We The People 2026 Special primary coverage

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They go to great lengths to do what's best for their policyholders. start relieving your insure noia today at njm.com hey everybody it's rachel maddow here forgive me popping in dear feed like this but i wanted to tell you that more than a dozen of us from ms now are going to be in texas on saturday september 26th i'm going to be there lawrence o'donnell will be there so will jen saki and stephanie rule and ali velchi and chris hayes and jacob soberoff and simone sanders townsend and and and a whole bunch of us are all going to be there in Texas. Tickets start at just over 30 bucks each. It's in Arlington, just outside Dallas. There's a ton to do there. If you come, you'll get to meet all of us. You'll also get to meet everybody else there, all these other great people from our great MSNOW community. We'd love to see you. And if you buy a ticket to the Texas event, you will get access to our new MSNOW membership free for a year. We're really excited about it. It launches later this summer. You'll be able to talk with me, talk with some of the other hosts. But tickets for Texas are on sale now. You can learn more at ms.now slash together. Hope to see you in Texas. We're coming into the last poll closing of the night coming up on 11 p.m. Eastern. In Washington state, residents there vote by mail. If you choose, so everybody gets sent a ballot so that you can return by mail. If you choose, instead of mailing in your ballot, you can take your ballot to a drop box or to a voting center. And if you do that, you have until 8 p.m. local time to do that. 8 p.m. local time is five seconds ago. So in Washington, there's a bunch of interesting races to watch. In terms of Democratic Party machinations, we've been watching the Democratic member of Congress, Marie Glussenkamp-Perez. She's sort of an outspoken centrist, kind of an idiosyncratic, interesting Democratic member of Congress. She's facing primary challengers in her southwestern Washington state district. It's an R plus two district. Trump narrowly won that district in 2024. She's narrow narrowly won that race twice. So we'll be watching that. Washington is also a state where we've got the top two candidates advancing to the general election, regardless of which party they are in. So we'll be having a look at those Washington results when we are first starting to get them. We are still very closely, though, watching the Senate race in Michigan as the Democratic primary in the Michigan Senate race continues to be a real nail biter. The polling in this race shifted over time. It sort of made people think that there was going to be a really big difference in the early vote as compared to the same day vote. But I think a lot of the prognostication on this one is falling by the wayside as we now just have to watch the actual vote come in. And what you see on the right side of your screen here is an interesting factor. We've got 42 percent of the vote here overall. You see how tight it is between Abdul Al-Sayed and Haley Stevens. But on the right side of your screen there, that is Mallory McMorrow, who was in this race until July 5th when she dropped out. But she is still on the ballot and pulling three point seven percent of the vote is no way to get yourself elected senator. But it is an interesting factor that may become really operative in terms of us understanding the dynamics of this race as they come in. Right now, the difference, she's got 22,861 votes. Mallory Morrow, again, she's not still in the race. Look at the difference between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens. It's 20,000 votes. So in a close race, every single vote can matter. And and quirky dynamics in two slash three way races can be potentially determinative. Yeah. And your point on the polling. I mean, polling primaries is always difficult because you're modeling electorate and those modeling assumptions make a huge difference. The last five or six polls that we saw, like high quality polls in this race, had Abdul Sayed up by double digits plus. Yeah, I think at this point in the evening, we can say pretty definitively that would not be the margin. And I think that has actually a pretty important implication, because whoever wins this is going to win a pretty close race. Yeah. Between these two candidates, it's not going to be a romp. And that's going to have implications for how whichever whoever it is wins kind of figures out how to stitch that coalition back together to take on Mike Rogers in the fall. And I do think it's different coming out of a narrow win than a big win in terms of what's going through your head about how much do I need to talk to the folks tonight at the podium, for instance, or tomorrow, if it's tomorrow, that didn't vote for me. And I think that's actually now very much in the air for either of these candidates. I'm struck by you talking about the need for whoever wins this on the Democratic side to stitch that coalition together. And as we're speaking to folks at home, I'm speaking to some of those in the room on both sides, including inside the White House right now. And a Trump ally, I think you're getting our preview of what it's going to look like in the fall. Again, it doesn't matter what happens tonight. It matters what happens in November. Ultimately, at the end of the day, this Trump ally, someone who is close to the president in his ear on nights like this. So there's a preview of what Twitter may look like tomorrow, mind you, saying that they are focused on exploiting. They will be focused on exploiting those differences, the divisions that we're witnessing as we speak and have been talking about right now among Democrats, obviously. So on the one hand, you have the Democrats who need only got a few months to try to, as you say, stitch it back together. At the same time, the Republicans, Trump land, will be looking to do everything they can to sort of amplify. Yeah, unlike it's not unlike the Republicans don't have something to exploit on their side to Republicans have delivered absolutely squat to the people of Michigan. over the last two years, except high gas prices, a lack of health access to health care, and a whole bunch of other decisions that Mike Rogers is going to have to carry into this general election. And in electoral terms, they've delivered to the people of Michigan the same Senate candidate who lost the last Senate race in Michigan against Alyssa Slotkin. Exactly. Possibly the same gubernatorial candidate who's lost twice statewide as well. And so while that is their space, they're going to do exactly what Peter said. And so to shift the argument to say, look at all the commies on the left and look at all the scary