I think what you are missing is that the establishment wing of the party has been espousing these ideas for years but don’t deliver. Voters want someone they perceive as a fighter. The fact that Stevens was supported by millions in PAC support fed the perception that she would not truly rock the boat, whereas El-Sayed seems as if he would. Medicare for All is a big deal and if the Democrats had eliminated the filibuster under Obama we could have it now.
I agree that Democratic voters want someone they perceive as a fighter - my only point is that that is more of a perception (what would Abdul El Sayed have accomplished as Senate Minority Leader different than Chuck Schumer?) and comes without many real policy differences. Every Democrat except Sinema and Manchin (neither still in office) is already on record against the filibuster and Joe Biden, as establishment as it gets, called for Supreme Court reforms. I don’t think either of those ideas (or a particular passion for them) really separates the Dem establishment and left wing at this point.
“Schumer has big plans for the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary if Democrats win the elections, from imposing ethical standards and preventing litigants from “shopping” for friendly judges to legislatively reversing its rulings on abortion and presidential immunity.”
I’m talking about more radical reform: term limits and expansion. The article you refer to reinforces my point. Those reforms are woefully inadequate to bring about the radical reform that is needed. Unless we regain a majority of non-partisan justices this court will simply nullify anything a Democratic Congress does.
Another long and excellent analysis. I can't believe that the media, et al are making so much of the fact that the left wing Dem won over the more centrist when the margin was so small and it represented one specific voting district. Will the Democrats and the following media wake up and realize that the important issue is will they come up with a vibrant policy embracing the elements we all believe in with the differences shown in less dramatic fashion. And that will show in a united front at the voting booth. An undecided voter would be hard put to describe the benefit of voting for either!
I’m not loving your analysis, Gabe. You’ve totally ignored how vigorously AIPAC has worked to deliver Republicans to office for the past 20 years. You’ve ignored how they’ve worked to undermine the growing concern so many Democrats, young and old, feel about the horrific murdering of women and children in Gaza and beyond, which may have been a deciding factor in Harris’ loss. And you’re minimizing the need for charismatic candidates who may ignite younger voters, and apolitical bystanders, to recognize and participate in cleansing our country of Trump and his followers. We need a government FOR THE PEOPLE. This emerging voice, valuing democracy and the need to support more broad and essential social programming (Democratic Socialism) is timely with great potential for success.
Gabe, I think you're expecting Abdul to have been a much more prominent leader in the progressive movement, when he hasn't been. He's a Democrat who cares a lot about healthcare. This was a normal Democratic primary and not some symbol of the establishment vs progressivism debate in America that the media has designed it to be.
Hi Diana, thanks for writing. One thing I’ll say about this is El-Sayed framed a lot of his campaign about running against Chuck Schumer, the Democratic establishment, etc, referring to Stevens as establishment, offering himself up as a break with the Dem party mold. I don’t say this as a critique! That’s a completely fair political strategy and clearly it worked, just as it has for other candidates on the right and left. But I do think it’s also fair for people to notice that, and in this case, the media framing the race as establishment vs progressives owes a lot to the fact that both candidates pretty explicitly framed the race that way too. In El Sayed’s case, it was a major theme of his campaign that he was running against the traditional Dem party
Abdul never positioned himself as an anti-Schumer candidate, at least in the beginning. He launched his campaign in 2025 declining to join McMorrow and others in the pledge to oppose Schumer. I think that changed when Schumer initiated the conversations around clearing the field in June of this year (https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/02/politics/michigan-senate-democrats-abdul-el-sayed-haley-stevens). According to CNN, Schumer disagreed with Abdul ideologically and thought if he won the primary, he'd lose against Mike Rogers (even though I don't think there was enough polling to suggest that was the case at the time). So did Abdul position himself as an anti-establishment candidate, or did the establishment reject him? (As context, I live in Michigan.)
I should say that despite the low victory margin, Haley Stevens, Gretchen Whitmer, Mallory McMorrow, Michigan Dem Party Chair Curtis Hertel, and even Chuck Schumer immediately supported Abdul as soon as the race was called. They're all on board now, even if there were tiffs during the primary.
