The Borrowed Ticket

Haley Stevens called Abdul El-Sayed on Wednesday to concede the Michigan Senate primary, by which point he had beaten her by fewer than 15,000 votes out of more than 1.5 million cast, and beaten more than $50 million in outside money spent to stop him.

It was a political earthquake, and the foundations it shook were the Democratic Party's own.

In a statement, Stevens congratulated El-Sayed, called him a doctor and a dedicated Michigander, and said she was proud to offer her support as he takes on Mike Rogers in November. The campaign had brought out the full span of views within the party, she said, "and that is why we have primaries."

On Meet the Press two days before the primary, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders argued that billionaire-funded super PACs are buying American elections, and that this is why progressives and democratic socialists are winning across the country. He did not mention the other half of the arrangement. The left wing of the Democratic Party increasingly runs under other banners, democratic socialist, Working Families, Sunrise, while standing on the Democratic ballot line to get elected.

To be sure, this wing of the party has always existed. However, since New York City Mayor Mamdani and other protégés of Bernie won their elections last November, the faction is powering on all cylinders. The relationship is not a matter of inference. When Mamdani was sworn in on New Year's Day, the oath was administered by Bernie Sanders.

Since entering Gracie Mansion, Mamdani has sometimes leveraged his power and his brokering skills even better than Bernie. In June, three New York congressional seats went to the party's socialist wing. Darializa Avila Chevalier unseated five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat, Brad Lander beat incumbent Dan Goldman, and Claire Valdez took the Brooklyn-Queens seat that Nydia Velázquez is vacating. All three are safe Democratic districts, so all three are effectively headed to Washington already, owing their success to Mamdani and Bernie rather than to the national Democratic Party.

While the New York City mayor was not actively involved in the Michigan elections, Bernie's full support made the race extremely competitive. The money, though, went the other way from what the result suggests. El-Sayed outraised Stevens in direct contributions, roughly $14.5 million to $11.9 million, built on small donors. What he faced was outside money. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group known as AIPAC, and allied committees spent close to $30 million to stop him, the largest sum the group has ever put into a single race, and federal records show more than $54 million from committees supporting Stevens against about $3.5 million supporting him. AIPAC says it represents Americans who believe a strong U.S.-Israel relationship serves both countries, and rejects the claim that it acts on behalf of a foreign government. "You're not supposed to be able to beat $70 million of outside spending," El-Sayed said the next day.

Joe Manchin, the former West Virginia senator who left the Democratic Party in 2024, made much the same point on Face the Nation on Sunday. Asked about Sanders, he said he respected him and that Bernie has always been who he is, but that he has had to use the Democratic Party to get on the ticket.

America is a two-party system. A candidate who enters a race from within the two parties inherits a structural framework so strong that he can concentrate on raising money and finding a message that appeals to voters. An independent inherits nothing. As Manchin put it on the same program, an independent has to jump through every hoop and gather thousands of signatures, while a Democrat or a Republican pays a fee and is on the ballot. The fact is, one has to be enormously wealthy to run in America as an independent.

The last independent to make real waves nationally was the Texas businessman Ross Perot, who spent millions of dollars to get on the ballot in all 50 states. That was 1992. George Bush Sr. had touched 90 percent approval after the first Gulf War in early 1991, but by the time voters went to the polls he had fallen into the thirties, and the room that opened up was Perot's. He won nearly 19 percent of the popular vote, the best showing by a third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt took 27 percent in 1912. Yet he did not carry a single state, and so took no electoral votes at all.

Bernie, one of the smartest political operators alive, understands this very well. So he enters the Democratic primary, wins it, then declines the nomination and runs in November as an independent. Vermont will not let him be both. The party's endorsement he keeps. And the primary victory serves one further purpose: it keeps any other Democrat off the ballot against him.

It is a unique arrangement that the Democrats have tolerated for thirty-five years, and one that no commercial establishment would. Sanders entered the House in 1991 and has held elected office as an independent since 1981. Imagine getting hired by a company, only to set up your own small business outside its walls, peddling a version of its products and services as an independent contractor, often by criticizing the company.

The Michigan race is another Bernie project, and in a deeply purple state where presidential elections have swung back and forth, Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, Trump again in 2024, it has worked so far. November is the part that has not been tested.

But for the Democratic Party, this is an existential threat. In Michigan, the left made dramatic inroads on Tuesday night. In the 7th Congressional District, William Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and a member of both the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, took 44 percent against a former ambassador to Ukraine and a former Navy SEAL, both establishment-backed. The seat is a genuine toss-up, currently held by Republican Tom Barrett. In the 13th District, Donavan McKinney, a democratic socialist, unseated sitting Representative Shri Thanedar. In New York, winning the primary was the whole job. In Michigan, Lawrence still has to beat a sitting Republican in November.

Ask a person on the street what the Democratic Party stands for, and many will say that they are anti-Trump. The Michigan results show that the electorate needs a lot more. The three congressional candidates who won in New York barely mentioned Trump during their campaigns and instead focused on pocketbook issues that affect voters. The socialists understand that Trump is an issue that can be set aside while focusing on broader topics such as Israel, Medicare for All, and abolishing ICE.

In this sense, the democratic socialists are ahead of the traditional Democratic Party and the liberal media, both of whom are obsessed with Trump.

El-Sayed now faces Mike Rogers, the Republican who lost Michigan's 2024 Senate race to Elissa Slotkin by about 19,000 votes and who ran unopposed this time. The big question in November is whether the socialists, standing on the Democratic ballot line, can win a general election. That would be the true test of an arrangement that has never yet had to win without it.