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Michigan’s bitter Senate primary was the clearest signal yet: The Democratic establishment is gasping.

The narrow victory of former health official Abdul El-Sayed over four-term Rep. Haley Stevens, who had the near-unanimous backing of senior establishment figures in Washington and Michigan as well as a more than 8-to-1 television spending advantage, marked yet another stumble by the traditional power brokers.

It also amplified how out of touch they have grown with the angry left that has become the party’s ascendant force.

This time, the victory by a progressive insurgent happened not in a deep-blue enclave, such as New York City, where Democrats are pretty certain to win no matter what candidate they put up. It was in a statewide contest in Middle America. Donald Trump won Michigan twice, in 2016 and 2024.

In 2026, the stakes could hardly be higher. Democrats currently hold the Michigan seat being vacated by the retirement of Sen. Gary Peters. Should El-Sayed lose in November against Republican nominee Mike Rogers — a former congressman who came within a third of a percentage point from winning Michigan’s other Senate seat in 2024 — the party’s uphill effort to win back control of the Senate will become even steeper.

Much criticism has focused on how Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the campaign arm that he effectively steers, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, have attempted to orchestrate the primary process. They have boosted favored contenders in three primaries this year. Michigan marked the second one — the first having been Maine — in which Schumer’s anointed contenders were rejected by Democratic voters.

“What voters have been screaming from the rooftops is they’re sick of the status quo. They’re sick of the establishment. They want something different,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic consultant who worked for Mallory McMorrow, a state senator who dropped out of the race after failing to gain traction in a middle lane.

Nor were Democrats in a critical swing state persuaded by the argument that Stevens was more “electable.”

“If you listen to focus groups or interviews with Michigan voters, they are very interested in winning,” former Obama White House official Dan Pfeiffer wrote Monday in his Substack. “They want to pick a winner; they just don’t trust Democratic politicians to tell them who can really win. This is a very understandable impulse after 2024 and every Democratic leader backing Biden when he clearly shouldn’t have run.”

The stresses and divisions within the Democratic Party, including over support for Israel and the role of money in politics, were on full display in Michigan. El-Sayed rarely missed an opportunity to mention that Stevens had benefited from $62 million in advertising spending by outside groups, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential pro-Israel lobby.

The entire race, El-Sayed argued in the candidates’ final debate, “really comes down to how you are funded.” Rarely has a candidate been so effective at that kind of political jujitsu, using the weight of campaign money against its intended beneficiary.

Late polls that had El-Sayed comfortably ahead of Stevens were wrong. The race turned out to be a photo finish.

The results also complicated any clean story about a party moving left. El-Sayed ran up his margins in the counties with the youngest and most highly educated voters. Stevens carried the poorest counties and the areas with the most Black residents — the parts of the Democratic coalition that have historically decided general elections in Michigan. An insurgent left that wins on campuses and in college towns but loses in Detroit’s suburbs and the state’s poorest counties has proved it can win a primary. It has not yet proved it can win a state.

Stevens quickly endorsed El-Sayed after the race was called. “I spoke with Abdul a few moments ago to offer him my full support as we work to defeat Mike Rogers this November,” she posted on X. But given the acrimony of their battle, it is unclear whether Democrats can bind their wounds and regroup behind their new nominee.

Progressives in Michigan notched other victories Tuesday: William Lawrence, co-founder of the climate action group Sunrise Movement, defeated two more moderate Democrats to win the Democratic nomination in a swing district that includes Lansing. And incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar lost to Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a democratic socialist.

The implications could well extend beyond November. The Democratic National Committee has tentatively approved Michigan to vote fifth in the 2028 presidential primaries — making it the biggest prize on the early calendar.

Should the progressives who were chosen Tuesday win this November, that may strengthen the hand of 2028 prospects who hew to the left. But if they lose, the party may be seeking a more centrist standard bearer.

With the 2026 primary season coming to an end, more optimistic Democrats are hoping that raging battles over their party’s identity will move to the back burner as they refocus their energies on Trump and the Republicans.

“We’re gonna have a great November. We’re gonna win the House, and I’m still bullish on the Senate,” former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, who also chaired the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview. “This is going to be about the party in power, plain and simple.”

Clara Ence Morse contributed to this report.

Democrats are favored to flip the House, but Republicans could still save their majority under the right conditions.

Historically, midterm elections are a referendum on the party that holds the White House, which voters are prone to punish. This year, the Democratic Party is well positioned to win a House majority, buoyed by voters’ dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and the war in Iran that he started.