things you need to focus on on the left. You're right. That's why I want to go back to something that Ali Vitale said that is very, very important, where she posited this framing of, you know, this either or, you know, do I turn out my base voters? Simone and I can talk about turning out that base vote. Or do I turn out the folks who don't vote? Let me tell you what I did. I turned out both because politics is not a zero sum game if you want to win. And the Democrats have to ask themselves, do you want I don't give a damn who the nominee is at this point in the game. You got to zero in on the bottom line. Do you want to win this race? Because all the indicators, the leading indicators are there that you can. Also, I want to say Mike Rogers at in a kind of, you know, resume way, like make sense as a sort of normie Republican in that state. House Intelligence Committee. House Intelligence Committee. And a kind of again, like both, you know, he's MAGA because everyone's MAGA now, but he wasn't really MAGA. So he has some sort of like old Romney style pedigree. You know, he had an interview with with Semaphore the other day. And they asked him, like, what is position on the tariffs? He couldn't come up with it about the Iran where he said, I don't care. He goes, well, I care, but it's not really what I'm hearing about. It's like, man, you're going to like, again, this goes in both directions. You're going to have to answer for the tariffs. You're going to have to answer for the, you know, for Todd Blanche. You're going to have to answer for the war in Iran. You're going to have to answer for gas prices. You're going to have to answer for grocery prices. Like you, you better get the thing together. Now you can rant about Scott free right now. Yes, exactly. All of the money that's been spent thus far in the primary has been spent between the Democratic candidates. So Mike Rogers just walking around here like Mr. Rogers in the neighborhood. I don't care. And you should care. You should care. But you should care. To the point that Peter was making about the coming together, it is not easy to come together this close to the general election. It'll be less than 90 days. It's a late primary in Texas. They still trying to come together in the Democratic primary. Tallarico is still struggling to you. Ask him the question about black voter support. He did a town hall the other day with black voters trying to talk to them about their issues. He's working hardest on in his campaign. And he will need to. So if El-Sayed is the nominee, even if Haley Stevens is the nominee, I've talked to people in Michigan that have said, look, they both have church support and they both have work to do in the black community. This looks like this primary is coming down to what voters in Wayne County, specifically voters in Detroit, specifically black voters, because Western Wayne County is white. So what are voters in Detroit going to do? What are they talking about? That's what I'm looking for. By the way, not for nothing, the biggest billboard we saw as we drove to Saginaw, 100 miles northwest of Detroit yesterday and back, was the giant gas price signs everywhere, $4.36, I think it is today, the highest it has been since May, up 13% in the last week. You can talk about all the campaign signs that you want and all these things that are outside of homes, but that's what people see every day right now, whatever you say about a more normal Republican candidate. that's something that Republicans are going to have to answer for and certainly going to have to answer for. And I will just say a little peek behind the curtain for our viewers here in talking to our election unit today. In terms of how MSNOW as a network views this Senate contest and the effort by Democrats and Republicans to try to retain control for the Republicans or seize control of the Senate for the Democrats. this race, this Senate race for November in Michigan is viewed by MSNOW, by our nonpartisan experts, as a toss-up race. If Haley Stevens wins tonight, or if Abdul El-Sayed wins tonight, it will still tomorrow be a toss-up Senate race in the fall, according to our, again, nonpartisan expert prognosticators. And now that may change when we see whoever the nominee is, what happens with the polling. We see what kind of how the campaign shape up from Mr. Rogers, as you put it, and and from the eventual Democratic nominee. But there was there's nothing intrinsic about this choice that connects definitely to the question of electability absent the way the campaign unfolds from here on out. And so I think voters can try to game that out. And we know they have to try to stitch these two things together. But there's nothing magic about either one of these candidates that makes this an easier fight. No, no. And I think that, look, I'm so glad we made the point about the polls because me and Michael Steele, we never, I was like, what do you mean 15, 20? What are y'all drinking and eating and smoking over there in the poll situation? This was always going to be closer. And so I do think that there's been this advent as of as of late recently in the last two cycles of these of less news organizations aren't doing as much polling anymore. Polling costs money. It is expensive. And so you've got some of these independent entities that start doing polling. And if you if they're not putting out their top lines, if they're not looking at, you know, we're not clear about who is behind who's pushing the polling. it can look like what happened in that Texas race where all these polls say Jasmine Crockett was definitely going to they pushed her into the race and come to find out after the fact the good reporting that those were Republican backed polling entities that put the polls out there to encourage her to get into the race to get the candidate that they wanted and so I think again polls do not vote people vote so it's always important to talk to people on the ground which is why I thought it was so amazing what you were doing out there I watched all this stuff I'm like Come on, focus group. What's amazing to me is I used to be peppering you with questions back in the day. And that was side by side sitting on this big fancy set here in New York. It's a good gig. Wonder Twin Powers, activate. Ali Velshi is looking at Michigan right now. Overall, we've got how much in in the state? Forty five percent in. Abdul side is just straddling the 50 percent line. He was a little above it a few moments ago. Now he's back below it. He's still the leads about the same, though. It's still about twenty three and a half thousand votes here. But we are seeing these numbers coming in. They're coming in all over the state. You can see there are very few counties where where we don't have vote in and