On April 2, 2025, propelled by a viral speech in the Michigan Senate in 2022 and another at the 2024 Democratic National Convention—Project 2025 in hand—State Senator Mallory McMorrow announced her intention to run to replace outgoing Senator Gary Peters.
McMorrow’s launch video embodied what would quickly become the central thesis of her campaign and the case it would make over the next 458 days:
She flipped a red seat, helped deliver Democrats a governing trifecta in the state legislature, and fought back against Trump, Republicans, and even her own party’s establishment.
The underlying message of her campaign was this: politicians like her were the future of the Democratic Party.
Enter Congresswoman Haley Stevens and physician Abdul El-Sayed, who would put that assertion to the test and, ultimately, prove it wrong.
Viral sensationalism paired with a battle-tested biography is, on paper, a compelling case for the U.S. Senate. However, sandwiched between that narrative were two campaigns that functioned as caricatures of a national divide between the moderate Democratic establishment and the insurgent progressive left.
Take Congresswoman Haley Stevens, for example, unabashedly pro-Israel, backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and open to accepting PAC contributions from corporations.
Then there was physician Abdul El-Sayed, unabashedly pro-Palestine, backed by Senator Bernie Sanders, and open to supporting policies such as the abolition of ICE and Medicare for All.
McMorrow, by contrast, never fit neatly into either of these nationalized ideological camps within the Democratic Party. For instance, she rejected PAC contributions early on while also dismissing Medicare for All in favor of a public option.
But perhaps the most evident example of McMorrow’s political tight-roping was on Israel. In April, she refused to take a clear stance on future aid to Israel while her two opponents took opposing positions. Then, in September, a report alleged that her campaign internally drafted an “outstanding” AIPAC policy paper. By October, McMorrow affirmed that Israel was committing genocide, a position she quickly dropped, later arguing that using the term amounted to an unnecessary “purity test.”
It was this type of inconsistency, on a wedge issue like Israel, that would later plague McMorrow throughout the campaign.
McMorrow’s insistence on riding the waves between the ideologies of her two opponents was not destined to produce a wipeout on its own, but it became increasingly difficult to maintain the longer it continued.
In mid-March, she received Senator Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement, legitimizing her as a solid left-of-center alternative to Stevens. But by late March, the Goldilocks coalition McMorrow had cultivated since October 2025—a mix of mismatched ideological groups held together by an anti-establishment narrative that had allowed her to briefly overtake El-Sayed and, in some polls, Stevens—hit a serious roadblock: the Hasan Piker question.
McMorrow’s campaign slammed El-Sayed for campaigning with Hasan Piker, comparing the left-wing streamer to the far-right commentator Nick Fuentes.
In doing so, the McMorrow campaign negatively polarized many younger voters away from her and towards El-Sayed. The calculation that Piker’s past inflammatory statements would hurt El-Sayed never came to fruition, partly due to Piker’s status as a nonentity among older voters while being much more well-known with young progressives who, up until that point, were actively undecided between her and El-Sayed.
By May 2026, El-Sayed was gaining momentum, and McMorrow’s attempt to cultivate a Goldilocks coalition was increasingly in doubt. Meanwhile, Stevens secured an endorsement from former Senator Debbie Stabenow, who had previously ruled one out—a sign the Democratic establishment was growing increasingly concerned about El-Sayed.
In response, McMorrow attacked Stevens for a joint AIPAC fundraiser with Republican Senator Susan Collins, but by then, the most ardent anti-AIPAC Democrats—young voters—had coalesced around El-Sayed.
Then, a Politico story broke casting doubts on El-Sayed’s medical records.
The McMorrow campaign once again attempted to turn the focus onto El-Sayed in hopes of regaining momentum.
Instead, the move pushed undecided voters away, many of whom viewed the attacks as overblown and desperate, contributing to McMorrow’s polling implosion in June, after a month of stagnation and decline.
By July 5, 2026, McMorrow dropped out of the race, bringing us to where we are today, as what was once an unprecedented three-way primary morphs back into the normal, national struggle between the Democratic establishment and the outsider left.
McMorrow sought to put a twist on this age-old debate between the left and center, but some of her very own supporters disagreed with her overly calculated, pragmatic approach in the end.
The McMorrow Mirage, from October to March, was the product of this tremendous needle-threading to craft a narrative that ultimately became too complex for its own good. The campaign’s consistent inconsistencies—from evolving policy positions to overly aggressive attacks and old tweets resurfacing deriding Michigan—stood in sharp contrast to the consistent authenticity projected by both Stevens and El-Sayed.
Michiganders rejected McMorrow early because while Stevens and El-Sayed spent an entire campaign showing Michiganders who they are, McMorrow could never quite figure out who she wanted to be.
Great writeup, but I feel many miss why the Piker comments and her attempt to link his visit to a synagogue attack backfired so badly. It's not that I'm a Hasan fan--I'm not. But Cuomo tried the same thing against Mamdani and it came off as just as disgustingly racist. Clearly a coded way to do racist, Klan-style fear mongering against her brown Muslim opponent. My mom doesn't even know who Hasan is, but she said: "they're sneering his name the exact same way they sneered Barack Hussein Obama."
McMorrow revealed she was willing to go racist in an attempt to win an election against one of the most vulnerable minorities right now. Scum like that is the whole problem with our party right now, and I hope she never has a career in politics again.
Good piece, but Politico didn’t “break” the story about El-Sayed’s medical credentials. That was reported by Crain’s Detroit years ago. The McMorrow campaign almost certainly brought it to Politico, though.