A week after Democrats won Michigan’s U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, flipped three Republican Congressional districts, swept all four statewide offices and won their largest state house and senate majorities since 1978, Michigan Democratic Party chairman Curtis Hertel joined Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson to explain how they did it, and the party’s next steps.
Hertel broke down Michigan’s 2026 midterm sweep and covered multiple topics, including:
Why Michiganders rejected the MAGA agenda and elected Democrat Abdul El-Sayed to the U.S. Senate and Jocelyn Benson as governor
Congresswoman Haley Stevens’ last-minute endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers, and Hertel confirming she’s no longer a member of the party
Michigan’s chances of adding their electoral votes to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC)
How Michigan Democrats’ year-round organizing program fueled record-high midterm voter turnout
How the president’s tariff agenda and a fight over a Canada border bridge made Michigan an epicenter of the 2026 election
Progressive Will Lawrence’s upset win over incumbent Republican Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District
How Democrats seized on the fight against data centers in Michigan
El-Sayed’s Victory Proves Democrats Want ‘Fighters’
Gibson opened the conversation by asking Hertel how Democrats managed to have so many wins in a state that voted for Donald Trump twice in the last 10 years. Hertel said voters were turned off by Trump’s broken promises, like telling Americans prices would fall on “day one” of his second term and that there would be no more foreign wars. Two years later, he reneged on both of those promises. And that’s before taking, tariffs into account — particularly those affecting trade across the Great Lakes with neighboring Canada — which hit the Mitten State harder than almost anywhere else.
“A lot of people were angry and upset about the lies that Donald Trump told them,” Hertel said. “They felt like they’d been lied to, and what you needed on the other side were fighters.”
He noted that El-Sayed’s Senate campaign was centered on a simple message of putting money back in people’s pockets, getting big money out of politics and implementing Medicare for All, calling it a “really simple message that people could understand, which I appreciate, because I think a lot of times Democrats take a policy paper to a knife fight,” he said.
Hertel also added that Senator-elect El-Sayed overcame what he described as “the most racist, Islamophobic campaign” from Republicans, and proved wrong those who believed Michigan couldn’t elect a Muslim senator or a candidate from the progressive camp of the Democratic Party.
“He proved that a campaign that is focused, that goes everywhere, that works hard and has a message that talks to people’s values can win,” Hertel said.
Why Haley Stevens Is No Longer a Member of the Michigan Democratic Party
Gibson then addressed he called “the elephant in the room,” referring to Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens — who ran in a bitter primary against Abdul El-Sayed — and her eleventh-hour endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers on the eve of the election. He observed that this was after she assured Democratic leaders both in Michigan and Washington that she was fully behind El-Sayed. Gibson then pointed out that El-Sayed won the general election by seven points, and that Stevens skipped out on Tuesday’s vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while reportedly hiding in the Republican cloakroom.
“She’s not a member [of the Michigan Democratic Party], and she won’t be moving forward,” Hertel said, adding that the Haley Stevens debacle was “the weirdest” thing he’s seen in years of Michigan politics and “a sad end to her career.”
Hertel lamented that the setting of her endorsement made it even worse. Stevens announced her support of Rogers at a Black church in Detroit known for its “Souls to the Polls” efforts, claiming to speak for Black Detroiters. Hertel, who grew up on the east side of Detroit, said the party’s headquarters was bombarded by angry calls from local residents saying Stevens didn’t speak for them. He also characterized the “Democrats for Rogers” effort as “mostly a facade,” and highlighted one event in Pontiac, Michigan where nobody actually showed up.
“It was the saddest bouncy house I ever saw,” Hertel quipped.
Hertel also dismissed Stevens’ assertions that Rogers could be another John McCain, contrasting Rogers’ Islamophobic campaign with McCain’s refusal in 2008 to allow a racist comment against Barack Obama to stand.
“This was an ultimate betrayal, not just of me or Debbie Dingell or Jim Clyburn, but of her constituents,” Hertel said of Stevens. “If you’re willing to stand with that, or with Donald Trump and all the awful things that he has done to the people of Michigan, you don’t have a place in the Democratic Party.”
Despite the chaotic final stretch of the race, Hertel said Stevens’ stunt ultimately didn’t play a deciding role in the Senate race.
“Abdul ran a campaign that was going to win regardless of what happened there,” he said, noting that Stevens ended up uniting people who were still on the fence about El-Sayed.
Michigan Expected to Join National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Now that Michigan Democrats control the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature, Gibson asked whether the Mitten State would add its electoral votes to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), in which member states agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of how their own state voted.
Now that Democrats won state government trifectas in major swing states like Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the compact could cross the 270-vote threshold with Michigan’s support. When Gibson asked about Michigan officially joining, Hertel said he “one thousand percent” supported the idea.
“The Electoral College is a fun exercise in game theory, but it has nothing to do with how we should actually run a country,” Hertel said.
Hertel noted that Michigan’s status as a coveted battleground state in presidential elections brings a lot of extra media attention and money to his party, but emphasized he’d gladly give that up in order to elect presidents by popular vote.
“The idea that a majority of people in this country can vote for one person, and the other person becomes president, I don’t think there’s any human being that can sit and go, ‘Well, that makes sense,’” Hertel said, reminding viewers that Republicans still exploited the Electoral College system to try to overturn the 2020 results despite losing both the popular vote and the electoral vote.
