JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Here's a data point to consider. In Wisconsin, the margin of victory in the Democratic primary for governor is about half a percentage point, around 4,000 votes in over 750,000 votes cast. That was one of several races last night and this summer, pitting more progressive candidates against more moderate ones. Let's try to pick out some trends with Amanda Litman. She's the president of Run for Something. That's an organization supporting young Democrats who are seeking office. Hi there.

AMANDA LITMAN: Hi.

SUMMERS: I mean, there's just so much ground to cover on the map from a big primary day yesterday. I want to start in Wisconsin, where the Democratic primary for governor saw the more moderate candidate, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, prevail quite narrowly over state legislator Francesca Hong, who's a Democratic socialist. And I'll just note that leading up to this race, for people who are watching the polls, Hong was overwhelmingly leading in most public polls. What is your big takeaway from that race?

LITMAN: You know, people tuned in right in the last couple days. We know that there was a ton of money spent on behalf of David Crowley. He was running a ton of ads on the air. And Francesca, who had ran a really strong campaign, started polling basically at 0%, had thousands of volunteers and came from behind, you know, really did crumble a little bit in the final week, did some interviews she, I think, came to regret, had a tough time running away from some of her past sillier tweets. And David was able to close it out, in part, with the establishment really circling the wagons around him. You know, the polls captured a snapshot in time, but as we have seen, they are not predictive.

SUMMERS: And so much of the conversation around Hong was really about whether she had the ability to win a general election in the swing state, especially given some of her previous statements, including supporting defunding the police, for example. What did you make about the discourse around her specifically and her electability?

LITMAN: You know, I think it is a little bit unfounded. We don't know. We don't know. And in a year like 2026, where we have seen really wild results from some of these elections, maybe she could have won. I do think that it would have been hard. She would have had to bring in a really different team. She would have had to raise a ton of money. The Republicans would have had a lot of material there, but I don't think we should rule it out entirely.

I do think a lot of the conversation around her was really problematic in many ways, dismissing her as sort of a faculty lounge - you know, I think one pundit called it, like, exotica. She was a working-class chef, an immigrant, didn't graduate from college. She is none of those things. She just really had some really strong beliefs, especially back in 2020 and the years since and communicated them in a way that I think maybe now she would do it a little bit differently.

SUMMERS: Yeah. Moving to neighboring Minnesota, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan won the nomination for the Senate seat over House Representative Angie Craig. And people have described this race, also, as the more progressive candidate prevailing to some extent. And immigration just played a huge role in this race. Tell us what you saw.

LITMAN: You know, Angie Craig, within the first couple of days of the Trump 2.0, voted for the Laken Riley Act - that very aggressive, very anti-immigrant bill that the Republican Congress pushed through and Trump signed. A year and a half later, that seems to have been a huge mistake, especially what we saw in Minnesota with ICE showing up, killing Minnesotans in the streets. This is not what voters wanted.

Peggy Flanagan, lieutenant governor, ran a really strong campaign that was able to go across the coalition. She handily won that election yesterday, and I think people are underrating that when we talk about, you know, the simple establishment versus insurgent conversation from Tuesday.

SUMMERS: Amanda, if you take these results, as well as the narrow victory for progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan primary for Senate, there seem to be just a lot of upper Midwest hunger for new voices, but also some hand-wringing about them, it seems. Can you consider these altogether?

LITMAN: Yeah. I think even seeing - you know, Francesca lost but, as you noted, by only half a percentage point. She got close to 40% of the vote. Democratic primary voters are sick of the status quo. They want change. They want people who were not part of getting us into this mess to help get us out of it. I think we're seeing them explore different kinds of candidates, different kinds of campaigns and seeing candidates who are really singing out of a bigger songbook or talking about taking big swings to solve our problems. It is not enough just to say, you know, I can stop Trump. I will fight Trump. It's what else are you going to do?

SUMMERS: I do want to ask you, also, about what we saw happen in Connecticut, where 14-term Democratic Congressman John Larson was successfully challenged by former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who's 31 years his younger. And Run for Something - your organization - supports young Democrats running for office. Is this a trend? It seems to be - on its face to be not a great time to be an older Democrat seeking reelection.

LITMAN: You know, I called last year for every Democrat over the age of 75 to make this their last term. I stand by that. These older leaders, when they have to fight and defend their seats and make an affirmative case why they are the right people right now, they're having a tough time doing it. Congressman Larson, in particular, had had some health struggles, had some communication issues. And there's a very viral video where he goes to a local farmers market and doesn't understand what making content is and doesn't know what boba tea is - you know, seemed pretty out of touch with where normal Connecticuters are. You've got to be able to communicate and to understand where your voters are in this moment. And that's not to say that every 75- or 80-year-old can't do it, but he definitely couldn't.

SUMMERS: Pushing back a little bit here - I wonder - if I were to have someone like Congressman Larson or another veteran lawmaker on the line here, they might argue that experience matters, that they know how to legislate, that they know how the system works to be able to effectively represent their constituents. What do you make of that argument?

LITMAN: Have they proven it over the last two years, four years, eight years, 10 years, 14 years? We have seen, in the last, especially, 18 months, most establishment members of Congress have folded. They have bent the knee to Trump. They have not indicated the kind of courage or conviction that their voters are really showing. They're - maybe know how the system works, but they're not using that knowledge to any good ends. So what's the point? Might as well try someone new.

SUMMERS: We've been speaking with Amanda Litman. Her organization is Run for Something. Amanda, thanks.

LITMAN: Any time. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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