in the popular the areas of a lot of population, Flint, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Traverse City, Ann Arbor, Detroit. We've got we've got lots of vote in in Wayne County. Twenty six percent of the vote is in Haley Stevens still in the lead. Remember, we went from sort of six percent to twenty five percent and Haley Stevens took the lead. She was running almost two thirds to one third Her her margin is dropping in in and around Detroit She now is a 15000 point lead 15000 vote lead in Wayne County Now Wayne County is Detroit and other things in Detroit This part of it over here, there's a little section here. That's Hamtramck. And next to it is Highland Park. In these two places, we do not have vote yet. This is important because Hamtramck, like Dearborn, Dearborn is the old Ford plant, which attracted a lot of a lot of immigrant workers where Abdul Syed has done well. Hamtramck like that has also got a large South Asian community. We have not seen voting come in from Hamtramck yet or from Highland Park. These are the only two areas within the city of Detroit where we haven't seen any vote at all yet. In both cases, they are likely to favor Abdul El Syed. But he is at the moment trailing in Wayne County by 15,000 votes. He is winning in three of the counties around Wayne, losing in the one below it in above it in Macomb. He is winning. But that's, again, only 34 percent of the vote in below Detroit is Monroe County. Twenty percent of the vote in the five percent spread between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed. So this is a real nail biter. We still have eight hundred thousand Democratic votes to count in Detroit. And the spread across the state is under 25,000 votes. So it's not clear to anybody how this is going to turn out. I think you make an interesting point, though. This is a swing state, Rachel. And regardless of what happens, it's still going to be a swing state tomorrow or Thursday or Friday. On Friday, there is a unity rally. Mallory McMorrow has said she will be there to whoever wins. Haley Stevens has said she will support the winner, hoping that it's her with her full force. And last night I talked to Abdul El-Sayed and asked him whether he will be attending that rally and supporting Haley Stevens if she wins. And he said yes. So they understand that it's August, not February like Texas. It's August now and they've got work to do. Ali, while we are staying in Michigan, I want to take a look at Washington in a second. But before we leave Michigan, can we look at seven at the seventh congressional district again? This is incumbent Republican Tom Barrett. Yes. Trump won the seat there, won this congressional. is very, very narrowly in the last election. And we've got this interesting three-way democratic race here. What have we got so far? Yeah, so this is a really interesting case. You had Bridget Brink, who, as you mentioned, was the former charge d'affaires, the ambassador, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. We hadn't had one for a while, by the way. She was then put into place under President Biden. Donald Trump comes in. She doesn't agree with Trump's policies, so she resigned, and she decides to run in a very moderate lane and has a resume that makes a whole lot of sense to get elected to Congress. Something happened and Matt Mazden gets into the race. He's supported by the state senator, the junior senator from Michigan, Alyssa Slotkin. There seems to be some overlap between Mazden's staff and Alyssa Slotkin. They've split what appears to be the moderate vote. William Lawrence, who's one of the founders of the Sunrise Organization and coming in from the left, is now at 42 percent. This has been moving around all night. Bridget Brink's been doing generally a little bit better, but we're basically settling into a place with 54 percent in. We're not in a position to call this, but William Lawrence is is leading and has been leading all night. And the more moderate vote in a district that you said Donald Trump carried narrowly has been split between two other candidates. It's an interesting one to watch. Super interesting. We'll keep eyes on that. Again, 54 percent of the vote in there. Let's jump all the way across the country to Washington state. Tell us what we are looking for there. I know that there's a few congressional districts. Yeah, I'm trying to get to the one that I want to show you. Let me see. Where is it? Oh, I'm just going to work my way around the map until I find it. Let's go. There we go. Three. That's what I'm looking for. All right. This is 58% in. This is the third district in Washington. This is a brand-new board, by the way. I'm still getting used to it tonight, but it's new. It's very responsive. It's very responsive. It's great. Arguably too responsive. No, it's fantastic. It's actually really nice. I'm just getting used to it. We have an incumbent, Marie Glusenkamp-Perez. This is a really interesting story. Chris was talking about a little earlier. Fifty eight percent of the vote in. Now, the way it works in Washington is that the top two will go on to the election. She's got a lead of six hundred and eighty votes. This has been flipping back and forth between her and Josh Braun for a large part of the night. Again, no call has been made by the Associated Press as to which two are going to move ahead. But you can sort of see from the math here with 58 percent. It's likely going to be these two facing off against each other. She got elected as a more moderate voice within the Democratic Party. She's not been facing a challenge, a meaningful challenge from the left. But this is going to go to and this will be an interesting election to watch on election night. Yeah, this is I mean, so Gluson Kemp Perez, she's the co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition. She's a centrist. I would describe her more as a centrist than a moderate. I think that's right. In terms of her policy positions and her interests and everything. But she's served two terms in both of those races that she won. For both of those terms, she beat Joe Kent. Yes. She beat the former Green Beret, who ended up becoming a senior counterterrorism official for Trump. And he was seen. Who then resigned, yeah. And who then resigned in protest over the Iran war. And he's seen as not at all a moderate, was seen even as on the bleeding edge of MAGA. But he got very close to her in the general election twice. Now, this John Braun, who's proling very well against Glusenkamp Perez in this this primary. But again, it's Washington state. So no matter what party you're in, the top two candidates advance to the general. He's not a Joe Kent. He is seen as a more moderate Republican. He's the Republican state Senate leader in