'BradCast' 8/5/2026 (El-Sayed's Primary Win in MI Will Test Popularity of Progressivism; Guest: John Nichols of 'The Nation')

I know that it was a bitter end to this very long primary, but I also know that Haley brings the best of herself to her work. She is one of the most committed public servants that she'll ever meet. She loves democracy like I love democracy. And whatever differences that we might have had in the primary, they pale in comparison to what unifies us. Well, we'll see. We'll hope so. I love democracy too. But man. That was cool. I got the feeling of something right. I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair. And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am. From Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, this is the broadcast, as heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA, and on dozens of other fine affiliate stations over both the public's airwaves and the internet surround the country and the world. Blanketing Planet Earth, I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker. Muckraker and all-round swell fellow says me from brandblog.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Well, it was a bit more exciting primary night on Tuesday than I had actually expected. I don't know about you, Desi Doyen. Oh, yes. Especially in the great state of Michigan. The great progressive journalist and author John Nichols will be joining us momentarily to try to make sense of it all, particularly the... upswing for the for Democratic Socialist candidates in Michigan, particularly in the critical U.S. Senate race there, particularly as progressive former public health expert, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed appears to have won his race on Tuesday night, but through, but by much, much less than the Pre-election polls had suggested that he would win in a pretty much must-win contest this November for Democrats against Republican former Congressman Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate. We will get to all of that shortly along with John Nichols, but there was a bunch of other stuff of note in Tuesday's primary elections in five states, Missouri, Kansas, Virginia, Washington State, and yes, the battleground swing state of Michigan. But let's begin with some... some marquee and very selective, I guess, perhaps even more clarifying contests and referendums on the ballot yesterday in some of the redder states that were holding statewide primaries and other contests on Tuesday, kicking off with my old home state of Missouri, which used to be.

At least when I live there, among the purplist states in the union, only to become supposedly redder and redder and redder over the years since I left, for which I blame myself. You should. Though it was helped along, no doubt, by Republican gerrymandering in the state. But if last night's results on a number of proposed constitutional amendments are any indication, the Missouri electorate is... anything but in the bag for Republicans these days, it seems to me. First, the one contest that you may have already heard about coming out of Missouri, as the media justifiably, perhaps in this case, have been focusing on the divide in the Democratic electorate of late between the more progressive socialist-leaning faction of the party versus the more centrist establishment set, to that end in Missouri, at least, or more specifically in the very... Democratic City of St. Louis. And it's associated urban areas that comprise the state's first U.S. House district. The establishment faction of the party held their own against the progressive left with Representative Wesley Bell, a union-backed moderate, fending off a primary challenge from former Congresswoman Cori Bush, a Democratic socialist in a rematch from just two years ago when Bell unseated Bush. And, well, Bell has held on to the nomination there. Her attempted comeback, Bush's attempted comeback this year, was brought to a quick end on Tuesday. As she, a critic of Israel and member of the so-called squad, a group of progressive women of color in Congress, she was rather easily defeated by Bell by what appears to be about 25 points. But I was more interested in Missouri's And the voters statewide response there to a number of constitutional amendments on the ballot on Tuesday in which, in a very clean sweep, measures put forward by and or supported by the establishment Republican Party in the Show Me State went down. all of them and by enormous numbers. Decisively. Let's step through a few of them. Most notably Amendment 4, which would have radically changed the way that constitutional amendments would appear, would be approved, I should say, by voters in the state. Amendment 4 went down by an enormous 80% to 20% defeat. by the electorate. The measure supported by state Republican legislative leaders would have raised the threshold for citizen initiative constitutional amendments in the state, making it harder for voters to both place measures, citizens to place measures on the statewide ballot, or to see those measures passed even while not raising the threshold for the GOP-dominated legislature to amend.

the state constitution. So they get to go by the bare minimum, you know, just winning a majority. Everyone else has to jump through all of these hoops. It would have implemented more difficult requirements for placing citizen-initiated amendments onto the ballot in the first place by adding new higher signature requirements and new geographic distribution rules, meaning more signatures overall and from all eight congressional districts in the state. And passage of those amendments would have required. Not just the simple majority of voters that is currently required for constitutional amendment, but a majority of voters and a majority in each of the state's eight congressional districts. would have to approve any such measure, meaning you'd have to get some of the rural very right-wing districts in order to pass anything, as well as the more democratic-leaning urban areas like St. Louis and Kansas City. Good luck with that. The Republican-backed measure that failed on Tuesday was largely in response to state voters soundly overturning a near-total abortion ban in 2024, not to mention recent citizen-led initiatives that successfully expanded Medicaid in Missouri, allowed recreational marijuana. Right-wingers were hoping with this new amendment to sort of preempt a likely wave of upcoming high-profile citizen initiatives, including an abortion rights amendment for the state constitution and potential measures, increasing minimum wage, voting access, health care, and more. But the attempt to block... Citizen-led democracy by Republicans in Missouri, it utterly crashed and burned among the statewide electorate on Tuesday by a 60-point margin 80 to 20 percent against it. But that is not all, not by a long shot. Missouri's Amendment 5, also backed by the Republican right, would have eliminated the state's income tax. Yeah, replacing it with a more regressive sales tax approved eventually by the GOP-dominated state legislature and otherwise blocked voters constitutional right to approve.

