Democrats want to take back Congress. Did Tuesday’s primaries reveal a path forward?

0:00Linah Mohammad:It's Consider This where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, unpacking a busy primary day. Voters in half a dozen states went to the polls on Tuesday. For Democrats who hoped to win back Congress in the fall, it was a night of mixed messages about which direction the party should embrace. In Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan, the state's progressive lieutenant governor, won her primary for U.S. Senate, despite being outspent by an establishment-backed candidate. For months now, I have been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money.

0:37Linah Mohammad:Well, guess what? The many just won. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin's gubernatorial primary, Francesca Hong, a Democratic socialist, lost her primary to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. This election is not about insiders versus outsiders. It's not about the establishment versus progressives. It's about building something bigger than any one campaign. It's about building a movement, y 'all. Consider this. Tuesday's primaries highlight the ongoing conflicts within the Democratic Party ahead of the November midterms. And it is still unclear what course the party should take going into the midterms.

1:18Linah Mohammad:After the break, a Democratic strategist weighs in.

1:25Linah Mohammad:From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. This message comes from Betterment. Their automated investing and saving tools give you the quiet confidence of someone who knows where to put their money. With tax-smart tools that help grow your after-tax returns year-round. Get started today at Betterment.com. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-M-E-N-T dot com. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed.

2:01Linah Mohammad:The working class. It's a term politicians throw around a lot these days, but do we know what it actually means? Midterm elections are coming up, and on It's Been a Minute, we discuss who these candidates are really talking about. Watch the full It's Been a Minute episode on YouTube or listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:28Linah Mohammad:It's Consider This from NPR. Here's a data point. In Wisconsin, the margin of victory in the Democratic primary for governor is about half a percentage point, around 4 ,000 votes and over 750 ,000 votes cast. That was one of several races last night, and this summer pitting more progressive candidates against more moderate ones. Let's try to pick out some trends with Amanda Littman. She's the president of Run for Something, and that's an organization supporting young Democrats running for office. Hi there.

2:58Kathryn Fink:Hi.

2:58Linah Mohammad:I mean, there's just so much ground to cover on the map from a big primary day yesterday. I want to start in Wisconsin, where the Democratic primary for governor saw the more moderate candidate, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, prevail quite narrowly over state legislator Francesca Hong, who's a Democratic socialist. And I'll just note that leading up to this race, for people who are watching the polls, Hong was overwhelmingly leading in most public polls. What is your big takeaway from that race?

3:24Kathryn Fink:You know, people tuned in right in the last couple of days. We know that there was a ton of money spent on behalf of David Crowley. He was running a ton of ads on the air. And Francesca, who had ran a really strong campaign, started polling basically at 0%, had thousands of volunteers that came from behind. you know, really did crumble a little bit in the final week, did some interviews. She, I think, came to regret, had a tough time running away from some of her past sillier tweets, and David was able to close it out in part with the establishment really circling the wagons around him. You know, the polls captured a snapshot in time, but as we have seen, they are not predictive.

4:04Linah Mohammad:And so much of the conversation around Hong was really about whether she had the ability to win a general election in the swing state, especially given some of her previous statements, including supporting defunding the police, for example. What did you make about the discourse around her specifically and her electability?

4:20Kathryn Fink:You know, I think it is a little bit unfounded. We don't know. We don't know. And in a year like 2026, where we have seen really wild results from some of these elections, maybe she could have won. I do think that it would have been hard. She would have had to bring in a really different team. She would have had to raise a ton of money. The Republicans would have had a lot of material there, but I don't think we should rule it out entirely. I do think a lot of the conversation around her was really problematic in many ways, dismissing her as sort of a faculty lounge. You know, I think one pundit called it like exotica.

4:54Kathryn Fink:She was a working class chef, an immigrant, didn't graduate from college. She is none of those things. She just really had some really strong beliefs, especially back in 2020 and the years since, and communicated them in a way that I think maybe now she would do it a little bit differently. Yeah.

