What we learned from midterm primary elections in five key states
Elections underscored that momentum of progressive candidates remains strong but not unstoppable
Source excerpt
Tuesday’s primary elections in five states will be looked back on as a marquee moment ahead of November’s midterm elections, as voters in Michigan, Washington, Virginia, Kansas and Missouri selected candidates for races that could decide which party wins control of Congress.
Progressives thought their Michigan Senate candidate would be a shoo-in – but his victory was narrowMichigan was the site of a bitterly contested Democratic Senate primary in which the moderate congresswoman Haley Stevens faced former public health official Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, in a state that Donald Trump won two years ago.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, polls showed El-Sayed with a firm lead over Stevens, who had the backing of Governor Gretchen Whitmer as well as the top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, and his campaign projected confidence accordingly.
But the election turned out to be a squeaker, with El-Sayed winning 48.5% of the vote to Stevens’s 47.5%, the Associated Press reports, far from the blowout polling appeared to show.
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