Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed are locked in a close race to be the Democratic nominee for U.S.Senate in Michigan.
Sylvia Jarrus for NPR hide caption DETROIT — After two years in the political wilderness, Democrats are feeling cautiously optimistic about turning the tide in the midterms.That has only intensified debate about the direction of the party.Nowhere is that debate more fraught now than Michigan, where Democrats are weighing two millennial candidates for an open Senate seat.One is Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist firing up progressives by embracing "Medicare for All" and ripping the influence of corporate money in politics.The other is Haley Stevens, a four-term congresswoman who flipped a suburban House district and pledges to fight President Trump while still practicing a more moderate brand of politics."You have candidates who are very different," says Joel Rutherford, a Democrat from Warren, Mich.
"This passion has just become so big.I try to tell people this is political, not personal."It does not help that the race has become a proxy for so many debates Democrats are wrestling with: Establishment versus insurgent.
Progressive versus more moderate.New media versus old.And the stakes are high for Democrats.
To win back the Senate, the party needs to net a total of four seats.But their path to the majority also depends on holding onto the seat in Michigan — infusing the choice voters make in Tuesday's primary with national implications.Under a big pavilion in Warren, just outside of Detroit, where designers dream up new Chevys and Buicks for General Motors and the sprawling Warren Truck Plant churns out Jeeps, El-Sayed worked the crowd at an annual picnic in July with a live band, barbecue and games for retired members of the United Auto Workers.Gwen Martin and her two friends were thrilled to see El-Sayed, who has the U...