I agree that the center-left Dem wing (of which I am part) lacks a clear message. I propose we stand for Make America Work Again. That would include a short list of clear simple(ish) solutions to major problems like democratic backsliding, affordability, climate change, and our fiscal situation. It might include things like a value added tax (as a way to get a carbon tax without calling it that), an energy policy focusing on permitting reform and eliminating subsidies, a simplified health care insurance system that attacked waste and fraud by standardizing administrative costs and yes high provider costs, and a radically simpler tax system.
Gabe seems to mock Haley Stevens' Michigan Hope agenda (https://haleyformi.com/hopeagenda/) but it's way better than every Democratic Party platform. As a party, I think we need to stand against all specialist interests, including our own, to win back working class voters. Newt Gingrich's ten point Contract with an America galvanized the GOP. We need a similar galvanizing message that is both simple and universal.
PS: The whole debate about Citizens United is to ridiculous. The decision (as opposed to the reports of the decision) only held that the government can't restrict a publication naming a candidate close to an election. I happen to think that makes sense and, even if I didn't, note how little the decision actually says. I know it might not be popular with some, but the fantastic Advisory Opinions podcast (https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/the-island-of-rationality-and-the-first-amendment/) explains it way better than me. For me, the broader point is that no matter what we try to limit the impact of money in politics, money has a way of getting used to do a political message. I doubt even a constitutional amendment allowing restrictions on campaign spending would do much to limit the influence of money in politics.
Jewish and African Americans have already been slapped in the face in these Democratic primaries by people who are best known for working for years with Republicans to strip women, Jews, African Americans and gay people of their rights
Ah, centrists. I once heard a Texan say that the only thing in the middle of the road is yellow lines and dead armadillos. I will modify that to my state and say that the only thing in the middle of the road in Michigan is yellow lines and dead dear and sometimes we drive there because the rest of the road is full of potholes. Michigan’s political history is progressive if progressive means careening all over the road to avoid the potholes. This may not make sense to anyone else, but Abdul is not radical. He is a normal Michigan progressive.
What El-Sayeed has is that none of his colleagues & opponents have is tons of charisma. He almost sounds like Obama! If Dems want to go the distance, they need to really educate this young man in all the nuances of how to win over the majority of voters. I’m very curious about his stance on Israel. If he alienates the Jewish population, it’ll be his undoing!
Great read, Gabe! Thanks as usual for the interesting insight! And we need to keep that Filibuster forever! (definitely reform it though, I feel a filibuster should require actually being present and talking because if you really are opposed to something then we are voting for and paying you to put in the actual effort). Also, I LOVE your continued use of footnotes! I learned to love footnotes when reading supreme court decisions back in college and have not looked back!
I do think that progressives (as a whole) are better at communicating what they’re for and what they are against than moderates. And moderates have been poorly arguing for their positions and often relying on assertions that X candidate can’t win in a swing state/district or Y policy will never pass the Senate rather than argue why X candidate is wrong or Y policy would produce bad outcomes.
I also think that Schumer’s and Jeffries’s unpopularity and ineffectiveness have undermined the establishment in ways that distort a moderate vs progressive divide. Schumer and Jeffries aren’t moderate Democrats really. Their cautiousness* is strategic and/or stylistic. But their views are certainly well left of the center of American voters and solidly in the center of the Party. Yet they’ve managed to piss off Democratic voters from the left to the middle. It’s not a surprise that very different candidates from all over the country are running against them or if not naming them individually running against DC or politicians of both parties.
“But nor did it seem to me like El-Sayed had a clear policy agenda that was all that much different than the party’s existing platform” do the majority of elected Dems support abolishing ice, passing Medicare for all and ending military aid to Israel? No. What are you talking about brother 😂
As I wrote in the piece: on two out of these three, I think his position is largely indistinguishable from the rest of the party. It’s not clear that “abolishing” ICE but maintaing immigration enforcement would make this new agency any different than, say, Biden-era ICE. (Ending immigration enforcement would be a position genuiely different than most Dems, but it is not El-Sayed’s position.) On Medicare for All, he has described it as “baseline goverment health insurance” and said if people like their current private insurance, they can keep it (https://x.com/AbdulElSayed/status/2014355957761945966). That is basically the same as a public option, which most elected Dems support. Military aid to Israel is the one exception -- though just a hair less than half of House Dems have the same position (https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/15/israel-aid-vote-house-democrats-00999917), though that is, of course, a new development. That is why I wrote in the piece that he genuinely differs with many other Dems on this one foreign policy issue. But on immigration or health care? No, he holds basically the consensus Dem position.