Hertel pointed out that bills to join the NPVIC have already been introduced, and that now with the largest Democratic majority in decades about to be sworn in, he’s optimistic about their ability to pass.
“I think we’re going to be in a very good place to be able to pass those bills,” he said.
How Michigan Democrats Built a Massive Voter Turnout Machine
Gibson cited election data showing that roughly 49 percent of eligible voters across America nationwide cast ballots last week, making it the highest midterm turnout in more than a century. He also noted that roughly 4.8 million Michiganders voted, with higher than average turnout in both urban and rural counties. He asked Hertel what Democrats across the country could learn from Michigan’s example.
Hertel credited Democrats’ wins to the state party’s Project 83 initiative. That program — which Hertel expanded as chairman — keeps organizers on the ground throughout the year in all 83 counties in the Mitten State while also rebuilding local party infrastructure. The Michigan Democratic Party revived three county parties that went dormant and doubled down on running candidates in school board, township and nonpartisan races. He said Democratic and Democratic-supported candidates won 79 percent of them, including many in deep-red counties.
“We don’t have off years,” Hertel said. “The decisions that are made closest to you probably affect you more than some of the national decisions.”
The party also conducted town halls in every Republican-held Congressional district, including one that brought out 400 people to a middle school gym in Allegan County, which is regarded as one of the reddest in the state. Hertel said Michigan Democrats were also “relentlessly focused” on economic issues, and made a point to hire grassroots organizers from the very same communities they worked in. Hertel quoted the film The American President, saying: “If you don’t give people water, they’ll drink sand. Trump is sand. He is blame. He is anger. But we’ve got to give people water.”
In the end, all 83 counties in Michigan moved toward Democrats last week, which led to the party winning its largest majorities in the state legislature since 1978. Michigan also has its largest Democratic Congressional delegation since the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration.
“If you want a tsunami, you’ve got to push inland,” Hertel said. “And that’s what we were able to do across the state.”
What Made Trump ‘the Ultimate Foil’ for Michigan Democrats
Gibson pointed out how directly Michiganders could trace their problems to the administration, from tariffs on Canadian trade to the delayed Gordie Howe Bridge between Detroit and Canada, which would compete with the privately owned Ambassador Bridge.
Hertel agreed, with a twist. “The one thing I agree with Donald Trump on is that when he said they wanted people to vote like he was on the ballot, I fully agreed with that,” he said. “I also wanted people to vote like he was on the ballot, and they did.” He said he was even disappointed when a second Trump rally in Michigan was canceled.
But Hertel warned that Democrats can’t rely on Trump forever. He pointed to his brother’s state Senate district on the Macomb County shoreline, a Trump +7 seat his brother won by 410 votes the first time and roughly 9,000 this time. That area once had more boats per capita than anywhere in the country, Hertel said, not because it was wealthy but because UAW jobs let workers raise a family, send kids to college and still afford a small fishing boat.
“That doesn’t exist for people any longer. The game is rigged against them,” Hertel said. “If we’re the party that solves that big problem, we can become a permanent majority party in America.”
How the Founder of the Sunrise Movement Flipped a Republican Seat
Gibson highlighted one of the night’s most striking results: Will Lawrence, a Sunrise Movement co-founder, tenant organizer and coordinator with Michigan’s Rent Is Too Damn High coalition, defeating Republican Rep. Tom Barrett in the 7th Congressional District.
Hertel said he always thought Lawrence would win, largely because of his field operation. “He had the best ground game of any candidate that I have seen in a very long time,” Hertel said, arguing that face-to-face conversations matter more than ever when voters actively avoid ads. Lawrence also sidestepped attempts to make the race about the Democratic Socialists of America and leaned into a local fight over a proposed data center.
Hertel, who served alongside Barrett in the Michigan Senate, said the incumbent made a mistake common among Republicans this cycle: refusing to face constituents after voting for the “big beautiful bill.” “He failed at the most basic job of what a congressman is supposed to be,” Hertel said.
He also pushed back on the media’s obsession with factional labels, noting that Michigan elected both Elissa Slotkin and Abdul El-Sayed. “None of them are sitting at their kitchen table going, ‘Am I a progressive or a liberal or an establishment?’” he said. “What people want is fighters.”
How Democrats Seized on the Data Center Fight in Michigan
In the final exchange, Gibson asked about data centers, noting Raw America’s had previously covered a local municipality’s fight against a massive proposed data center.
Hertel said polling showed the economy and corruption were voters’ top two issues, and that data centers touched both. “People are freaked out about AI. They should be,” he said.
But he offered a caution for his own party. Arguing that data centers bring only temporary jobs, he said, can alienate the very people Democrats need. “If you’re a carpenter, or an electrician, or a plumber, all you have is temporary jobs,” Hertel said. “When you say it’s just a temporary job, what they hear is you don’t respect what I do.”
Ultimately, he framed the fight as one about democracy itself. “We should decide what’s in our community. We should decide how our air and water are protected. We should decide whether the economic benefit of something goes to some billionaires or to us,” Hertel said. “That’s the soul of who this party is, and we’ve got to get back to it.”
