Michigan primaries usually come and go with most people not voting. They’re low-profile elections in August, and turnout tends to land somewhere around a quarter of registered voters. 

Last night was different.

Over 1.5 million ballots were counted in the Democratic Senate primary alone. That’s more than any non-presidential Democratic primary in this state going back to at least 1998.

That race, between Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed, is the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history. El-Sayed won the primary.

Other progressive candidates won their races too: Donovan McKinney won the Democratic nomination for the 13th District seat in the U.S. House against incumbent Shri Thanedar, and Abbas Alawieh won the primary for Michigan senate in the 2nd District. 

Zach Gorchow is president of Gongwer News Service of Michigan and has covered state politics for a long time. He spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent about how this election shook out, and what it may mean come November.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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