Why Mallory McMorrow’s Campaign Didn’t Survive

(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)

Royal Oak, Michigan MALLORY MCMORROW SEEMED LIKE an impressively strong candidate back in April 2025, when she became the first major Democrat to declare she was running for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat.

At the time, Democrats around the country were reeling from Donald Trump’s election and the governing blitzkrieg of his first months back in office. Up stepped McMorrow, a (then-)38-year-old state senator in her fourth term, who announced her candidacy with a video touting her ability to win in red-leaning districts and her record of pushing back against MAGA, most famously, in a 2022 floor speech defending LGBTQ rights that went viral and established her as one of the party’s most effective young communicators.

The announcement video stressed McMorrow’s ability to get results in the state legislature, while making clear she was fed up with her own party’s impotence. One day later, she fleshed out her vision when she sat down with me at a coffee shop in Royal Oak, the northern Detroit suburb with a hipster vibe that she calls home.

She talked about her ideas for addressing the high cost of health care, housing, and childcare, weaving in her firsthand experiences as a millennial parent of a kindergartner. She gave a detailed critique of Trump policies on tariffs, tying it to her knowledge of Michigan’s auto industry. And she vented, as she had in her video, about Democratic leaders cowering back in Washington.

“There’s a lot of power that you still have if you’re just willing to push back and raise your voice,” McMorrow said. “But that requires leadership that understands how to engage with voters in a way that treats them as more than a number, not just a voter, not just a donor.”

McMorrow’s position seemed just as strong after she drew her opponents: Abdul El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive who had served as public health director in Detroit, and Haley Stevens, a four-term House Democrat with close ties to party leaders in Washington. Each was formidable in their own ways, but McMorrow had the makings of a Goldilocks candidate who could rally both progressives and moderates, winning over those eager to shake up the establishment and those not quite ready to ditch it.

It hasn’t worked out that way. On Sunday, with polls showing her well behind both rivals and the August 4 primary less than a month away, McMorrow formally suspended her campaign. In a video to go with the announcement, she dedicated herself to electing Democrats in November, including the eventual Senate nominee.

Who that will be is anybody’s guess. McMorrow had been under pressure to withdraw from Stevens supporters and members of the Democratic establishment, reportedly including Gary Peters, the retiring senator whose seat she was seeking. Their theory was that Stevens would get most of the McMorrow vote. But El-Sayed’s team has been touting a poll suggesting he’ll get more. And while it’s an internal poll, winning even a significant minority of McMorrow’s backers could be enough to secure him the nomination.

Plenty of Democratic primary voters in Michigan are just starting to pay attention, making the outcome especially hard to predict right now. But it’s not too early to ask why McMorrow’s campaign failed to live up to those initial, lofty expectations. And while there’s no single, definitive answer, it’s possible to come up with explanatory theories that fit the available facts, including an explanation that says

Read more