Washington state. So it'll be really interesting to see how Glusenkamp Perez runs against him. She also I just think she's an interesting member of Congress because, again, everyone's got to figure out how to represent their district and they got to figure out how do I square me and what my personality is in my district. And she's in one of the sort of most imperiled Democratic seats in terms of a Democrat representing a Trump district. Yeah. Anywhere in the country. She has taken up the cause of onerous nutritional inspections and food safety regulations in daycares, which made it difficult for them to serve fresh fruit. Headlights being too bright on cars, which I agree with. She and her husband actually have an auto mechanic shop. And also really, really on the scourge of sea lions overrunning her district. There are too many of them. Yeah. And and just because we're on topic, the Associated Press has just advanced her to the general election. Marie Gluson, Gluson Camp Perez will advance and be the Democratic candidate in November. You'll remember, Chris, when we used to interview her before she ran and the very side she'd run, she'd often do it from the auto shop. Yes. And actually, we've got two calls. There we go. So Josh Braun and Marie Gluson Camp Perez are going to be advancing to the election. And of course, the big the big loser in this election is is the sea lions. Yeah. Can I just say this primary challenge that she had, I think it just puts an interesting question on the table that Democrats are going to have to continue to ask, not just throughout the rest of this year, but next year is in advance of more elections that are becoming that we'll be watching for the presidential on down. When is a primary challenge from the left constructive? And when does it risk weakening a candidate? And, you know, there are people, the activists, they don't like the Congresswoman. Let's just be very clear. They don't. That's why they were primary. They don't think she's a good Democrat or progressive enough. But that is particularly why she holds the seat that Republicans feel like they should hold in that state. And so I don't know if this was good politics, but it definitely made an injury. Well, we should say that the structure of the primary helped her. Right. Because it was a top two. She didn't have that sort of contained primary electorate. But what we saw in Maine in Jared Golden's district now, Jared Golden, who, like Mary Gluson-Kamperez, represents in the top tier of Democrats representing Trump districts. He's retired. Part of the reason he's retired is because he said he's sick of politics. But he was also facing a progressive primary challenge, which was going to be expensive and a pain. And he thought would weaken him. And he thought would weaken him. And he and he just got out of town. There is a progressive who won that and is now locked in a battle with Paula Page, one of a great Rachel Maddow recurring character, I have to say. Yes. Hours and hours. Don't start me on call. Oh, I know. I know. Keep the Rachel Maddow extended universe. You've got another race. He's back. You got it. I'm speaking right now. But again, I think and one of the things I think I will say to this is, look, we're not seeing I mean, you know, there wasn't some big left challenge to Sherry Brown in Ohio. No. Right? And the primary in Iowa was not particularly ideological that Josh Turek emerged from. There was not some huge organized effort to knock out Mary Peltola in Alaska. So, like, there has been a little bit of, I think there's some strategic sense that suffuses people. And Chuck Schumer, I mean, sometimes his picker has been good, and sometimes the picker has been off. That's also true. If you get to an early, who clears the field? We'll talk about strategy later. Chris Jansing is standing by at Abdul Al-Sayed headquarters in Detroit tonight. We're going to take a quick break. We'll check in with her on the other side of this very quick break. Stick with us here on MSNOW as our primary night coverage continues with so much juicy stuff still to come. See you in a minute. This episode is brought to you by SoFi, the all-in-one finance app to bank, borrow, and invest. Say goodbye to account fees and give your bank balance a glow up with a SoFi high yield savings account. Get over eight times the national average savings rate and an epic welcome bonus when you sign up with eligible direct deposit. Sign up at SoFi dot com slash SXM. SoFi checking and savings offer through SoFi Bank in a member FDIC. Terms apply. So, you know, the uneasy, anxious feeling you get when you think about dealing with your insurance company. Well, there's actually a term for that. It's called insuranoia. And if that sounds like something you're way too familiar with, you should really think about getting NJM Insurance. They go to great lengths to do what's best for their policyholders, like providing dedicated reps whose priority is you. And that means you'll find more peace of mind with them. Relieve your insuranoia with NJM Insurance by visiting njm.com for a quote today. At DSW, we ask the important questions like, what shoes are you going to wear? Whether you're prepping for wedding season, festival season, or just planning the ultimate vacay, the right shoes can make or break an RSVP. So own the moment. You've got big plans, and we've got just the shoes. At the perfect price, of course. Get ready to get ready with Designer Shoe Warehouse. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today, and let us surprise you. All right, we're getting results from Michigan right now. We've got a couple of really interesting things going on in some congressional races. First of all, look at this in the 7th District. This is a swing district that's held by an incumbent Republican congressman named Tom Barrett. Tom Barrett is facing a Democratic challenge that is worth paying attention to in November because this is a very, very swing district. Trump did win this district, but only barely. Again, this is Michigan's 7th congressional district. Do we have the board there? I think we do. Michigan 7th. Thank you. This is the Democratic primary. Nope, this is the Michigan Senate Democratic primary. Hopefully we'll get the 7th district. All right, well, let's talk about this. 50% of the vote in the Democratic Senate primary. You can see how close that is. All right. Back to this one. All right. OK. Seventh congressional district. Look, there has been a call in this case. We were just talking about this with Ali Velshi at the board. This was a three way Democratic primary between Bridget Brink, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Matt Mastem, who is a retired Navy SEAL who worked in the Obama White House, who had the endorsement