5:08Linah Mohammad:Moving to neighboring Minnesota, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan won the nomination for the Senate seat over House Representative Angie Craig. And people have described this race also as the more progressive candidate prevailing to some extent. And immigration just played a huge role in this race. Tell us what you saw.

5:26Kathryn Fink:You know, Angie Craig, within the first couple of days of the Trump 2.0, voted for the Lake and Riley Act, that very aggressive, very anti-immigrant bill that the Republican Congress pushed through and Trump signed. A year and a half later, that seems to have been a huge mistake, especially what we saw in Minnesota with ICE showing up, killing Minnesotans in the streets. This is not what voters wanted. Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor, ran a really strong campaign that was able to go across the coalition. She handily won that election yesterday. And I think people are underrating that when we talk about, you know, the simple establishment versus insurgent conversation from Tuesday.

6:04Linah Mohammad:Amanda, if you take these results, as well as the narrow victory for progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan primary for Senate, there seemed to be just a lot of upper Midwest hunger for new voices, but also some hand-wringing about them, it seems. Can you consider these all together?

6:20Kathryn Fink:Yeah, I think even seeing, you know, Francesca lost, but as you noted, by only half a percentage point, she got close to 40 percent of the vote. Democratic primary voters are sick of the status quo. They want change. They want people who were not part of getting us into this mess to help get us out of it. I think we're seeing them explore different kinds of candidates, different kinds of campaigns, and seeing candidates who are really singing out of a bigger songbook or talking about taking big swings to solve our problems. It is not enough just to say, you know, I can stop Trump. I will fight Trump.

6:52Kathryn Fink:It's what else are you going to do?

6:54Linah Mohammad:I do want to ask you also about what we saw happen in Connecticut, where 14-term Democratic Congressman John Larson was successfully challenged by former Hartford Mayor Luke Brunen, who's 31 years is younger and run for something your organization supports young Democrats running for office. Is this a trend? It seems to be on its face to be not a great time to be an older Democrat seeking reelection.

7:17Kathryn Fink:You know, I called last year for every Democrat over the age of 75 to make this their last term. I stand by that. These older leaders, when they have to fight and defend their seeds and make an affirmative case why they are the right people right now, they're having a tough time doing it. Congressman Larson in particular had had some health struggles, had some communication issues. There's a very viral video where he goes to a local farmer's market and doesn't understand what making content is and doesn't know what Boba Tea is. It seemed pretty out of touch with where normal Connecticuters are.

7:49Kathryn Fink:You've got to be able to communicate and to understand where your voters are in this moment. And that's not to say that every 75 or 80-year-old can't do it, but he definitely couldn't.

7:58Linah Mohammad:Pushing back a little bit here, I wonder if I were to have someone like Congressman Larson or another veteran lawmaker on the line here, they might argue that experience matters, that they know how to legislate, that they know how the system works to be able to effectively represent their constituents. What do you make of that argument?

8:14Kathryn Fink:Have they proven it over the last two years, four years, eight years, 10 years, 14 years. We have seen in the last especially 18 months, most establishment members of Congress have folded. They have bent the knee to Trump. They have not indicated the kind of courage or conviction that their voters are really showing. They maybe know how the system works, but they're not using that knowledge to any good ends. So what's the point? Might as well try someone new.

8:36Linah Mohammad:We've been speaking with Amanda Littman. Her organization is run for something Amanda thinks.

8:40Kathryn Fink:Anytime. time.

8:41Linah Mohammad:This episode was produced by Lena Muhammad and Catherine Fink with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. It was edited by Patrick Jaron Watananan and Tenbead Ermias. Our director is Jonas Adams, and our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.

9:00Linah Mohammad:It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.

9:11Linah Mohammad:through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get NPR Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org. I'm Jesse Thorne. After a really good show, I feel like you want something. On Bullseye, rapper Isaiah Rashad on how he winds down after a night on stage now that he's in his 30s. So it's like it's hard not to celebrate, but I think I'm gonna just get a salad. Self-care is important. That's Bullseye. Find us in the NPR app at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts.