Jonathan Cohn: Pure Michigan Chaos

In a Michigan Democratic primary that national pundits have framed as a proxy war between the party’s progressive and establishment wings, the voters on the ground are having a much more complicated conversation. Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit public health director running on a Medicare for All platform, has drawn support from national figures like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Congresswoman Haley Stevens, endorsed by Michigan’s own Gretchen Whitmer and retiring Senator Gary Peters, is running as a pragmatic workhorse who can get things done. But as The Focus Group Podcast host Sarah Longwell and Bulwark writer Jonathan Cohn discuss, the way regular Democratic primary voters talk about these two candidates is often at odds with the online narratives that dominate national coverage.

The Two Candidates, As Voters See Them