Any new taxes for five years, even as individual income taxes currently make up some 67% of the state's general revenue. They were just going to do away with it, figure out how to fill that hole later. That measure was even more unpopular than the other one with the state's electorate on Tuesday. It went down by 66.83 to 17. Whomp, womp, and just one more for the moment out of Missouri before we move on to the next state. Amendment 1 would renew a sales tax that supports conservation and allow free entry to Missouri's state parks. That one passed by a whopping. That one was passed, not rejected, passed by a whopping 82 to 18%. echoing a similar 80% vote the last time that measure was on the ballot back in 2016. Missourians love their parks and they don't mind a small sales tax to help pay to keep them clean, safe, and free for people to access. Just blistering rejections for Republican-supported initiatives in the supposedly red state of Missouri on Tuesday. An indication of what Republicans... May hear from voters this November? We'll see. But the results in neighboring Kansas along these lines were similarly brutal for the GOP. First, State Senator Cindy Holcher, a populist Democrat who called for a moratorium on the construction of data centers. She defeated two other experienced Democratic politicians to win the nomination to succeed the state's two-term Democratic governor, Laura Kelly. who actually endorsed one of the more centrist candidates, State Senator Ethan Corson, but Holshear won that race quite comfortably by 10 points on Tuesday. She will face off with the Trump-endorsed Republican President of the State Senate. Ty Masterson in November in Kansas after Masterson easily came out on top in a seven-person race in a state that Republicans see as. One of their best chances to flip a governor's mansion from blue to red this year. In the U.S. Senate race in Kansas, incumbent Republican Roger Marshall easily won the GOP nod to run again this year when it appears he will now be facing well-known pastor and Democratic moderate Adam Hamilton for what is believed to be a safe Republican seat this year. If any of them are safe. In a wave year, of course, in a state that has twice elected a Democratic governor statewide, who knows what the voters might do if they get out and vote. And if those votes are counted as cast. What we do know, what we know that they did do on Tuesday is solidly reject a measure supported by state Republicans that would have reformed the state Supreme Court.

to elect justices rather than have them vetted by a bipartisan committee and then nominated by the governor. This one is likely worth diving into more deeply than I have time for today. But in short, state Republicans have been getting more and more irritated with the high court since they keep accurately interpreting the state constitution. In a series of rulings in the mid-2010s, and in particular a 2019 ruling that the state constitution was found to, yes, protect the right to abortion. The state currently... uses a merit-based system to select justices, an independent commission composed of five lawyers put on the commission by other lawyers and four non-attorneys picked by the governor. They choose candidates to interview for a vacancy on the court. The commission then nominates three of those candidates from that pool and the governor picks the winner or picks the nominee. It's quite fair. It's remarkably transparent. Interviews with potential justices are even live streamed. Wow. So an independent merit-based election process. That's just right out for Republicans. That's what they want to get rid of. And in fact, that's why these Republicans who are heavily funded in this constitutional matter by. outside groups, including those tied to the Federal Society's Leonard Leo, who engineered the far-right capture and corruption of the U.S. Supreme Court. He's trying to do the same thing in Kansas now. That's why these Republicans want to do away with that and have voters-elect justices. By an unspecified process, it would likely include gerrymandered regional elections. You get it. North Carolina Republicans were successful in doing something similar. They switched to partisan Supreme Court elections back in 2018. Then they won a majority on the court after the 2022 midterms. And they quickly got results, including an about face from the previous legitimate court majority on gerrymandering and voting rights and more. So good news in Kansas. Voters didn't fall for it. They rejected that Republican statewide constitutional measure by 22 points, 61 to 39%. Good for you, Kansas. Moving on to Virginia, retired U.S. Army Major General and former National Security Council official, Bert Mizusawa. will be the Republican U.S. Senate candidate taking on three-term Democratic incumbent Senator Mark Warner.

