Races to watch in Michigan as establishment Democrats face off against challenges on their left flank

Michigan voters will head to the polls to select nominees for the state’s top offices, putting the spotlight on one of the most prominent battleground states in the country. 

During Tuesday’s primary election, residents will cast ballots in multiple races, including the governor’s race, a swing U.S. Senate race, and one of the tightest House races nationwide.

The Senate race

The Michigan Senate primary for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) will take place on Aug. 4. Cook Political Report rates the Senate race in the purple state as a toss-up. Though the state has a Democratic governor and two current Democratic senators, Trump won Michigan in 2016 and 2024. 

Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), who is backed by Trump, is expected to secure the Republican nomination as he is the only GOP contender in the race. Rogers has competed to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate before, failing in his bid against Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in 2024 by just 19,000 votes.

Democrats on Tuesday are choosing between Abdul el Sayed, who is backed by socialists, and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a comparatively centrist establishment-backed candidate. Stevens, a four-term congresswoman from Birmingham, has been endorsed by Whitmer, Peters, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). El Sayed, a former Wayne County health director, has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), alongside Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA).

El Sayed has been polling well ahead of Stevens in the weeks leading up to the election. Stevens has warned she is far more electable in November than el Sayed, arguing that her 2018 victory in a competitive state Senate district over an incumbent Republican proves her ability to win close races.

Both candidates support ending the filibuster,  the 60-vote supermajority required to pass most Senate legislation, which has long been hailed by centrists as essential to incentivizing bipartisanship in the upper chamber. 

U.S. Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed, left, and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens participate in a televised debate, Monday, July 27, 2026, in Southfield, Mich. (Robin Buckson/Detroit News via AP, Pool)

El Sayed is known for holding a range of left-wing or socialist positions, including abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, instituting Medicare for All, and raising taxes on wealthier individuals, such as raising the top marginal tax rate on earnings over $1 million, taxing capital gains and inheritances over $1 million as ordinary income, implementing a “billionaire tax” on wealth over $1 billion, and putting a progressive tax on wealth held by trusts.

El Sayed has supported aspects of the defund the police and prison abolitionist movements in the past, though he has walked back such positions on the campaign trail. He wants Congress to regulate AI companies like public utilities, arguing they should become public benefit corporations required to balance public interest against profit, and supports the creation of a new federal agency to hold regulatory power over AI, including evaluating frontier AI models before deployment. He is opposed to allowing Congress to create a national standard for AI regulation, and override various state laws on AI regulation. 

In the foreign policy arena, el Sayed has condemned the war in Iran and declined to endorse the death of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad” about his demise. The socialist-backed candidate believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in its war against Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists, and backs pulling all U.S. aid from Israel. He has attracted controversy for repeatedly campaigning with Twitch political streamer Hasan Piker, due to the streamer’s antisemitic views, including comments in April that he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time.”

Though Stevens has been repeatedly attacked by el Sayed over the Israel-Palestine issue, she has defended her support for a two-state solution, saying she believes “Israel has a right to peacefully exist alongside the people of Palestine and in Gaza.” Stevens voted against the recent congressional amendment that sought to pull all U.S. aid from the Middle Eastern country. While she supports Israel’s right to exist, Stevens has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing during a debate this month that “he has not brought us closer to peace.”

Stevens supported Medicare for All when she first ran for Congress in 2018, but has since shifted to backing efforts to expand Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, supporting legislation to make tax subsidies for the ACA permanent after they expired in 2025.

Stevens is also against abolishing ICE, but has supported reforming the federal agency. After controversial fatal shootings in Minnesota, she called for then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be impeached. A bill she introduced titled the “Hold ICE Accountable Act of 2026” would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate actions conducted by ICE during Trump’s second term. 

 Stevens said she is open to Congress preempting state regulations on AI because a patchwork of state laws is “not good for the long term.”

“The best, best way to preserve these things and to protect our national security is to have a single, federal standard,” she said. “I am not going to support or vote for anything that preempts state law unless it is accompanied by robust safeguards at the federal level.”

The governor’s race

Since 2000, two of Michigan’s governors have been Republican, and two have been Democratic, highlighting the state’s battleground status.

On the Republican side, Rep. John James (R-MI) and businessman Perry Johnson are engaged in a tense battle to secure their party’s nomination to succeed outgoing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI). James, a U.S. representative since 2023, holds Trump’s endorsement, as well as that of former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who recently dropped out of the gubernatorial race. 

Polling indicates James holds a sizeable lead ahead of Tuesday.  

The race has been defined by bitter personal attacks, from infidelity allegations, “nepo baby” claims, and racially charged comments directed against James, a black candidate, to Johnson’s lawsuit contending James’ campaign logo that read “John James Governor” was misleading to voters. 

Johnson has blasted James for taking campaign donations from utility companies and data center developers, and sought to frame his opponent as a liberal. Johnson has proposed totally eliminating the state income tax and backs a one-year data center moratorium. James has focused on expanding local control over data center development and has proposed a 20% to 25% income tax cut based on slashing the state budget.

James has also proposed allowing parents to scrutinize classrooms by requiring all schools to post their curricula online, opening up teachers’ instruction materials to Freedom of Information Act requests, and creating a “parental bill of rights” addressing transgender students, which would ban biological males from girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and sports teams. 

The Democratic candidates running for governor are Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson. 

