Voters in Michigan are heading to the polls on Tuesday to decide a bruising, high-stakes Democratic Senate primary and closely-watched Democratic House races that could offer clues about the party’s direction.
Here’s what to know about Primary Day in Michigan, a perennial battleground state.
What’s at stake in the marquee Senate race?
The Democratic Senate primary pits two candidates with starkly different visions for their party.
The winner will try to protect a seat that the retiring Democratic senator Gary Peters is vacating. The general-election race is expected to be one of the most competitive contests in the country in November.
In the Democratic primary, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, has staged a freewheeling campaign centered on his opposition to American aid for Israel and his support for universal health care.
He says the moment calls for systemic change. His supporters say he is channeling the hopes of rank-and-file Democrats.
He faces Representative Haley Stevens, a centrist who is strongly supportive of Israel, backs more modest health care reforms and says she wants to rein in ICE but not eliminate it.
She says the moment calls for elected officials who will work to make Washington more functional. Her supporters say she would be a stronger general election candidate.
In the Republican primary, former Representative Mike Rogers is running unopposed.
Will a Detroit congressman fall to a left-wing challenger?
An unusually large number of incumbents have lost in Democratic House primaries this year, as left-wing energy has lifted a series of insurgents.
Progressives hope another incumbent, Representative Shri Thanedar of Detroit, will fall Tuesday. But Mr. Thanedar’s race against State Representative Donavan McKinney, a democratic socialist, isn’t simply a proxy battle between moderates and progressives.
It’s also a messy fight that has touched on racial identity. Mr. Thanedar is Indian American, and since he won his seat in 2022, Detroit, a majority Black city, has not had a Black representative in Washington.
Some Black leaders, including five members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have rallied behind Mr. McKinney, who is Black. They have broken with Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the leader of House Democrats, who is Black and has endorsed Mr. Thanedar.
In an interview, Mr. McKinney said Detroit voters were focused less on racial identity than on whether the district would have a “pro-working-class agenda.”
Which Democrat will take on a vulnerable Republican congressman?
Democrats are hoping to unseat Representative Tom Barrett, a first-term Republican who serves a battleground district anchored by Lansing, the state capital, and nearby Michigan State University.
But Democrats must first pick a nominee. And the primary has been bruising.
Voters are choosing between two moderate Democrats — Bridget Brink, a diplomat in the Biden and Trump administrations, and Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL endorsed by Senator Elissa Slotkin — and a progressive activist, William Lawrence, who is supported by Senator Bernie Sanders and has campaigned with Dr. El-Sayed.
Mr. Barrett, who is considered one of the country’s most endangered Republican incumbents, has sought to separate himself from President Trump, joining Democrats who voted to direct the president to end the war with Iran or seek explicit authorization to continue it.
In the governor’s race: An election official vs. an election denier?
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a term-limited Democrat, is set to leave office at the end of the year.
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, is expected to win the Democratic nomination on Tuesday in the race to replace Ms. Whitmer.
In the general election, Ms. Benson, the state’s top election official, may face Representative John James, a Trump-endorsed Republican from a swing suburban Detroit district, who said at a rally with President Trump last month that the president had won Michigan three times. Mr. Trump did not. (He won it twice, carrying it in 2016 and 2024, but losing it by more than 100,000 votes in 2020.)
Mr. James has led Perry Johnson, a businessman, in polls of the Republican primary. Mr. Johnson has also echoed Mr. Trump’s election falsehoods. He said in an interview that Mr. Trump “of course” won the general election in 2020.