of Alyssa Slatkin, who used to hold this seat. And then this young man, William Lawrence, who's a co-founder of the very interesting, very radical Sunrise Movement, activist movement, climate change activists. He had an endorsement from Abdul Al-Sayed and also from Bernie Sanders. And he has prevailed. You see Brink and Mazda M.C. splitting what I think reductively might be described as the moderate vote here. And William Lawrence will be the Democratic nominee in the 7th Congressional District in Michigan. Do we have the board for the 8th Congressional District in Michigan? Now, the 8th Congressional District in Michigan, the Democrat here is an incumbent. In the 8th Congressional District, the incumbent is Kristen McDonald-Rivett, and she is running for re-election. This is also a swing district. Again, in the 8th Congressional District in Michigan, Kristen McDonald-Rivett holds that seat right now. I think she won with about 51% of the vote the last time around, and this is definitely seen as a potential Republican pickup. But something interesting has happened in the Republican primary in this eighth congressional district in Michigan, which is that Trump made an endorsement in this Republican primary in Michigan 8 He endorsed a man named Amir Hassan And when Trump made that endorsement another major candidate in the race on the Republican side Thomas Smith got out of the race But as of right now, I don't know if we can show this board or not, if this is just a mirage. In the Congressional District, the 8th Congressional District in Michigan, Tom Smith, this retired engineer from GM, who got out of the race. He suspended his race on July 16th. Look, he's got 51 percent of the vote. He doesn't have a picture, bro. He missed school photo day. So Trump endorsed Amir Hassan in this race. This is a third of the vote in. This is a gettable district for Republicans. At least they'd like to think so. Again, Kristen McDonald Rivett is the Democratic incumbent here. But despite Trump's endorsement and despite Tom Smith getting out of the race, Tom Smith appears to be doing very well for himself in this congressional district. This appears to be a Republican primary gone haywire. Michael Smith, excuse me, Michael Steele earlier was describing the Democratic Party benefiting in Michigan from the Republican Party apparently having its pants on backwards. Oh, yes. Not being able to get anything straight in its any of its marquee primaries, let alone these lesser watched lower on the ballot races. But this is a mess. Hands on backwards and they're tight. They're tight because they they are hurting some people right now. And this is a very good example of a party that has imploded over the last year or so. There is no organizational structure. There's no discipline. There's no discipline. It's critical. Why did the Michigan Republican Party implode? Because it was all it was all about the money and the power grab. Who's up? Who's down? Who has access to the White House? Who's in favor with Trump? You know, the Trumpers in the Michigan Party wanted to run the party. And, you know, the sort of the mainstays, the folks who've done the battles and been in the wars. You know, they're like, no, we're not we're not going to win because this is Michigan. Didn't they have like a two popes situation? Yes, they did. Yes, two chairmen. They had people claiming to be chairman. Yes, exactly. And so they went through this whole thing. They never cleaned out all the pipes from that, because, as you know, in politics, things get stopped up and messed up. And it doesn't it doesn't work its way through the system. And people on the ground still have hard feelings about what happened. And so people aren't working. People aren't helping. They're not organizing. and so you have a candidate who they don't even have a picture for who's not in the race at 50.9% over the Trump endorsed candidate who sent in his picture well you know what happens in that situation now and correct me if I'm wrong but if the no picture gentleman wins if it holds then because he has withdrawn but his name is still on the ballot I think under Michigan law it becomes a vacancy in nomination And so the party will then select the nominee. And that's when the fun will ensue again. Yes. Can I say something about this race, this Will Lawrence race? So, you know, Will Lawrence is clearly the most progressive candidate, right, in this race. Now, he was the subject of one of my favorite super PAC attack ads of the entire cycle, which I think sort of, to me, illustrates what I find sort of insidious about the way super PACs have come to operate in these primaries. It was the crush MAGA PAC, which was sort of associated with the kind of Democratic Party leadership that didn't want the most progressive candidate winning in a primary for a swing seat, which, again, that's not a crazy idea strategically. But what they did was they tried to attack him as like a fake progressive. And they ran an ad that says he invested thousands with Wall Street, big oil and data centers. Now he has a ten thousand dollar retirement account. Total, a total. He has ten thousand dollar total retirement. He's also like 14 years old. He's very young. But here's here's why I want to put a fine point on this. The point wasn't to say to voters, hey, guys, this guy is too left for this district. It's a bad idea to nominate him. No, instead, it was to try to trick voters into being like, no, he's secretly a sellout. You really want the progressive person. It's not that guy who invests in big oil. And I think there's something just really insidious about trying to trick voters with super PAC money, Which is not to say to come in and be like, hey, here's my argument on the issue of the day. Yeah, I think we saw this in the New York race where the guy who wanted to regulate AI was getting attacked by the AI super PAC for being in bed with AI. It's like, no, you wait a second. That's not what you actually think. This is the everyone should anonymous money. You should make your arguments to people straightforwardly. You should say, guys, he's too left for the district. Or in the case of the Abdul Sayed, we think his policies on Israel are bad. He is not supportive enough of Israel instead of everyone going around and sort of using this super PAC money to make these sort of arguments that they don't actually even believe in to try to trick voters. And what you end up with in this case is that Will Lawrence has won the district. Now, I would argue super PACs also need some better strategists because that argument is not is clearly not informed by the people in the district. Because if you were informed by the people in the district, you would know that that is not the most effective messaging for the