Over the course of Donald Trump's second term, Democratic voters have expressed dissatisfaction with their party over what many view as an inability to stand up to the president and his broader movement. That dissatisfaction with the establishment has manifested in primaries in coastal cities across the country, where the progressive movement appears to be ascendant. On Tuesday, that test played out in Midwestern states, Michigan and Missouri.

Within roughly two hours of polls closing, The Associated Press called the closely watched rematch between Cori Bush and Rep. Wesley Bell for the incumbent. In 2024, AIPAC and other outside groups spent more than $18 million to oust Bush from her Missouri district, and her defeat, along with New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s, has served as a warning sign for Democrats not to be too progressive or too pro-Palestine.

But by Wednesday morning, Abdul El-Sayed, who ran on Medicare for All and ending military aid to Israel for its continued genocide in Gaza, narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens by less than 20,000 votes. According to AdImpact, the Michigan Democratic Senate primary saw $98 million in ad spending and reservations. At least $60 million was spent boosting Stevens or attacking El-Sayed, with more than $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC, United Democracy Project — its largest spend in a single race ever, nearly double the then-record-breaking amount spent on Bowman's 2024 primary race.

This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Jessica Washington and colleagues Akela Lacy and Jonah Valdez discuss what results from Tuesday's primaries signal for progressives and the broader left in the Democratic Party, especially in swing states and outside of coastal cities.

Full transcript: https://interc.pt/4wgacXj

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On Tuesday, Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., will face off in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary. The race is the next biggest test of whether progressives can win statewide, particularly in purple territory.

The Michigan race is one of the most expensive primaries of the cycle. Outside groups have spent upward of $50 million in support of Stevens or against El-Sayed. Most of that money is coming from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliated groups — close to $30 million, which their largest investment ever in a single race, according to The AP.

“It's just anti-democratic on its own terms,” El-Sayed, the former public health official, tells The Intercept Briefing. “I always ask people, “OK, you're covering this as a very close race, but would it be close if they didn't have $60 million to spend? Would it even be a close race at all?’”

This week on The Intercept Briefing podcast, host Akela Lacy asks, can progressives win outside of blue cities? El-Sayed argues, if you focus on the issues people care about and act on them, you can: "Look, you have an option that's not bought off by all the same corporations. And that option is desperately clear about wanting you to have healthcare, and also wanting your kid to have a good school, and also making sure that there's not a data center that gets planted in your backyard to automate your job away.”

Lacy explores that question further with Ryan Clancy, a Wisconsin state representative and founding member of the state legislature’s current Socialist Caucus, and Thom Hartmann, a progressive political commentator.

Clancy says voters he speaks to in Milwaukee “want a fighter. People want people in office who are going to fight for the middle class, fight for actual transformative change.” He adds, “The idea that in order to win in a purple district that is roughly split between Democrats and Republicans, that you need when you're a Democrat, to look as much like a Republican as possible is just not helpful.”

Polling suggests that El-Sayed has a commanding lead over Stevens in the Democratic primary. But polls for the November general election narrow sharply when El-Sayed is up against Trump-backed Republican candidate Mike Rogers; one shows Rogers beating him by 10 percentage points, which the Stevens’s campaign has leaned into.

“We've been in this change moment. We're sick and tired of neoliberalism. We're sick and tired of Reaganism. We're sick and tired of the status quo. We're sick and tired of a dying middle class. We have been living in this moment, in my opinion, since 2000, and I think in a big way since 2008. Obama promised hope and change, and really just brought us a bunch of health insurance companies,” says Hartmann. “I'm not sure if we're there yet to the point where a good message like El-Sayed's message can overcome millions of dollars from Israel and from big corporations. That's going to be the big challenge.”

The Intercept invited Stevens on the program for an interview but as of publishing have not heard back yet.

Full transcript: https://interc.pt/4fRLS8a

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Within the span of a week, federal immigration agents shot and killed two people in Maine and Texas, and another was hit by a truck and killed in Florida after trying to avoid ICE agents. A fourth person recently died in ICE custody after reportedly being denied medication.

Their deaths prompted yet another round of questioning as to how federal immigration agents have amassed so much power and so little accountability. This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Akela Lacy speaks with Naureen Shah, of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Nayna Gupta, of the American Immigration Council, on the consequences of allowing the government to build a national policing force that’s bringing Trump’s war on immigrants into communities across the country.

“The $240 billion injection that the Trump administration has given ICE and Border Patrol make these agencies — which already were the largest federal law enforcement agencies — make them far larger than anything that we've seen at the federal law enforcement level,” says Shah. “Their budgets are bigger than that of many, actually most militaries around the world.”

“It's not really just about who they're hiring and even the training that they're getting — it's the message that they get all the way from the top,” says Shah. “And of course, the message after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good was, you have immunity in the conduct that you're engaged in. It's basically a message of, you're going to get away with it. Don't worry about it.”

“The signal from the very top of the administration is unmistakable: Arrest as many people as possible without regard for the actual impact on public safety, without regard for the killings that may result, the harm that results.”

Congressional funding for those agencies has outpaced any action on comprehensive immigration reform. And with Republicans pushing to strip voting rights from millions of Americans while campaigning against immigrants, says Gupta, the solution is to neutralize their argument by creating a path to citizenship — a proposal with broad bipartisan support.

“There's no question that the immigration enforcement agenda that this administration is pursuing ties to voting rights. Now, the question is, given that, how do we still make sure we're offering solutions and reforms that can be viable and build a broad enough coalition of support to overwhelm that far-right base and the way they've weaponized this issue?” Gupta says.

“I think those kinds of conversations are a more effective antidote to the far right's effort to weaponize the immigration system, not only to hurt immigrants, but to hurt core democratic rights like the right to vote.”

Full transcript: https://interc.pt/4wk7elz

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