who is widely, widely expected to win this November. In Virginia's first congressional district among the nation's most competitive this year, Shannon Tyler, I'm sorry, Shannon Taylor, a moderate-leaning candidate and county prosecutor backed by the House Democratic campaign arm easily bested a seven-person field. to take on long-serving Republican Congressman Rob Whitman, who ran uncontested himself on Tuesday. And in the state's second congressional district, Democratic primary voters chose former rep Elaine Lauria to face Congresswoman Jen Kiggins, a Republican who defeated Loria. Previously, back in 2022 in what is also expected to be one of the most competitive races in the nation this fall as Democrats hope to win back a majority in the U.S. House. The district is home to several military bases. Both of those women running are Navy veterans. Out in the great state of Washington, Congresswoman Marie Glucencamp Perez, an outspoken and considered to be vulnerable centrist Democrat, faced challengers on two. Tuesday in the state's top two primary from both her left and right. She came out on top nonetheless. First place to advance to the general election when she will face off against the second-placed candidate on Tuesday. That would be Republican state senator, Senate minority leader, and Trump endorsed Navy veteran John Braun in the southwestern Washington State District. And now, with some of the wildest and frankly least predictable contests apparently on Tuesday, a few results from the great swing state of Michigan before we get to John Nichols, who will be able to offer much additional context for all that happened on Tuesday and perhaps beyond. Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson easily won her party's nod to become Michigan's gubernatorial nominee this year on Tuesday as Democrats aim to hold control of the governor's mansion there with two-term Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer now termed out in the swing state. Guy Benson will face off against the Trump endorsed one-term Congressman John James. who fairly easily defeated three other GOP candidates on Tuesday. James is a military veteran from Detroit. He would be the state's first black governor if elected in November, as Republicans hoped to flip that governorship after eight years of Democratic control in the battleground swing state in what is expected to be a very competitive race. in a very competitive state this year where Donald Trump won his presidential race just two years ago. That said, and I don't know if we can necessarily take anything from this, but given the very competitive race among Democrats in Michigan's...

Senate primary on Tuesday with no contests on the Republican side in that race. So I don't know if we can, you know, the Senate race was very competitive for Democrats. So keeping that in mind. But on Tuesday, Democrats outpaced Republican voters in the Michigan governor's race by a lot, it seems to me. You mean voter turnout? Yeah. About one and a half million. voted in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, just over 900,000 voted in the Republican contest, the Republican gubernatorial race. So, I don't know, make of that what you will. It just kind of jumped out at me. Before we take a break and come back with John Nichols on all of this and on the surprisingly close Democratic Senate primary, pitting a very progressive former public health official against a four-term. more centrist congresswoman backed by the party establishment and a lot of money, a race highlighting starkly different visions for the future of the Democratic Party, as echoed in a number of U.S. House races on Tuesday in Michigan as well. Before we do all of that, I just want to make a quick note of this bizarre race today on the Republican side in Michigan, because I'm in Michigan, because I really don't know what to make of it, to be frank. In the Republican primary for Michigan's 8th Congressional District,

for the GOP nomination to take on sitting Democratic Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivett, the Trump endorsed Amir Hassan, a Navy veteran, a Department of Homeland Security official, lost to a guy by the name of Thomas Smith, a retired engineer. And he lost by a big margin. Tom Smith won more than 50% of the vote. Hassan got only 33% of the vote. A 17 point margin. And another candidate, Al Lemo, an anti-abortion candidate, won just over 16% of the vote. Well, ha, ha, ha, because Trump's candidate lost by a lot by 17 points. But A, yes, he lost big. And B, here's the thing, he lost to a guy who dropped out of the race. Back in July, Smith suspended his campaign and endorsed Lemo, decrying Hassan, who was a, quote, proud Muslim who respects all faith, but who later said he was, quote, 100% Christian and that Jesus Christ saved him when he chose a different path, whatever. But when Smith dropped out, An endorsed lemmo, he described Hassan as, quote, a possible Trojan horse candidate and lifelong Democrat. Now, I don't know if Hassan is a Trojan horse or a lifelong Democrat or a Muslim or a Christian, but apparently he was all right with Donald Trump. And yet he lost by 17 points to a guy who is no longer even in the race. Okay. In what Rachel Maddow described last night on MS now as a, quote, Republican primary gone haywire. Pretty weird. So, you know, I don't know if I was Amir Hassan, I would ask for an inspection of the ballot programming in that district, to be frank, to make sure that the candidates weren't mixed up on the wrong lines or something. In any event, this is a competitive seat or was Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivett is going to be running against whoever is ultimately the candidate here in what the Cook political report describes as a leans Democratic. But that means, yeah, it's a winnable district for Republicans normally. Now, who knows? Wow. More Michigan House primaries and the marquee Democratic U.S. Senate primary where progressive Democrats are, let's say, keeping things lively in this year's elections. That's straight ahead, as we are joined by the great John Nichols from neighboring Wisconsin, where he knows a thing or two, I think, about progressive Democrats and the Democratic Socialist Movement. That's straight ahead. I'm Brad Friedman. This is your broadcast.