district. Because, I mean, Will Lawrence, I mean, he ran a very interesting campaign. So did the other candidates. This is a district, though, that you need to win Livingston County. You got to win Eaton. You got to get places in Clinton County, Lansing and East Lansing. The county has become more geographically diverse. And he has also said some things about black voters are like, I don't know if Will Lawrence can cobble together the coalition necessary to to beat the incumbent. But we're going to find out shortly. I say that as somebody in terms of like needing better consultant for the super PAC. I also used to be a consultant for a super PAC. So, you know, I would say to the, you know, Abdul Asai and Bernie Sanders endorsed him. They have a theory of the case about why that strand of politics can work in swing districts and in swing states. They do have a theory. And now it's like, OK, test time to put the theory into practice because this is a gettable seat. So let's look from theory to practice. Here we go. If you think that this can work, now's the time to show it. Let's check back in with Chris Jansing, live from Abdullah Syed's election headquarters in Michigan, where things still sound celebratory, although I'm guessing since we last spoke to you, Chris, things have gotten a little more sense. Let me say this. I think a good playlist is key to keeping people engaged. So that's been helpful here. I don't know who to credit with the playlist. But I just got a text again from inside the room where they're watching the results. And I think this is the reaction to the report on the early voting. 40,000 ballots that came in in Detroit that heavily favored Haley Stevens. And what they wrote to me is the Detroit tabulation show Election Day voting breaking very favorably for them. So they feel good about that. But I also ran into in the crowd a young guy who is actually in charge of their canvassing. And I was out with him for a little while yesterday. And I said, you know, what do you have? What's your final? The primary is over. And I mentioned earlier, I think, that they had 12,000 volunteers. Well, they knocked on 225,000 doors. This guy alone knocked on 21,008 doors. Now, anybody who follows politics knows that doors knocked are not engagements, but they're finding that people not only are answering more, but want to talk more. They are more open because of their own lived experience to having a conversation about health care, about the economy, about the things that Abdul El-Sayed is talking about. And I found it really interesting when we were having a conversation about sort of this return to the ground game, you know, after so much money was spent on not just television and on alternate media, but, you know, they just have so much technology now. And Abdul Zayed believes that kind of like his basic premise is that you have to return to the roots of the Democratic Party. You have to be a party for the people. You need to be, as part of that, return to your roots, which is talking to people, hearing what future constituents have to say to you. And so he feels good about the fact that so many conversations have been had with this young army of volunteers, many of whom I should say told me yesterday and today that, number one, obviously they believe he's going to win tonight, but that they're willing to do whatever needs to be done. They're not done knocking on doors. They're not done canvassing. So that's a very important thing. And I also heard Ali Vitale's report that the crowd was thinning. And there was a point here at which the crowd started to thin a little bit. This is a 100-year-old building, the Majestic Theater. And let's just say that the air conditioning system is challenged. So I thought maybe people were leaving because then I lost my jacket. Actually, there's a bar, in quotes, out in the lobby, which people have been going to. And I'm reporting this only for you because you made me one of the best cocktails of my life, Rachel Maddow. They have three mocktails, three mocktails, the money out of politics, the money in your pocket, and the Medicare for all, a hobbyist, which is his campaign slogan. They are $6 each, but these folks have been here for four hours. They're thirsty. No food available for sale at the bar, Rachel. Oh, wow. All right, so we're getting into the limits of human endurance. When you combine the excitement, the endorphins, the suspense, the close quarters, the excellent playlists, the desire to move your feet, and the lack of air conditioning and no food. You put all those things together and it's a biology test. Here's my fan. Yeah. All right, Chris. All right, well, hang tight. Hydrate, my friends. Hydrate. We'll be back with you as we get in more results. That's excellent. We are told by our election unit, interestingly, that in Michigan, as we're continuing to watch this very, very close race, we are told by our election unit that we believe there's more of the advance vote still to count in Michigan than there is day of vote still to count. So if the theory of the case is right, that people who voted today broke disproportionately for Al-Sayed, the fact that there's more advanced vote left to count would be good news to Haley Stevens supporters. That said, Al-Sayed is a little bit ahead of Haley Stevens right now, 56 percent of the vote in. We're going to get a little more nuance and perspective on this from our friend Eugene Daniels, who's been doing his own reporting on this, including talking with folks on the Haley Stevens campaign. We've got the latest news and numbers from Michigan and that new reporting right after this quick break. This is Down to the Wire. And now, the next chapter of the Serta Counting Sheep. Hey, Uncle Number One, why aren't we counting anymore? Let me tell you a story. Long ago, Serta invented the perfect sleeper mattress. Oh, no. Oh, yes. It says the all-new Serta Perfect Sleeper with a Q4 support system has four-in-one perfectly interlinked coils that help relieve aches and back pain for perfect sleep night after night. We'll never get counted again. Uh, nope. Serta, we make the world's best mattress. You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, so do we. 