Just cause you say it again doesn’t make it more factual. He and McMarrow had it out on public option and he explained why the public option isn’t good enough. The 3 policy positions listed above are radically different than the majority of the party. Find me voting records that show the majority of elected Dems voting for M4A, ending military aid to Israel/foreign govs, and abolishing ICE, I’ll give it to you but you can’t. Those 3 positions are part of why the establishment pulled out every endorsement to stop.
On cultural issues, yes they’re gonna be the similar because *checks notes* they’re still in the same party. Is that the central claim? You write pages on pages to realize it’s a dem primary? And still can’t see the important material differences? Embarrassing.
Wonderful breakdown, as usual, Gabe. It proves one thing: the Democratic party IS a big, WIDE, tent. It also means we can win, IF we come together. More fundamentally, I submit, no matter what is shot back & forth in the primaries, when Democrats win in the general elections, they will govern with common sense & pragmatism, no communism, no police unfunded, no throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Unlike the cruel Rethugs.
Very much appreciated the percentages that divide the party almost in half.
Very good analysis and well written. Thank you.
I think what you are missing is that the establishment wing of the party has been espousing these ideas for years but don’t deliver. Voters want someone they perceive as a fighter. The fact that Stevens was supported by millions in PAC support fed the perception that she would not truly rock the boat, whereas El-Sayed seems as if he would. Medicare for All is a big deal and if the Democrats had eliminated the filibuster under Obama we could have it now.
I agree that Democratic voters want someone they perceive as a fighter - my only point is that that is more of a perception (what would Abdul El Sayed have accomplished as Senate Minority Leader different than Chuck Schumer?) and comes without many real policy differences. Every Democrat except Sinema and Manchin (neither still in office) is already on record against the filibuster and Joe Biden, as establishment as it gets, called for Supreme Court reforms. I don’t think either of those ideas (or a particular passion for them) really separates the Dem establishment and left wing at this point.
Color me skeptical about Chuck Schumer leading the charge for radical Supreme Court reform.
In 2024, he said it would be one of his top priorities in a Dem trifecta https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/schumer-vows-supreme-court-reforms-democrats-win-2024-elections-rcna164719
“Schumer has big plans for the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary if Democrats win the elections, from imposing ethical standards and preventing litigants from “shopping” for friendly judges to legislatively reversing its rulings on abortion and presidential immunity.”
I’m talking about more radical reform: term limits and expansion. The article you refer to reinforces my point. Those reforms are woefully inadequate to bring about the radical reform that is needed. Unless we regain a majority of non-partisan justices this court will simply nullify anything a Democratic Congress does.
Everything is except the economy, is seconadary
Also, in addition to removing the filibuster we need serious Supreme Court reform, something I doubt the establishment has the stomach for.
Another long and excellent analysis. I can't believe that the media, et al are making so much of the fact that the left wing Dem won over the more centrist when the margin was so small and it represented one specific voting district. Will the Democrats and the following media wake up and realize that the important issue is will they come up with a vibrant policy embracing the elements we all believe in with the differences shown in less dramatic fashion. And that will show in a united front at the voting booth. An undecided voter would be hard put to describe the benefit of voting for either!
I’m not loving your analysis, Gabe. You’ve totally ignored how vigorously AIPAC has worked to deliver Republicans to office for the past 20 years. You’ve ignored how they’ve worked to undermine the growing concern so many Democrats, young and old, feel about the horrific murdering of women and children in Gaza and beyond, which may have been a deciding factor in Harris’ loss. And you’re minimizing the need for charismatic candidates who may ignite younger voters, and apolitical bystanders, to recognize and participate in cleansing our country of Trump and his followers. We need a government FOR THE PEOPLE. This emerging voice, valuing democracy and the need to support more broad and essential social programming (Democratic Socialism) is timely with great potential for success.