What the public hears on the public airwaves matters. Please help us stay on your public airwaves by going to bradblog.com slash donate to help keep us going. That's bradblog.com slash donate. And thanks. Welcome back. Bradcast, Bradfriedman from bradblog.com. Democratic primary voters appear to have ousted incumbent Michigan Congressman Sri Thadadadar on Tuesday nominating a Democratic socialist instead for a deep blue district in what the New York Times somewhat graphically describes as the latest sign of the party's hunger for new blood. Shri Thanedar lost to state rep Donovan McKinney in the 13th congressional district, which includes parts of Detroit and its suburbs. Both candidates are progressive and support policies like funding universal health care and abolishing ice. But the 34-year-old McKinney, who is black and grew up in Detroit, has contrasted his background with that of the 71-year-old Thadadadar, an Indian immigrant who was elected to Congress in 2022. Shri Thanedar's victory that year left Detroit, a city that is roughly three-quarters black, without a black representative in Washington for the first time in decades. The primary also would appear to have highlighted Democratic voters' continued backlash against a number of lawmakers who support Israel. McKinney has condemned the war in Gaza as a, quote, genocide and campaigned with fellow pro-Palestinian Democrats, including Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive candidate for U.S. Senate, who appears to have narrowly won that Michigan's marquee Senate race on Tuesday. We'll get to that in a second. Shri Thanedar, in contrast, has consistently voted to fund aid for the Jewish state. While Mr. Thandar had the endorsement of Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, McKinney secured the backing of several other members of the Congressional Black Caucus and of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has spearheaded a string of insurgent Democratic primary victories this year. Shri Thanedar was just the latest of a number of pro-Israel Democrats to fall to a challenge from the left this year. This summer, representatives Diana DeGette of Colorado, Dan Goldman of New York City, Adriano Espaillat of New York, were all defeated by what are regarded to be more progressive challengers, fueled by strong organization. by the Democratic Socialists of America. Nonetheless, Shri Thanedar, who routinely introduced articles of impeachment against Donald Trump and its cabinet members over the past year and a half and had pledged to continue doing so if reelected, he pledged to support Mr. McKinney in the general election. Because of the district's overwhelming Democratic lean, McKinney is...

Heavily favored to win in November. But he was hardly the only Bernie Sanders-backed Democratic Socialist to win a Democratic nod on Tuesday. Progressive activist William Lawrence easily defeated two more centrist Democrats, including a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a former Navy SEAL, to win the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House in Michigan's 7th Congressional District. One of the nation's most closely divided swing districts, where he will challenge two-term Republican rep Tom Amy Coney Barrett, who is considered vulnerable this year in, well, unlike the state's 13th, a battleground U.S. House district, raising the question that many Democrats seem to be quite nervous about this year. Can a Democratic Socialist win in a battleground district? It's one thing to unseat someone like Shri Thanedar in Detroit or Goldman in New York City in deep blue districts, but it could be quite another matter at least, a so far unanswered question in any event as to whether more progressive candidates like William Lawrence can unseat a Republican in a swing district. And today, forcing that question in a big way, of course, is the very narrow victory of Michigan's apparent Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, the Bernie Sanders endorsed former public health specialist Abdul El-Sayed, who, as we go to air, has now been called by AP and other media outlets as the winner of Tuesday's much-watched Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Michigan, defeating the more centrist establishment-backed Congresswoman Haley Stevens by what appears to be just less than 1% of the vote or about 15,000 votes out of more than a million and a half cast in the race. As Talking Points Memo's Kate Riga characterizes the race today, it was much closer than polls foretold with a late glut projecting as much as a double-digit El-Sayed victory. But the acrimonious race has become a microcosm for the bigger questions, bedeviling the Democratic primary, she writes, have establishment Democrats 2024 their way to irrelevance? Or can lefty Democrats translate grassroots enthusiasm into statewide wins? As Kate characterizes a less philosophical but more immediate question, does El-Sayed have enough time to consolidate support? after what was a very nasty primary in what has become a serious blow to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the greater Democratic establishment, watching yet another anointed establishment candidate be rejected by voters after, for example, Maine's Democratic Governor Janet Mills's Senate campaign landed with such a thud that she could not even make it to primary day.

