With fewer than one hundred days to the November midterm elections, more than a dozen states are holding primaries in August.
- Two pivotal seats in Michigan and Alaska are at the heart of the race.
- Michigan is a major hurdle for the Democrats. According to Decision Desk HQ, winning this state would lift the Republican Party’s probability of preserving Senate control to 87%.
- The primaries in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Kansas will thus test, within the Democrats, the balance between the centrist wing and the populist wing after the defeats of 2024, and, within the Republicans, Donald Trump’s grip on the nominations.
The first results announced on the night of August 4th sent two opposing signals for the Democratic camp.
- Thus, in the Democratic Senate primary, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated the centrist Haley Stevens, who was elected to Congress in 2019. He will face in November Mike Rogers, the lone Republican candidate and Trump ally, for the seat vacated by Gary Peters’ retirement.
- The magnitude of polling errors may be the most important takeaway from the contest. While he was forecast to win by 10 to 19 points, El-Sayed prevailed by a very narrow margin of fewer than 20,000 votes. According to Nate Silver, this is a structural problem 1. The average error, already around 9 points in presidential primaries, explodes in legislative primaries where the electorate is smaller and unpredictable, voting is more volatile due to the lack of partisan anchors, and polls are rare and often partisan. As midterm elections approach, this warning applies to any narrative of a “progressive wave” or a retreat of Trumpism among voters.
- In Missouri’s 1st district (St. Louis), a Democratic stronghold, the incumbent Wesley Bell again defeated Cori Bush, a figure of the “Squad,” whom he had beaten in 2024. As two years earlier, the stance on Israel shaped the duel.
- In the Kansas gubernatorial primary, a state leaning towards the GOP at the federal level (Trump won by more than 16 in 2024) but led by Democrat Laura Kelly since 2019, the local Senate President Ty Masterson, endorsed by Trump, won decisively with about 42% of the vote, against 22% for his first rival. Among the Democrats, Senator Cindy Holscher, an anti-establishment outsider, outpaced Ethan Corson, who was backed by Governor Kelly.
Other races are scheduled in the coming days.
- Three Senate primaries are planned: South Carolina (in the form of a special primary on August 11, with a potential runoff on the 25th), Minnesota (on the 11th) and Alaska (on the 18th), as well as the race for Florida’s 20th district on the same day.
- Also on the docket are primaries for the governorships of Wisconsin and Minnesota on August 11, as well as Michigan’s.
Three trends emerge regarding the maintenance of Trump’s Senate majority.
- As we have analyzed repeatedly, the Trump camp exercises near-total control over the Republican Party. Its supporters win the primaries one after another: Rogers without opposition in Michigan for the Senate, Masterson in Kansas, and Mike Lindell the favorite for Minnesota’s governorship. Presidential blessing remains the most decisive factor in a Republican primary, underscoring the absence of organized opposition within the party.
- The personal loyalty to Trump as the fundamental criterion for candidate selection is producing a decline in the quality of candidates and risks for the president’s camp. Mike Lindell, the pillow manufacturer, a radical conspiracy theorist deemed civilly liable for false allegations about the 2020 presidential election, is the perfect example: his probable nomination could tilt the Cook Political Report’s forecast from “likely” to “lean Democratic” in a race that would pit him against former Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar.
- The presidency’s record remains difficult to defend, as shown by Minnesota. The state, which in early 2026 saw two of its residents killed by ICE during the “Metro Surge” operation, followed by protests, the mobilization of the National Guard, and a federal retreat under public pressure.
The Republican strategy, at this stage, seems focused on two toss-ups whose outcomes are uncertain (toss-ups).
- Michigan is the primary target. Winning this Democratic seat would boost the chances of maintaining the majority. Hence the substantial investments. The Senate Leadership Fund, aligned with party leadership, has spent nearly $50 million there alone in a race where advertising expenditures are already around $100 million.
- In Alaska, the situation is the opposite and Trump’s side is on the defensive. The incumbent, Dan Sullivan, must contend with a homonymous Republican, a Petersburg-based retired teacher who registered as a Republican for this occasion, also named Dan Sullivan, who appears on the same ballot. The Republican Party views this coincidence as a Democratic tactic intended to sow confusion and split the vote.
On the Democratic side, the trends are clearer.
- A split exists between the left wing of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the centrist wing, of which Bell, who defeated Bush in Missouri, has become the leading figure in recent days. The Israeli question and the influence of AIPAC cross many of these duels.
- The energy of the Democratic camp shifts toward disruptive profiles, and outsiders on the left are gaining ground. Thus, in Kansas, Holscher leads the candidate backed by the governor. Yet El-Sayed defeats the candidate backed by Nancy Pelosi and Governor Whitmer in Michigan, though his lead remains well short of polls that had him winning by ten to nineteen points, a nuance that immediately complicates the narrative of a new progressive wave. According to Nate Silver, the left is advancing “overall,” but “race by race, variance is high.”These victories revive the electability dilemma that has haunted the Democratic Party since 2016. Should the base be mobilized by investing in disruptive, reform-minded candidates, at the risk of them being less competitive in November? This concern is clear regarding Francesca Hong (Wisconsin) or Peggy Flanagan (Minnesota), whom Republicans say they’d prefer to face. Michigan will be the real test. The probable victory of El-Sayed would now require a left-populist candidate to win a swing state that the party cannot afford to lose, a state where polls already place him behind the Republican Rogers.
For the record, since 1934, the president’s party has won House seats in only three midterm elections (1934, 1998, and 2002).