But Trump’s party could defy conventional wisdom and still eke out a win, election analysts say. Here’s how.

Voters aren’t angry enough to vote blue

Registered voters support Democrats over Republicans in Congress by five percentage points, according to a Washington Post average of July “generic ballot” polls that ask preferences for parties rather than individuals.

Analysts estimate that Democrats need to win the national House vote by three to four points to win the majority. Democrats have a bigger advantage among highly motivated voters, who are more likely to turn out in November.

But polls also show that the Democratic brand is bruised.

The Democratic Party is less popular than before the 2018 midterm elections, when a blue wave delivered 41 new seats, according to a CNN poll released in late July.

Just before that 2018 election, 46 percent of adults rated Democrats favorably while 45 percent rated them unfavorably. Now, 30 percent rate Democrats favorably while 51 percent rate them unfavorably, almost identical to ratings for the Republican Party.

Much of that discontent comes from Democrats who are unhappy with their own party but unwilling to vote for Republicans.

Democrats are counting on people who don’t like them but are fed up with a GOP-controlled Washington to vote blue. That might be a harder sell by November if voters aren’t as outraged.

“Republicans have to hope that gas prices come down and that the war fades from the news a bit,” said David Wasserman, a senior elections analyst with Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan race handicapper.

A redrawn map protects GOP majority

A party needs 218 seats to control the House, and Republicans hold a razor-thin majority with several vacancies.

Aggressive redistricting to favor parties in congressional elections has resulted in a smaller battleground for control of Congress.

As of mid-July, Cook Political Report deemed 37 districts competitive. Eighteen were toss-ups, while 10 leaned Democrat and 9 leaned Republican.

Republicans made it unusually hard for Democrats to win the majority by launching a national battle to redraw electoral maps mid-decade. While Democrats tried to gain their own seats, the redistricting gambit proved advantageous for the GOP.

Because the two parties are competing on the new map, November’s results could be close even in a difficult year for Republicans, Wasserman said.

If Democrats win all of the most competitive districts classified by the Cook Political Report, they would win 235 seats under the 2024 map. But under the current map, they would only win 223 seats.

Big money saves vulnerable Republicans

In June, a Supreme Court ruling granted Republicans financial leverage to spend big to boost their candidates.

The high court lifted limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates, allowing the political parties’ national committees and their House and Senate campaign committees to funnel as much money as they want in coordination with candidates.

This will allow political parties to boost their candidates with more ads, probably at lower costs because candidates get cheaper rates than parties and super PACs from the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the airwaves. Republican committees have more money to spend than Democrats on those efforts.

Conservatives could also benefit from Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., which ended June with $400 million in the bank. It’s unclear whether that money will go toward midterm races.

The Republican campaign committees have also not yet detailed how they will spend their money in the coming months but said after the Supreme Court ruling that they were “ready to fully support our candidates and put them in the strongest position possible.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ campaign operation, disputed that the GOP’s financial resources would sway the midterms out of Democrats’ reach. They pointed to special elections in which Democrats won despite being outspent by Republican opponents.

“Donald Trump’s money won’t save the vulnerable Republicans who have spent the last two years making life worse for the American people,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said.

Weak candidates lose winnable races

In past elections, Republicans lost competitive congressional races after more hard-line conservatives emerged from primaries. Now Democrats have a similar problem.

Primary victories by several progressive candidates have made some in the party establishment worry about losing winnable seats.

Most of these candidates have been in blue districts, but Matthew Dunlap in Maine and Randy Villegas in California beat more moderate, DCCC-endorsed candidates in primaries. Amish Shah, who lost a 2024 race in an Arizona battleground district, defeated a former Republican endorsed by the DCCC to run again.

On Tuesday in Michigan, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence, a progressive, bested two moderate Democrats in the battleground 7th Congressional District. The DCCC did not endorse any candidate before the primary.

Manny Rutinel defeated a more moderate opponent in a beef-producing Colorado district where some Democrats fear his history of animal rights activism and liberal voting record in the state House could render him unelectable.

Those districts could still go for Democrats, according to national analyses, and progressives argue that their preferred candidates are better at turning out voters even if they turn off some moderates.

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, said that while Republicans have a “very narrow” path to the majority, they could defy expectations if the party successfully casts its opponents as extreme and out of touch. They include candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, a growing political movement with far-left views.

“With every candidate on the DSA side that succeeds, that makes that argument that much easier,” Heye said.

In an analysis this week, the University of Virginia’s Center of Politics said “Democratic candidates flopping is integral to GOP chances” in several states.

Scott Clement contributed to this report.