Add to all of that, the Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed split in Michigan on major issues such as ICE reform versus elimination, improvement of the Affordable Care Act versus Medicare for all. And as Riga observes, no issue dominated the primary like the growing schism in democratic politics between supporters of military aid to Israel and those who have soured on it. following Israel's decimation of Gaza, which Abdul El-Sayed condemned, even as Stevens raked in some $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or APAC. El-Sayed will run against former Congressman Mike Rogers, a former Trump critic turned Trump fanboy who previously lost his bid for U.S. Senate in Michigan just two years ago against Democrat Elissa Slotkin. Rogers ran unopposed for the nomination on Tuesday, and though he lost last time, he only barely lost by about three-tenths of a percent. That said... That was a year that Donald Trump was on the ballot and won the state of Michigan and was far more popular than he is now, and yet Rogers still lost that year. Make no mistake, this is the seat, perhaps the only Senate seat this year, that Republicans are seriously eyeing to flip from blue to red as Democratic Senator Gary Peters is retiring at the end of this year. So you're going to see a lot of money flying into Mike Rogers campaign and a lot of money spent against Abdul El-Sayed in what is certain to become a very ugly campaign. Joining us now to, well, As usual, try at least to make sense of all of this. And next week's Democratic gubernatorial primary, by the way, in his home state of Wisconsin, where we may see echoes of this week's... race and this week's hand-wringing by establishment Democrats is the great longtime progressive journalist, national affairs correspondent for the nation, and author with Senator Bernie Sanders of It's Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism. Yes, it's our old friend Mr. John Nichols. Oh, John, welcome back to the broadcast, sir. After yet another crazy election night and another potentially perilous moment for Democrats, I would say. Well, we never get together when it's going easy, do we? No, we don't, actually. I started to worry about our relationship, but with that set. Yeah. You know, you say perilous and perhaps, but I happen to be in the camp that believes that political parties must evolve. If they don't evolve, that's a greater peril ultimately. Well, let me get to that.

evolution in a second because You know, before we talk about El-Sayed's victory and the rise of many self-identified Democratic socialist candidates, and I kind of agree with you on the evolution question, I want to talk just about the Democratic Party itself in Michigan, 90 days out from election, where on election night, on Tuesday, when it was too close to call, both the establishment favorite Stevens, the more progressive El-Sayed, gave remarks. vowing to work toward party unity to defeat Republican Mike Rogers in November, no matter who won. John, it was a bitter primary between the two, much closer. then predicted in the final results. Is it realistic? How easy is it for the Democrats in Michigan to actually come together in 90 days time after a fight like that? You've seen a lot of them over the years in a closely divided battleground state that is really must win for Democrats if they hope to retake a Senate majority. Is that actually doable 90 days out? It's not doable in every state. Every state has its own political culture. And so if you ask me about some states and divisions like you just saw it in play there, I would have said it was very hard. In Michigan, it will not be hard. In fact, as we've been speaking, Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed have exchanged two of the more gracious notes I've ever seen in politics. very poetic on each side, you know, that, you know, I think Abdul Lassad, and I'm paraphrasing here, saying it takes a lot of courage, it takes a lot of strength to, you know, put yourself into the midst of a fight like this and you did it and you fought hard and I can't, you know. Think of anybody I'd rather be going forward, fighting with together. And she's saying something similar to that. Again, I'm paraphrasing to some extent here. But very gracious. You had a remarkable thing this late morning where Mallory McMorrow, who was the third candidate in the primary fight, and who was at one point considered the maybe even the likely winner. But her campaign kind of imploded. She dropped out. And then ended up last night getting over 60,000 votes, which might have been the difference between the two. But she was there in the morning, as she had promised, whoever won, she would kick off their victory press conference. And she did so very, very graciously. So two did a number of other people. And I will tell you, this is something in the Michigan Democratic.

party culture. They do have a lot of left versus right. fights, or at least left, I should say, that's not really fair, left versus center. And so these struggles are nothing new. I could name you names from the 1970s of battles that you just wouldn't believe over everything for the Vietnam War to Democratic socialism, which, by the way, there were strong Democratic Socialists running in Michigan in the 70s at the statewide level. and under the old Michael Harrington model. So anyway, they've been through a lot. But here's what's the definitional thing in Michigan. And I think in some of these other states as well, they went through a brutal pre-Trump era. where they saw how bad it could get when they didn't come together. And Michigan had a governor Schneider, he was a Republican, who came in in that Republican wave election of 2010, when, frankly, Democrats allowed a lot of petty divisions quite frequently to get in their way as well as a misread of what the Tea Party was and things of that nature. They ended up with Republicans in full control for much of that period of the 2010s. And what did they do? They got rid of union rights. They assaulted public education. They literally took control of cities away from the people who lived in the cities. They literally impose state oversight, so to speak, declaring cities to be bankrupt or some other, you know, whatever thing. And it was such a stark period that Democrats came in Michigan to understand that they can have brutal primaries, like the ugliest primaries you can imagine. And they sometimes, they've had a few of them. But then once it's done, if they don't get together. everybody's going to know who screwed things up. And so people who have long-term political ambitions, even if they're not the noblest players, know that you better not be the one who is getting in the way. of that unity push. I hope you're right. And I hope, because we seem to have, you know, people in politics with shorter and shorter memories. It is true. But you're right. Michigan knows what, you know, authoritarian, hard right authoritarianism looks like close up. They've paid the price for it. Still paying the price for it with things like the Flint water crisis and so forth. So hopefully that brings them together. That on the Democratic side, then that raises the question about.

