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Democrats have spent two years in the political wilderness, but they're now feeling cautiously optimistic about turning things around in the midterms, and that has only intensified debate about the direction of the party. Nowhere is that debate more fraught than Michigan, where Democrats are weighing two candidates for a crucial Senate seat. Ahead of next week's primary, NPR congressional reporter Sam Gringlas visited two Democratic clubs outside Detroit discussing the way forward.
SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: Warren, Michigan, is where designers dream up new Chevys and Buicks for General Motors, where the sprawling Warren Truck plant churns out Jeeps and where The Dovetail coffee shop serves up espresso and wraps.
ALYSA DIEBOLT: Everyone knows the owner, Mike. It defines community.
GRINGLAS: And this community is an important one, says Alysa Diebolt, a millennial artist who chairs the Macomb County Democrats.
DIEBOLT: Michigan is as purple as it gets, and I think us being in Macomb County, we are as purple as purple gets.
GRINGLAS: So it makes sense that the two millennial Democrats vying for an open Senate seat, Congresswoman Haley Stevens and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed, have both campaigned at The Dovetail.
(SOUNDBITE OF FROTHER WHIRRING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Americano with extra almond milk.
GRINGLAS: Stevens is a former Obama administration staffer who flipped a suburban House seat in 2018. She's endorsed by retiring Senator Gary Peters and Governor Gretchen Whitmer. El-Sayed ran the health departments in Detroit and Wayne County and is backed by Senator Bernie Sanders and representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
JOEL RUTHERFORD: You have candidates that are very different. And I think what happens is this passion has just become so big.
GRINGLAS: Air Force veteran Joel Rutherford worries the primary is tearing Democrats apart. It doesn't 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.
SUSAN HIER: How do we marry that? I don't know that we can marry it, and then we're going to be in big trouble.
GRINGLAS: Susan Hier, a grandma of five, is still undecided after hoping for a candidate who could bridge those divides. Rutherford is supporting El-Sayed and thinks about his choice this way.
RUTHERFORD: We're not going to get everything we want, but we have to at least try. And what frustrates me is I see too many electeds (ph) that are afraid to try because they're more worried about getting reelected.
HIER: I don't know that those in charge of our country have done anything to make my life better.
GRINGLAS: Diebolt says for many members, this is the prevailing sentiment right now.
DIEBOLT: People are pissed. This is not working for the majority of people. Gas is expensive. Groceries are expensive. Healthcare's insane.
GRINGLAS: And she says it's not always leftist politics motivating voters hungry for something new. In affluent neighboring Oakland County, Debbie Rosenman is also hearing frustration - frustration that elected Democrats' approach to fighting President Trump is not working.
DEBBIE ROSENMAN: They're saying, oh, my God, how in the hell did we end up like this? We've got to fix this.
GRINGLAS: Like Diebolt, Rosenman sees a dynamic more complicated than where a Democrat falls on the ideological spectrum. She says Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, a moderate Democrat, frames it as fight versus flight.
ROSENMAN: It's not moderate versus progressive. She believes it's people who are going to buck the system and fight or people who are going to stay and do the same old, same old.
GRINGLAS: Rosenman chairs the Birmingham-Bloomfield Democrats. We met during their summer social at a tap room with a chalkboard menu filled with Michigan beers, like...
ROSENMAN: Petoskey Horny Monk, Keweenaw Blood Orange - this is from the Upper Peninsula, Coconut Brown.
GRINGLAS: The club is pretty split in the primary, and Rosenman says some are still torn. I asked, what else is making this so tense?
ROSENMAN: We have not said the I word, but Israel is a very big factor. It's just very hard. And I don't like that it has become the central issue because, by golly, we're on fire in this country.
GRINGLAS: The debate has become so fierce, in part, because of sizable Jewish and Arab communities here. The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC is also spending millions to boost Stevens and oppose El-Sayed, who supports ending military aid to Israel and has made calling out corporate money and politics a key message. Allen Wolf says Democrats are blessed with two strong candidates, but he believes Stevens is the one who can beat Republican Mike Rogers this fall.
ALLEN WOLF: You cannot win in Michigan without being able to sway independents. Haley is a fairly middle-of-the-road candidate who can actually do that.
GRINGLAS: Wolf's friend Craig Spangler says El-Sayed's push for Medicare for all might be nice but taking back the Senate is paramount.
CRAIG SPANGLER: For me, it is all about - as Allen and I've talked about before - preserving democracy. The Supreme Court has given the president almost unlimited power. It requires a Democratic majority to hold the president in check.
GRINGLAS: Wolf says he's not convinced the nation can draw inferences from what happens in Michigan. But many will, especially now that Michigan is hosting an early presidential primary in 2028. Back at The Dovetail, Joel Rutherford says he knows one thing for sure.
RUTHERFORD: If the Democrats, hopefully, take the Senate and take the House, they better do something, OK? People better see some real change. If they don't, '28 is almost not going to matter then who the candidates are.
GRINGLAS: And, Rutherford says, Democrats cannot win if they don't come together.
Sam Gringlas, NPR News, Metro Detroit. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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