Benson has served as Michigan’s secretary of state since 2019. She is backed by the establishment, including former Democratic governor Jim Blanchard. Swanson has been leading the sheriff’s office for 34 years, and served as a faculty member for the University of Michigan Flint in public health for 28 years. He has the backing of the American Muslim Political Action Committee and powerful labor unions, including the nationwide Teamsters and statewide IBEW and Iron Workers Local 25 unions.

Benson appears to hold a massive lead in the race, according to polling. Benson raised $4.9 million and spent $2.1 million, and had over $6.4 million in cash on hand heading into the general election, during the reporting period beginning Jan. 1. Swanson raised just over $722,000 and spent around $806,000, leaving him with around $187,000 in cash on hand.

Despite his underdog status, Swanson painted himself as the candidate with the best chance of keeping the governor’s seat blue in the general election and attracting needed Republican votes in November during an interview with CBS News.

“I’m predicting a six- to eight-point primary victory, and then a double-digit November win because I can pull Republicans back, I can pull people that Mike Duggan was trying to get into the independent space, as with the Democratic base,” Swanson said, referring to Duggan, the Democrat turned independent who made a gubernatorial bid before dropping out of the race in May. 

Both Benson and Swanson say they view data centers as necessary, while both back expanding guardrails on the industry. Benson has been needled by Swanson for holding familial ties to data center developers, but has touted herself as a champion for guardrails for their expansion on the campaign trail. She backs requiring data center developers to hold public hearings, bear the cost of additional energy usage, prove that the projects won’t harm the environment, and has threatened to support a moratorium on development should companies violate such rules.

Swanson has proposed dividing the state up into zones signaling whether areas are open or closed for data centers.

“You divide the state up in three colors: yellow, red, and green,” he told 9and10 News. “Yellow means that there’s infrastructure baseline, and there’s a desire for new manufacturing, new industry. That’s where investors can look and say, ‘Okay, we can go there. There’s some potential.’ Red means no infrastructure, or they have no desire for any industrial manufacturing. So don’t go to these cities and towns. Don’t try to force it down their throat, no matter how much land is available. And third is green, meaning infrastructure, and they’re open for business.”

Genessee County, Mich. Sheriff Chris Swanson, a gubernatorial candidate, addresses delegates during the Michigan Democratic Party State Endorsement Convention, Sunday, April 19, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

On healthcare, Benson says she backs increasing transparency in medical billing and passing a $5,000 caregiver tax credit. Swanson says Michigan should be “a state where everybody has a baseline healthcare option.”

On housing, Benson says she wants to streamline regulations that slow down construction, increase assistance for first-time homebuyers, “crack down on corporate investors who buy up properties,” and expand the Michigan homestead property tax credit. Swanson has focused on building more housing, saying that around an additional 160,000 houses are needed to be built in order to create a competitive market. He wants to see 10,000 new housing units built in the first 24 months of being elected to office, should he win in November, and wants the state to lower interest rates to spur development.

Michigan House race

The race for the 7th Congressional District seat is viewed as the most competitive House race in Michigan, and one of the tightest nationwide, with the Cook Political Report rating it a toss-up. 

The seat is held by a Republican, Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI), who is running for reelection after winning his first term and flipping the district red by under four points in 2024. The district in the Lansing area is a battleground that Trump won by just over a single point in 2024, encompassing Clinton, Ingham, Livingston, and Shiawassee counties, in addition to most of Eaton County and parts of Genesee and Oakland counties.

Barrett is the lone GOP contender on the ballot. On Aug. 4, voters will pick between three Democrats vying for their party’s nomination to challenge him: former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, retired Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam, and political organizer William Lawrence. Recent polling shows Brink holds the lead, but 28% remained undecided. 

There are concerns that Brink and Maasdam, the two more establishment-aligned candidates, could split the centrist vote, providing a pathway for Lawrence to win the primary nomination. That could lead Democrats to lose the general election, experts say, since Lawrence would be running as a staunch progressive in the battleground district.

Brink is a 28-year career foreign service officer who resigned as the ambassador to Ukraine last year due to her belief that Trump was unfairly favoring Russia over Ukraine. Backed by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Democratic Women’s Caucus, Brink has framed herself as a coalition builder, citing her experience working under five presidents. Brink and Maasdam support a government-backed public option to make healthcare universal, and Brink supports an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink meet with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriiy Sybiha at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

Maasdam is an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran who carried nuclear codes as a military aide to former President Barack Obama. He has since worked as an executive at Under Armour and founded several e-commerce startups. Maasdam holds endorsements from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who represented the district a few years ago, and Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY). 

Maasdam has focused on calling Congress to assert more power against Trump on tariffs and the war powers, saying it needs to ensure it’s not ceding Constitutional authorities to an overbearing executive branch.

Lawrence is the co-founder of the climate organization Sunrise Movement, which supports the Green New Deal aimed at creating aggressive environmental regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero. He is known as the progressive in the race, and holds endorsements from Sanders, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Lawrence and El Sayed have endorsed each other. 

ABDUL EL SAYED VOWS TO TAKE ON SCHUMER AS LEFT-WING CANDIDATES GAIN MOMENTUM

Lawrence is the only candidate in the race to support a 12-month federal moratorium on data centers, is against the war in Iran, backs ending U.S. aid to Israel, and supports government-run healthcare through Medicare for All.

More centrist Democrats have expressed concern Lawrence would be unable to flip the seat blue in November due to his left-wing positions. His comments in 2024 have been particularly criticized by the Congressional Black Caucus, after he said that it is a “big problem” that “the older generation of Black political leadership are such a pillar for establishment, capitalist, imperialist, American power through their role as this kind of traditionalist, establishmentist pillar of the Democratic Party.” 

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