taking on Mike Rogers. Now, John, the same polls that now appear to have been so wrong before the primary on Tuesday finding El-Sayed was, you know, set to clobber Stevens by double digits. Those polls appear to have been oversampled, you know, for young people, we guess. If those polls were oversampled for El-Syad supporters finding that... that Stevens, in fact, would do better against Rogers than El-Syad would, should Dems be concerned about, you know, those very same polls, what it could mean for El-Syad that he might do even worse against Rogers than the polling during the primary suggested. Well, I, you know, I may have, I hope it didn't sound polyana-ish in the comments about unity, where I genuinely do think they're going to achieve a rather striking level of unity. Here I will sound some alarms and some warnings. The thing to understand about Michigan is it is a very, very closely divided state. Right. And if you look at its pattern going through elections, this is a state where Republicans have been able to win the presidency, the governorship, key statewide offices. The Senate seats have been pretty democratic for a while. But, I mean, you just need to understand that dynamic. It is a great big state, physically large, and you have vast Republican areas within it. And so this becomes a more challenging. circumstance. And I know that there are a lot of people who tell you well in such a state, the best model is to nominate a moderate. Most boring person in the world, you know, kind of keep it dull, right? And then make the Republican look like, you know, a nut. And then some things will all work out. The challenge is that we're beyond the traditional, in Michigan is one of these states, I think Wisconsin, another. There are a number of these states. They're sort of beyond the traditional model of swing voters, right? There just aren't that many of them. And so you've moved to this new model of mobilization. Like how does each side mobilize? Right. And so you want somebody who can actually get a lot of people to the polls who can bring that energy and do it. Now here's a little factoid for you from the primary. On the Democratic side, in the Democratic primary, 1.5 million Michiganders voted. 1.5 million. On the Republican side, despite the fact that the Republicans had a seriously contested primary for governor. Governor, right. And a good, it's real primary there. As well as many other contests, including a lot of congressional contests that were just as intense as the ones on the Democratic side, they had 930,000 people turn out.

Yeah. So there's an enthusiasm gap. that seems pretty obvious. Yeah, and I did notice that as well. That certainly would seem to be an encouraging sign. Yet, many of the establishment Democrats, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the like, they seem quite worried about the rise of DSA. Maybe they're Democratic socialists. Maybe they have a good reason to be concerned in state like Michigan. They spent a lot of money. trying to defeat him. Even though, even though Abdul El-Sayed is not a Democratic socialist and actually speaks rather eloquently to the fact that he's a capitalist. Ah. Just one who understands that capitalism doesn't always work well. And so, yes, but they're going to, whoever who was nominated, they were going to call the nominee, the Republicans would call the Democratic nominee, the worst, whatever name you can imagine. Right. go on steroids with that. But here's the thing about it. I think the key is a mobilization strategy. Now, Al-Sai is an incredibly skilled communicator who has immense energy. He really does seem to be the kind of candidate who likes to get up early in the morning and go 600 miles to go do a campaign stuff. And believe me, somebody's watched... a lot of politics, those folks are rare. And so I think that he is going to bring an energy and enthusiasm to it. There's another thing that's been very fascinating just in today. And again, fully accepting and believing strongly that this is a very divided state, right? And one that if the Republicans can mobilize well on fear, on whatever else, that, you know, you could still have a very close election. What's fascinating is Chuck Schumer's people, or the Senate Majority Pack, was in today with an ad. using the Journey song, Don't Stop Believing, which had Saeed, Abdul El-Sayed as a participant in the ad. Nice. Very feel good. When the song takes off, you know, he starts, he's marching with UAW picketers. He's, you know, shaking hands and hugging people. And, I mean, it's a feel good ad. Quite well done. Abdul El-Sayed was up with an ad backed. where he's talking to the camera, a different type of head, where he's talking about uniting Michigan, bringing people together, whoever you voted for, however you voted, not just in the Democratic primary, but even people, you know, Republicans, independence, this kind of broader message. And playing in the background is this very kind of old school, very soft Woody Guthrie version of this land is your land. And he closed off by saying Michigan.

