Progressive Momentum Takes Hit in Swing-State Primaries

Reports of the death of the establishment Democratic Party are greatly overstated.

Following the democratic socialists’ defeat Tuesday in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary and Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory in the Michigan Senate primary, the democratic socialists’ ascendancy appears to have stalled, at least for the moment.

Following Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s win over Andrew Cuomo in 2025 and his subsequent endorsement of three candidates who went on to win congressional primaries in heavily Democratic New York districts in June, it seemed as though democratic socialists were quickly becoming the new face of the party. Before their respective elections, progressive Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong both led in polls and betting markets by double digits.

However, those leads did not come to fruition. On Tuesday, Hong narrowly lost the gubernatorial primary to David Crowley, 39.8% to 39.4%. Adding salt to the wound, Crowley had dropped out of the race in early July, only to reenter on July 18 after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez withdrew and Gov. Tony Evers endorsed Crowley.

Before Tuesday, Hong enjoyed a 95% chance of winning the race on Polymarket and led by 20 points in primary polls. The large gap between the polls and the final result likely came in part from pollsters misjudging the makeup of Wisconsin’s primary electorate, which is more difficult to predict because primary turnout can vary significantly from one election to the next. Polling was also sparse in the final weeks of the race, leaving little time to capture Crowley’s support after he rejoined the race on July 18.

After Tuesday’s elections, Democrats’ chances of winning the Wisconsin gubernatorial election surged. Republican candidate Tom Tiffany’s odds fell from 60% on Monday to 23%, while Crowley now sits at 77%.

In El-Sayed’s case, even though he narrowly defeated Haley Stevens in the primary, his victory lowered the odds of a Democrat winning Michigan’s Senate race in the general election. In April, when El-Sayed had only a 30% chance of winning the primary, Democrats had an 84% chance of winning the Michigan Senate race. Now that El-Sayed has won the primary, he has only a 61% chance of winning the general election.

That puts him well behind other Democrats running in swing-state Senate races. Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and North Carolina’s Roy Cooper both have more than a 90% chance of winning their Senate races, helped by a national environment in which Democrats currently lead the Generic Congressional Ballot by 7.1 points in the RCP Average. Unlike El-Sayed, they also benefit from having previously won statewide elections, with Cooper serving as a former governor and Ossoff as an incumbent senator.

The underperformance of progressives in these two swing-state primaries has not yet had much effect on expectations for the future of the Democratic Party, as betting markets for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination have actually shown progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gaining ground since the start of August, before El-Sayed’s primary, making her the current frontrunner at 19% in betting markets. Gavin Newsom and Jon Ossoff, both more mainstream Democrats who are less closely aligned with the party’s progressive wing, were ahead of her at the start of the month but now trail at 17% and 15%, respectively.

* * * *