Gabe, I think you're expecting Abdul to have been a much more prominent leader in the progressive movement, when he hasn't been. He's a Democrat who cares a lot about healthcare. This was a normal Democratic primary and not some symbol of the establishment vs progressivism debate in America that the media has designed it to be.
Hi Diana, thanks for writing. One thing I’ll say about this is El-Sayed framed a lot of his campaign about running against Chuck Schumer, the Democratic establishment, etc, referring to Stevens as establishment, offering himself up as a break with the Dem party mold. I don’t say this as a critique! That’s a completely fair political strategy and clearly it worked, just as it has for other candidates on the right and left. But I do think it’s also fair for people to notice that, and in this case, the media framing the race as establishment vs progressives owes a lot to the fact that both candidates pretty explicitly framed the race that way too. In El Sayed’s case, it was a major theme of his campaign that he was running against the traditional Dem party
Abdul never positioned himself as an anti-Schumer candidate, at least in the beginning. He launched his campaign in 2025 declining to join McMorrow and others in the pledge to oppose Schumer. I think that changed when Schumer initiated the conversations around clearing the field in June of this year (https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/02/politics/michigan-senate-democrats-abdul-el-sayed-haley-stevens). According to CNN, Schumer disagreed with Abdul ideologically and thought if he won the primary, he'd lose against Mike Rogers (even though I don't think there was enough polling to suggest that was the case at the time). So did Abdul position himself as an anti-establishment candidate, or did the establishment reject him? (As context, I live in Michigan.)
I should say that despite the low victory margin, Haley Stevens, Gretchen Whitmer, Mallory McMorrow, Michigan Dem Party Chair Curtis Hertel, and even Chuck Schumer immediately supported Abdul as soon as the race was called. They're all on board now, even if there were tiffs during the primary.
Another insightful analysis, Gabe!
[Heresy alert]
I agree that the center-left Dem wing (of which I am part) lacks a clear message. I propose we stand for Make America Work Again. That would include a short list of clear simple(ish) solutions to major problems like democratic backsliding, affordability, climate change, and our fiscal situation. It might include things like a value added tax (as a way to get a carbon tax without calling it that), an energy policy focusing on permitting reform and eliminating subsidies, a simplified health care insurance system that attacked waste and fraud by standardizing administrative costs and yes high provider costs, and a radically simpler tax system.
Gabe seems to mock Haley Stevens' Michigan Hope agenda (https://haleyformi.com/hopeagenda/) but it's way better than every Democratic Party platform. As a party, I think we need to stand against all specialist interests, including our own, to win back working class voters. Newt Gingrich's ten point Contract with an America galvanized the GOP. We need a similar galvanizing message that is both simple and universal.
PS: The whole debate about Citizens United is to ridiculous. The decision (as opposed to the reports of the decision) only held that the government can't restrict a publication naming a candidate close to an election. I happen to think that makes sense and, even if I didn't, note how little the decision actually says. I know it might not be popular with some, but the fantastic Advisory Opinions podcast (https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/the-island-of-rationality-and-the-first-amendment/) explains it way better than me. For me, the broader point is that no matter what we try to limit the impact of money in politics, money has a way of getting used to do a political message. I doubt even a constitutional amendment allowing restrictions on campaign spending would do much to limit the influence of money in politics.
It's still about the left behinds and paying the bills. McMorrow had the best message in this area
Republicans will win forever, then.
Jewish and African Americans have already been slapped in the face in these Democratic primaries by people who are best known for working for years with Republicans to strip women, Jews, African Americans and gay people of their rights
https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/2022/10/13/gop-unites-conservative-muslims-dearborn-michigan
Ah, centrists. I once heard a Texan say that the only thing in the middle of the road is yellow lines and dead armadillos. I will modify that to my state and say that the only thing in the middle of the road in Michigan is yellow lines and dead dear and sometimes we drive there because the rest of the road is full of potholes. Michigan’s political history is progressive if progressive means careening all over the road to avoid the potholes. This may not make sense to anyone else, but Abdul is not radical. He is a normal Michigan progressive.