You know, this land is our land. You know what I mean? I do. He is a, he is a very good candidate. I mean, you can make of, setting aside his positions, whatever they are, you may love him, we may hate him. He's just a very good candidate. He's very likable. It seems to me. He's willing to throw himself into it, too. You know what I mean? He's got some of those Zohran Mamdani-like characteristics, it seems to me, as far as his eagerness, as far as his sort of likability. But we will see what happened. I mean, I should also note here that, you know, Rogers, who ran uncontested, has while Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed were going after each other, Rogers has sort of gotten off Scott Free because he ran uncontested. You're so right. He hasn't really had anything thrown at him, at least not. You know what he's had thrown at him? What's that? I want to interrupt you. Yeah, that's right. Money. Not as much money as he will see thrown at him over the next 90 days. He's already got tens of millions banked. You know what I mean? It's just either in his own funds and in independent funds. Oh, you mean that he has on his, that he has on his behalf? Yeah, I'm not saying he's getting attack ads. Right, right, right. I'm saying he has, this is an important part to understand. He has used this period. Because Mike Rogers is better on the phone than most politicians, if you get my drift. He has used this period to literally assemble. jaw-dropping amounts of money. Oh, it's going to be endless, endless money, John. There's no question. My only point is that he hasn't really had that thrown at him just yet. He has not been softened up, you know, the way both of these Democrats really have over the past several weeks and months. So let me get to, since we're short on time here, John, let me get to where you sort of wanted to start where we do seem to be seeing a very real transition or at least a fight for one in the Democratic... party, you know, it sort of echoes in perhaps an uncomfortable way, the takeover of the Republican Party by the MAGA right. I don't want to equate the two ideologically, but as far as an attempt to sort of move the entire party farther to either the right or the left, MAGA appears to have been successful there. They had a leader, however, in Donald Trump and... It appears to now be hurting their party, it seems to me. Should that be a cautionary tale for Democrats? Or is that framing all wrong? And that, as you said, you know, the evolution of a party is as important as anything else. And we haven't seen a lot of evolution from the Democratic Party in quite a while. Yeah, evolution is essential for a party. And if it doesn't evolve at a certain point, it's going to fall into a trap and it is not going to be able to get out of it. It will be defined in the eyes of new generations of voters as uninteresting, unacceptable, unchangeable. And so what's happening right now, even though it is at times painful,

is very, very good for the Democratic Party. And I do think there's some people assume, well, oh, you know, this guy's saying, oh, it's great for them to have all these fights and that at the end of these fights, everything is going to turn out great. That's not quite what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the process of fighting for your soul, figuring out who you are and what you're going to be, makes a political party more effective. than if it just goes on autopilot. Because if it just goes on autopilot, there's a phrase that you and I both know and that everybody who cover politics knows. And that's call time, right? Politicians spend a lot of time on call time, raising money from donors. And so at the end of a campaign, many, many politicians know their donors better than they know their voters. Right. And they get their information from their donors. And they get their asks from the donors. And so that's who they are. Now, when you have an insurgent grassroots campaigning politics that arrives, it will almost certainly be more ideological. It will almost certainly be on one side of the spectrum or the other. It will have passionate people who are... more determined to go to the grassroots, not to go to the donors. And it will have candidates who recognize that. This dynamic... is very volatile. It can be really complicated. It can get people angry and all that. But it brings issues and ideas into play. I'll give you a very good example. Al-Sahid went to every part of Michigan, small towns. In fact, if you look at the map, he actually did very, very well up in the Upper Peninsula, which is a long way from Detroit. And it's almost Canada. And the interesting thing is that when he went out there, he had the same experience that Will Lawrence... this guy who won the central Michigan kind of swing district primary on Tuesday had. And also that jumping out of this zone, the Democratic nominee for governor of Kansas had when she beat, she just beat the establishment out there. All of these Kansas, there's a thread that goes through them and it goes even into Wisconsin. This year, when you went out to talk to voters, if you weren't just talking to donors, you know what they said to you? We don't want these data centers. Now, no consultant in Washington was telling you to run on data centers, right? Right, right. That's truly a grassroots thing. And Will Lawrence closed off with data centers as one of his central ads. You know, like on TV, I'll say it, talking about a lot, this very interesting campaign out in Kansas seeing quite a bit of it as well. What I'm trying to say is that in this process of evolution, a party doesn't just move to the right or the left. It also begins to understand a new set of issues and new ways of connecting with voters that might actually make the voters believe, dare I say it.

Pause here for a moment that you're listening to them. I know. And you know what? As you were talking, I was sort of thinking we covered earlier those constitutional amendments that were put on the ballot in both Missouri and Kansas by the Republican legislatures in both cases. And they got. absolutely trounced like 80 to 20 percent as if those Republican legislators had no clue what, you know, was actually going through the minds of the electorate. Now they do, but that really reminded me of that, of parties just losing touch with their actual voters, their actual electorate. John, before we- And in fact, not wanting the voters. In Michigan, or I'm sorry, in Missouri. Missouri and Kansas. Yeah. Not wanting voters have anything to say about it, really. Yeah, it's sure, voters, vote against your own self-interest, won't you? No, not this time, it seems in both of those states. John, we're seeing similar concerns that were, you know, sort of echo what we've seen over the past week or so in Michigan. We're seeing that in advance of next week's gubernatorial Democratic primary in your beloved similarly. closely divided battleground state of Wisconsin. We may be calling you back on the show to help us make sense of it a week or so from now, but what do we need to know about that race as we move toward next Tuesday when Wisconsin voters will vote again? And is there a real chance as many Democrats seem to fear right now that it may result in a candidate who can't win in one of the swingiest of swing states eight years after the... You know, the far right Scott Walker regime was finally toppled. What do we need to know? Well, you're right. Wisconsin has a lot of trauma from Scott Walker, and it influences how people think about elections and nominations. And there is a caution factor that runs through a lot of the Democratic Party, but there's also an energy and, you know, aggressive faction from folks that said, well, we should have always been fighting harder. And so that's the divide. It isn't just an ideological divide. It is a stylistic. divide and it's very much in play uh brad you and i've talked about politics for a very very long time it's so many different settings i'm going to say something to you that that you know i say it knowingly and consciously i have never seen a race like this before it is wild beyond belief there are these there were more establishment type candidates who got in ran and then got out

