The Fallout of Mallory McMorrow's Exit

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-MI)

Yesterday, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign in the US Senate primary in Michigan.  This isn't super surprising.  McMorrow started with a lot of promise in the race.  After going viral in 2022 for a speech attacking Republicans, McMorrow seemed like a rising star in the party, and I'll own that much of her campaign (in terms of quality) was considerably sharper than her other two opponents: Rep. Haley Stevens and Wayne County Public Health Director Abdul El-Sayed.  But McMorrow struggled in the race.  In an era where the conflict in Gaza disproportionately impacts Democratic primaries compared to the general electorate's concerns, McMorrow was stuck in the middle.  She did not receive money from AIPAC (which Stevens has), but she was not as ardently anti-Israel as El-Sayed, and she pissed off the far left by criticizing El-Sayed's campaigning with Hasan Piker, who has been accused by many (including me) for being a dangerous force within the party, and of trading in antisemitic dogwhistles.  In retrospect, McMorrow would've been better off still going for a promotion, but instead for Stevens' House seat and backing Stevens from the get-go while still getting a national platform in the process.

McMorrow's campaign has shown something challenging in the Democratic primaries, and something that could be a harbinger of things to come in the 2028 presidential election: there is not room for a candidate in-between a moderate establishment type (like Stevens) and a candidate who embraces the far left (like El-Sayed).  Her campaign was sharp, she ran it textbook, and much better than Stevens, who has struggled with being socially awkward in a number of public debates and El-Sayed, who seems to be an unserious candidate; while other top Senate candidates like Josh Turek, Roy Cooper, & Mary Peltola were featuring photos of them at parades & Independence Day events in their states on social media, El-Sayed had a video of him line-dancing in an American flag cowboy hat & skin-tight black v-neck to Taylor Swift's hit "You Belong with Me."  All-in-all, McMorrow felt like a really good compromise candidate-a true progressive who would push the Senate left while still being palatable enough to moderate audiences to win swing voters in a state that Donald Trump won in 2024.  But if there's a recurring theme in the Democratic Party in 2026, it's that no one wants compromise (except me-I endorsed McMorrow and donated to her campaign).

This now sets up a really interesting dynamic in the race though: a true one-on-one, no incumbent race between an establishment figure and a far left figure.  Other races like this have either A) not featured a race relatively light on scandal, which honestly this is (as far as I can tell, there's no actual scandal involving either Stevens or El-Sayed...people just don't like their politics or their approaches, but this isn't an Andrew Cuomo situation) or B) featuring an incumbent that people can say "throw them all out to!" in the way they did Diana DeGette & Adriano Espaillat (Stevens is a sitting member of Congress, but she's not a senator).

Aggregate public polling shows Stevens in a better (but not impenetrable) position, though El-Sayed has shown up in the lead in at least some public polling against Rep. Mike Rogers.  In terms of the primary, in the past few weeks there's been a lot of candidate or PAC-backed polling, but reading through the weeds it feels like El-Sayed has a lead, though a small enough one that McMorrow's supporters could make the difference if they break toward Stevens, and there's at least some polling to show they might.  This race has entered tossup territory, and it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

This is because there's a lot of vested interest from both sides for their candidates to win this race.  Stevens started that avalanche with an endorsement from Attorney General Dana Nessel immediately after Stevens exit (as well as powerful SuperPac Emily's List).  I would anticipate that at least some combination of Gretchen Whitmer, Gary Peters, Jocelyn Benson, Elissa Slotkin, & McMorrow herself will also get into the race, probably to endorse Stevens.  Whitmer's endorsement would be the most consequential-she's still popular (she'd have closed down this race had she won), and there's apparently a lot of bad will from El-Sayed's campaign against her in 2018.  If she backed Stevens, it'd be worth a few points in her direction.

But if you look to the presidential races of 2024, you also see some lines being drawn.  Chris van Hollen & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both have endorsed El-Sayed.  This is notable in particular for AOC, as she refused to get into the Maine Senate primary recently with another left-supported candidate (Graham Platner).  On the flip side, Ruben Gallego & Catherine Cortez Masto have both endorsed Stevens, and so has Nancy Pelosi, perhaps the most lauded establishment Democrat in the party.  It's pretty clear that if you're an establishment Democrat, you want Stevens, and if you are supporting the emerging Democratic Tea Party movement from the left, you want El-Sayed.

If you've read this blog very long, you'll guess where I stand, though I will own that (like McMorrow) I feel a bit adrift.  I am a relatively conventional Yellow Dog Democrat, but one who is probably considerably more progressive than most of the politicians I support, and I was excited we had looked like another Tammy Baldwin/Tina Smith-style liberal who can easily code as a moderate.  But I also care about who we are nominating-I don't like full-on litmus tests, especially in purple/red districts like this and I also don't approve of some of the public misogyny & coded xenophobia that is coming from El-Sayed's camp, and sometimes from him himself.  I also don't think someone who publicly supported "Defund the Police" is a good candidate in Michigan, and brings insane amount of risk with him.  I therefore am hoping for Stevens, even if (as of right now) I'd bet on El-Sayed ever so slightly...though there's a lot of game to play, and if Stevens pulled an Angela Alsobrooks (i.e. a candidate who closed well enough to win in what would've been seen as an upset a few weeks earlier) I wouldn't be surprised.