and the ongoing battle between moderates in the party and far-left economic populists. Then we talk about the abuse allegations against Republican Congressman Max Miller. And finally, not worth your time, the appropriate cost of a burrito. Let's dive in. Mike Warren 0:35 [instrumental music] Mike Warren 0:46 All right, John, let's get right into it here. So we had the Michigan Senate primary last week on the Democratic side, Abdul El-Sayed beating narrowly, I would say more narrow than folks thought going into the election, Congresswoman Haley Stevens in that Senate primary in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed is going to face off against Republican Mike Rogers in the general election. A-and then we've got 2 primaries on Tuesday in the, kind of the same region and involving some of the same dynamics that we saw in the Michigan Senate race, sort of left Democratic socialist or socialist-leaning. AES, as he's called, is not, I think, officially a member of DSA, but sort of left-leaning, more progressive, more socialist-friendly Democrats facing off against more establishment, center-left, moderate-tinged Democratic candidates in some primaries. You've got on Tuesday in your home state, John, of Wisconsin, in the governor's primary there, Francesca Hong is running in the gubernatorial primary. She was facing Mandela Barnes, who dropped out of the race recently, and she's got this, I guess is the sort of more establishment-favored Crowley facing off against her in that gubernatorial primary in an open governor's seat in Wisconsin. And then next door in Minnesota, a Senate primary there as well. You've got Angie Craig, who is a congresswoman, kind of center-left in that primary. She is facing off against the sitting lieutenant governor, whose name is Peggy Flanagan. Peggy Flanagan definitely representing the far-left, far progressive wing of the Democratic Party there in Minnesota, and they are running for Amy Klobuchar's Senate seat. She, Amy Klobuchar, is running for governor and is likely to win that race. So, okay, so that's the-- those are the kind of stakes. Those, both of those primaries in Wisconsin and Minnesota are tomorrow. It's not quite clear in Minnesota who is going to win. Some polls say Flanagan is ahead. Some polls say Craig is ahead. It's a little more clear maybe in, in Wisconsin that the, the far-left Francesca Hong candidate is the favored at this point, it seems like. So we'll talk about that in a second. But John, just last week's primary result in Michigan, a lot of money being spent in that race, a lot of polling. It showed it closer than it was, as I said, but Abdul El-Sayed coming out with that victory. What do we make of this? Is this the sort of the far left of the Democratic Party asserting itself once again and taking control of this party? Was this Haley Stevens was not the ideal candidate the center left would put up against a charismatic Abdul El-Sayed, and so she fell short and maybe a more charismatic candidate would have won and we wouldn't be talking about this? How do you-- How should we interpret what those results mean for the Democratic Party, not just in Michigan, but nationally? What do you think? John McCormack 3:51 Yeah, I mean, the result ended up being less than one percentage point. I mean, this is one of the biggest polling errors in modern history, for sure. I actually noted on Twitter a week before that, "Hey, just pointing out, you know, that the biggest polling error in history was in the 2016 Michigan Democratic primary." It actually underestimated Bernie Sanders by 22 points or something. Here, Haley Stevens, the, the establishment favorite, was underestimated by double digits, not quite that big. Mike Warren 4:15 Can I stop you there real quick, John? Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like