Then a major candidate was driven out by a financial scandal in her campaign. Another candidate, another major candidate got tripped up by, you know, bad polls and some pressure and some stories on him. Another candidate dropped out, you know, all this within like the last month or so, dropped out. toward the end of the campaign because he just didn't think he had a chance. All that churn occurred as Francesca Hong, a state representative from Madison, who is a Democratic socialist and who is a, like Abdul El-Sayed, a very hardworking candidate, gone to every corner of the state, just, you know, literally gone out and personally met a ton of people. And frankly, gotten a lot of them to like her very much, built a movement, not unlike a lot of what Abdul El-Sayed has done. But she is very much on the left. She is definitely a Democratic socialist who's proud of her politics and very intense on it. So a lot of the establishment folks, the mainstream folks, not happy about that. So anyway, you got all this churn, Brad, and candidates all dropping out, other candidates getting in. And then the governor, the Democratic governor, who had sat on the sidelines the whole time, said about a week ago, I am unsatisfied. with the opposition to Francesca Hong. I don't want her to be the nominee. That's a big thing. He comes in. So he plucks one of the candidates who had dropped out and brings the candidate back in. You ever say the roller coaster ride that Wisconsin is on? People literally close, they lock their campaign headquarters up, close the door, get ready to go on vacation in Jamaica or whatever, and suddenly they're pulling back into the campaign. It has been so chaotic, so. wild that now as we have one week to go, less than a week to go, I think there's no question that Francesca Hong is ahead. And she has a movement of people, especially a lot of young people who are very passionately in support of her. Then she has a whole bunch of people who really question on electability and all sorts of others. Very similar to what you saw in Michigan. I think we're going to have a pretty intense finish here again. The bet is for a Hong win, but there's also this sort of coalescing of the governor and other people behind David Crowley, the Milwaukee County Executive. And I am not going to tell you that we know where this is going to end up. And we have polling, again, we have polling that shows that Francesca Hong, who is, again, a very, very hardworking, very effective candidate, has a good-sized lead. But... I think that what we just saw in Michigan leads us to ask questions about whether the polls are good on capturing rural voters and some others. That should be a cautionary tale, it seems to me, what happened in Michigan on Tuesday. And I suspect it is as we move forward. And, of course, all of it makes me think, well, Evers served two terms, but he wasn't actually termed out. He could have run again. He chose not to, right? If he had run again, everybody would be headed for a supper club on Friday night. You know. That would be nice. That would be nice. But you know what? That's one of the great drinking games in Wisconsin does enjoy a cocktail. One of the great drinking games in Wisconsin is who should have run who could have made this race easy? And the list is long. Well, evolution is one thing of the party, but I could use...

I don't know that I need this much intensity at this point, John Nichols. It's a roller coaster ride. I could use a break. All right, John Nichols, National Affairs correspondent for the nation author with Bernie Sanders of It's Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism. And as I have threatened you, John, we may be calling you next week to try to unwind whatever the hell happens in Wisconsin on Tuesday in that upcoming primary. If you're in Wisconsin, please get out. and vote one way or another. John Nichols can be found on the blue skies at Nichols Uprising and of course at the nation.com. Thank you, John. Thank you. And I will tell you if you call me next week and things work out to get together, I'll know more than I know this week. How could we not? I have no idea what's going on in Wisconsin. I'm glad to know you don't either. Talk to you soon, John. Thanks. Fair enough. Talk to you soon. Take care. Okay, we are way late getting out. Thanks to our producer, Desi Doyen, to all of you for spending a portion of your day or night with us. If you missed any portion of today's show, download it for free any time at bradblog.com, though please do consider hitting a donate button while you are there to help us stay on your public airwaves. Drop me email. I'm Bradcast at Bradblog.com and on the social media as I am at the Bradblog. See you there. Until we see you here tomorrow, I'm Brad Friedman. Good. luck world you're listening to the Bradcast you're listening to the Bradcast we are 100% listener thanks to