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You see the lead for Abdul El is just over 22 votes Joining us now is Eugene Daniels who been in touch tonight with the Haley Stevens campaign as they seen these these numbers ping around Eugene what are you hearing from folks They're feeling a lot better than they were feeling earlier. I think you can always tell as a reporter how the campaigns are feeling based on whether or not they answer your calls. And at the beginning of the night, they weren't. And now they're they're answering. And I will say one of the things that I found really interesting is something that they continue to to push was her rural vote is that at the end of the day, they are actually kind of surprised by how strong she is doing in the rural vote. I also talked to some folks who are the data crunchers, some of the best in the country I've been told. And those are those folks in Michigan. They're anticipating very late, late, late night, even 4 a.m. Multiple people said, including Congresswoman Debbie Dingo, who knows the state better than almost anyone who I just spoke with. And something that's really interesting for folks that are kind of waiting for Wayne County and trying to figure out how to parse through this, Detroit, Dearborn and Dearborn Heights. So Dearborn Heights and Dearborn, he's probably going to do really well there, El Syed. Detroit is where she might do really well. If we start seeing numbers, these folks are telling me, Rachel, where 20 to 25K, she nets that, that is where you're going to start seeing a really good, possibly a really good night for Haley in a way that folks really didn't think that that was going to happen. And they said in the Haley campaign and said this to me that at the end of the day, the absentee ballots that folks have been using, the increased usage of that this time around has been something that she has benefited from. Because in those rural areas, TV still matters. Right. You can't get to all of those areas and shake hands with everyone and people don't spend a lot of time there. But the amount of money that's spent on TV there matters. I will just caution folks on the Haley side who are super excited that her Oakland numbers weren't great and they know that. And so if she's able to make that up in Wayne County, she will have a much better night, I think, than people will say. Either way, this is going to be much closer than the polls were saying, than folks I was talking to on both campaigns earlier today thought it was going to be. Because at the end of the day, the voters have, as we say all the time here, have the last word. And they have been voting in different ways. And I think people even in Michigan anticipated and have been ready. There's more energy from the rural areas than folks anticipated, Rachel. And Eugene, this is a question you may not have asked, but just in case, because it's been a discussion we've been having here on set. Any theory of the case that you're hearing from informed people in Michigan or from the Stevens campaign specifically about why the polling might not be necessarily have not just an individual poll, but sort of the whole last tranche of polls heading into tonight may have overstated the support for Syed? Part of the reason I was talking to a couple of people who I did ask this exact same question, because I think the last poll we saw, there was like a 15 point. He was winning by 15 points. And we're all a little iffy about that one. And especially in a primary like this one. But what they said is you have to look at who they're polling. Right. Who are the folks that they're actually talking to? And some of the times in some of these polls where he was winning a lot, They were kind of over indexing and kind of taking his theory of the case that the Democratic base and the more important, the folks that were going to vote in this Democratic primary were going to be different than in the past primaries. And so that's, you know, why I talked to someone who really knows the state and said, quote, I'm pissed at the pollsters. oh wow okay well yeah i mean this has been a recurring theme over the course of my lifetime covering democratic electoral um outcomes particularly ones that are surprised honestly it says it's not a happy story to tell you but anytime anybody's telling you that the reason they're going to win is because of all the young people who are turning out to vote for them that is often something that you need to check twice before you cut once because uh that is um And it's it's there's a reason that older voters have disproportionate influence in every election. It's because this is because older voters vote more reliably than young voters do. And if you're banking on young voters, you also have to make sure they actually vote. No, they're not just telling you that they will. Eugene, this is totally and totally invaluable. Please stay on the phones. Let us know as soon as you got something. We'll have you back on the air as soon as we can get you. I will. Thanks, Eugene. Peter, I want to go back to you. I know you had you you've actually got some some more conversations that you had with voters in Saginaw, Michigan, about how they were thinking about the race overall, how they were thinking about the other side. Can you walk us through some of that that you heard from? So, again, the reason we went to Saginaw, Michigan, which is about 100 miles northwest of Detroit, is because this is a place where they pick political winners. They've got it right five times for president Obama twice, Trump, Biden, Trump. We went there. They picked Alyssa Slotkin by nine votes over Mike Rogers four years ago or two years ago. She ended up winning the state by fewer than 20,000. Here was one of the voices we met. These folks, they make popcorn, by the way. OK, so you'll I think you'll enjoy this at this hour. I'll get a little bit hungry. Here's what here's what some of them said in terms of advice to the Democratic Party broadly. What do you say to those national Democrats right now? What do you say to Democrats? What do you say to Democrats around the country right now? We're watching this race closely. Have faith in their voters, listen to their voters, and consider all aspects, not just big employers and what those dollars look like for them, but what the small businesses and what their decisions are doing are impacting us. So one month in, your advice to anybody looking to start a business right now? Do it, Garrett. You can absolutely be fearful, but you just fear less. It seems like there's a message in there for Democrats right now, right? Absolutely. move forward with what we know needs to be done and stand 10 toes deep in it stand 10 toes deep in it you heard her say there the gist was he's awesome as she started well first of all here cakes the great i got you some popcorn if you need it was made in a factory with nuts just a warning to anybody on the set here okay does anybody need me not to open this because it has nuts. I'll be back in 20 minutes. The point she made there, right, is she said as a new small business owner, she said we got to be fearless in how we run our business. She said the message to Democrats was they need to fear less. They need to lean more in to what they want. And have faith in their voters. Have faith in the