Democratic primaries hand Schumer two losses in a week, but Wisconsin holds for the center

The Democratic Party's internal war between progressives and the establishment produced a split verdict Tuesday. The left won a lopsided Senate primary in Minnesota while the center survived Wisconsin's governor's race by a margin far narrower than any public poll predicted. The results are a second consecutive setback for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, whose preferred candidates have lost in Michigan and Minnesota in back-to-back weeks.

Minnesota tips a Senate seat the GOP hadn't counted on

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan defeated moderate Rep. Angie Craig by roughly 20 points in the Democratic Senate primary, backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Flanagan will face Republican Michele Tafoya, a former longtime NBC Sports reporter, in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith. Republicans haven't won a U.S. Senate race in Minnesota in 24 years; Flanagan's nomination may give the GOP an opening the party didn't expect to have.

Flanagan has said that, if elected, she would not support Schumer continuing as Senate Democratic leader. That position follows El-Sayed's win in Michigan a week earlier, where Schumer's preferred candidate, Rep. Haley Stevens, also lost. The progressive wing now holds primary wins in two consecutive Midwestern battleground contests.

Wisconsin is where the clean narrative breaks

The case for a progressive sweep breaks down in Wisconsin. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley defeated state Rep. Francesca Hong in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, backed by retiring Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The final pre-primary polls showed Hong with a healthy double-digit lead, and they were wrong again.

Hong, a Democratic Socialists of America member, ran on raising Wisconsin's minimum wage from $7.25 to $20 per hour and a one-year moratorium on AI data center construction in the state. Pro-GOP super PACs, including one aligned with the Republican Governors Association, spent to boost her because they viewed her as the weakest Democrat in the general election. Crowley will face Rep. Tom Tiffany, a House Freedom Caucus member backed by Trump, in November.

The counterargument, and what the facts actually resolve

The counterargument is real: Crowley won. He did it after a chaotic cycle in which two major competitors, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, had already left the race. Crowley himself had suspended his campaign, endorsed Rodriguez, and re-entered. Winning under those conditions counts.

But Republican outside money actively worked to put Hong on the November ballot. A victory that required the opposing party's super PACs to shape the field is harder to claim as a clean demonstration of center-left strength.

On balance, Tuesday confirms a pattern that has defined the 2026 Democratic primary season. Progressives are winning Senate primaries. The center is holding in governor's races, but narrowly, and only after the field collapsed around them. The generational pressure runs beneath both dynamics regardless of ideology. Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, 78, who has served in Congress for nearly three decades, became the seventh House Democrat ousted this primary season, losing by double digits to 47-year-old former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in Connecticut's 1st Congressional District, where the debate was entirely about age.