What El-Sayeed has is that none of his colleagues & opponents have is tons of charisma. He almost sounds like Obama! If Dems want to go the distance, they need to really educate this young man in all the nuances of how to win over the majority of voters. I’m very curious about his stance on Israel. If he alienates the Jewish population, it’ll be his undoing!
Great read, Gabe! Thanks as usual for the interesting insight! And we need to keep that Filibuster forever! (definitely reform it though, I feel a filibuster should require actually being present and talking because if you really are opposed to something then we are voting for and paying you to put in the actual effort). Also, I LOVE your continued use of footnotes! I learned to love footnotes when reading supreme court decisions back in college and have not looked back!
Excellent analysis.
Lots of truth here. Thank you.
I do think that progressives (as a whole) are better at communicating what they’re for and what they are against than moderates. And moderates have been poorly arguing for their positions and often relying on assertions that X candidate can’t win in a swing state/district or Y policy will never pass the Senate rather than argue why X candidate is wrong or Y policy would produce bad outcomes.
I also think that Schumer’s and Jeffries’s unpopularity and ineffectiveness have undermined the establishment in ways that distort a moderate vs progressive divide. Schumer and Jeffries aren’t moderate Democrats really. Their cautiousness* is strategic and/or stylistic. But their views are certainly well left of the center of American voters and solidly in the center of the Party. Yet they’ve managed to piss off Democratic voters from the left to the middle. It’s not a surprise that very different candidates from all over the country are running against them or if not naming them individually running against DC or politicians of both parties.
*I considered fearfulness
“But nor did it seem to me like El-Sayed had a clear policy agenda that was all that much different than the party’s existing platform” do the majority of elected Dems support abolishing ice, passing Medicare for all and ending military aid to Israel? No. What are you talking about brother 😂
As I wrote in the piece: on two out of these three, I think his position is largely indistinguishable from the rest of the party. It’s not clear that “abolishing” ICE but maintaing immigration enforcement would make this new agency any different than, say, Biden-era ICE. (Ending immigration enforcement would be a position genuiely different than most Dems, but it is not El-Sayed’s position.) On Medicare for All, he has described it as “baseline goverment health insurance” and said if people like their current private insurance, they can keep it (https://x.com/AbdulElSayed/status/2014355957761945966). That is basically the same as a public option, which most elected Dems support. Military aid to Israel is the one exception -- though just a hair less than half of House Dems have the same position (https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/15/israel-aid-vote-house-democrats-00999917), though that is, of course, a new development. That is why I wrote in the piece that he genuinely differs with many other Dems on this one foreign policy issue. But on immigration or health care? No, he holds basically the consensus Dem position.
Just cause you say it again doesn’t make it more factual. He and McMarrow had it out on public option and he explained why the public option isn’t good enough. The 3 policy positions listed above are radically different than the majority of the party. Find me voting records that show the majority of elected Dems voting for M4A, ending military aid to Israel/foreign govs, and abolishing ICE, I’ll give it to you but you can’t. Those 3 positions are part of why the establishment pulled out every endorsement to stop.
On cultural issues, yes they’re gonna be the similar because *checks notes* they’re still in the same party. Is that the central claim? You write pages on pages to realize it’s a dem primary? And still can’t see the important material differences? Embarrassing.
Time to rally the troops. If you don’t like everything about Sayed, then vote MAGA, but don’t complain later!
Interesting analysis, but as I read today’s commentary about yesterday’s district 1 race in St. Louis between
Wonderful breakdown, as usual, Gabe. It proves one thing: the Democratic party IS a big, WIDE, tent. It also means we can win, IF we come together. More fundamentally, I submit, no matter what is shot back & forth in the primaries, when Democrats win in the general elections, they will govern with common sense & pragmatism, no communism, no police unfunded, no throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Unlike the cruel Rethugs.
Is there a potential rift between African Americans Muslims