voters. That's why we've talked about the polls so much here. That's why this was so invaluable to be on the ground with the actual people who are making this decision. that we're talking about tonight. And I spoke to her again within the last couple of hours. She's the one who told me that if Haley Stevens ended up winning, she would have to support Haley Stevens. But what else was striking that she said in these conversations is, we think about this in big terms, in national terms. She views this in terms that affect her family. She was worried about tariffs, the impact on her business. She's worried about affordability, how much it costs for her daughter, who was their lovely 20-year-old. She was outstanding. She made the popcorn. The fear she has for her future. These were the things that affect them at home, not the things I think that are sort of, you know, just bigger in-the-sky topics. The things that really affect them at their kitchen table and, as it turns out, at the table where they make this pop. I was thinking about, I mean, the geography of Michigan right now and that affecting... It's delicious. Okay. I'm talking right now, so I'm not going to do this, but it's ready. They always tell you, eat on Live Teller. It's a good mix, Sue. We love a mix. Definitely eat something crunchy on Live Teller. Day one of broadcasts. Who is Myrtle Turtle? Think about the geography of Michigan and these affordability issues. I mean, Michigan, not only I mean, Haley Stevens has this great story to tell, right, that she was the chief of staff to the auto rescue effort during the Great Recession, saved 200,000 jobs in Michigan during the recession. That said, United Auto Workers did not endorse her, endorsed Abdul El-Sayed. Michigan has this incredible both sides, you know, really interesting role in the tariff scandal with with with Trump. These poorly thought out, seemingly random number generated tariffs. And those cut lots of different directions in Michigan. But I was also thinking about that bridge. Right. So this bridge, the international bridge between Michigan and Canada, where there's this one totally dysfunctional bridge that's run by a family that walked into the White House and gave Donald Trump a million dollar campaign check. And he turned around and said, OK, we're not opening the competing bridge that is going to make life so much materially more easy for for Michigan businesses, large and small. And so this stuff that we think of as like Washington drama in Michigan, it's shoe leather stuff. You're right. I said this earlier. I repeat it because she brought it up again. We talk about ICE. We talk about immigration enforcement. Ten days ago, there was an ICE crackdown there. Nine construction workers were arrested. She said she passed it just a couple of days ago driving home. The car, the engine was still running as she passed this spot. This stuff is is tangible to these people in these communities and has real impact. And ultimately, it affects the way that they make their decisions and the way they vote on nights like tonight. So it will matter to Democrats, both in the state and nationally, but especially nationally, to look at the narratives that are taking shape coming out of this primary race tonight. How not so much look at the horse race of it all, but look at what moved the voters. What what actually animated them to give a damn to get up, to take that time off from work to your points and to actually go stand in a line for however long, do the thing, do the vote to make it known what they wanted. And if you're able to capture that, and it was a very important lesson for me in 2009, looking at 2010, watching what voters were saying in New Jersey and Virginia in 2009 gave me a clue of how to begin to talk to voters in 2010 because the message was the same. And so that reality is going to be true across the board here for a lot of voters across the country, not just in the hamlets of Michigan, but in very small and big places elsewhere. And if they can make that case again, a case Republicans cannot make. And I say that as a very frustrated Republican with my own part is that I don't say how you guys spent the last two years listening to this idiot in the White House who gave you nothing to tell voters. Yeah. The only thing he wanted to talk about was a reflecting pool and a ballroom and renovations and renovations. When the country, the only renovation they're trying to do is to their own kitchen tables. These folks I met talked about the housing bill recently, the biggest bipartisan effort. Right. Recently, the big difference maker for folks as it relates to affordable housing in this country. And the president refused to show up for it. You know, that stuff. He said it bored him. He said it bored him. Yeah. It's amazing. We're talking about Saginaw County. What actually what do we have for results in Saginaw County? 58.2% to Haley Stevens, 37.3% to Abdul El-Sayed. So she's doing very well there. Again, still only 45% in. We're still looking at, we've got 61% in the entire state. Abdul El-Sayed's lead has increased. He's now closing in on a 30,000 vote lead. He's been between 20,000 and 25,000 all night. Let's go to Detroit, to Wayne County again. Again, almost half the vote is in now, 48%. Haley Stevens is in the lead, but her lead has narrowed substantially. She has a 12,000 vote lead. Remember, she jumped way ahead in Wayne County. We do believe, however, that the outstanding vote, it's above 600,000 Democratic votes right now to count. We believe that more of them may be advanced votes than day of votes. Now, that's in Wayne County, specifically in Wayne County. And the the the rationale for discussing that is what you just said. The advanced votes tend to be older voters. The young voters that you're depending on are typically day of voters. And Abdel Saeed's been banking on those day out voters. So if it's true that most of the outstanding vote is advanced vote, that tends to favor Haley Stevens. She does have a statewide deficit to overcome because Abdel Al-Sayed is still there. And like I mentioned, we still are waiting for some vote from key areas of Detroit, of Wayne County, that we haven't seen yet, including Hamtramck, which is likely to favor Abdel Al-Sayed. We do have we have seen a good amount of vote from from Dearborn and Dearborn Heights. Those areas which have come in, they're not just favoring Abdul El-Sayed. They're coming in at about 80-20 in his favor. That's where he expected to do very well. But again, this area, this actual central part of Detroit, we're still waiting for a good deal of vote, advance vote and day of vote. Have you ever considered surrounding your house with a moat to keep it safe? 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