Primary Colors: You Can't Buy Elections From People Who Are Paying Attention

Last night, voters in five states told us something.

In Michigan, the Democratic establishment spent over $60 million to stop Abdul El-Sayed. AIPAC alone put nearly $30 million behind his opponent, the most it has ever spent on a single race. He was outspent nine to one on the airwaves.

He won anyway.

In Detroit, a crypto super PAC funded by Coinbase and Ripple spent over $2 million to protect a millionaire incumbent. Donavan McKinney, who grew up in the district’s poorest neighborhoods, won anyway.

And in Dearborn, Abbas Alawieh, an organizer of the Uncommitted movement, won his primary. If he wins in November, he’ll be the first Arab American ever to serve in Michigan’s state Senate.

Then there are the ballot measures.

Missouri Republicans asked voters to gut the citizen amendment process, the same tool Missourians used to pass Medicaid expansion, legalize marijuana, and guarantee abortion rights. Their plan would have let the reddest districts veto the will of the whole state, the highest bar of any state in the country. Voters rejected it FOUR to ONE.

Kansas Republicans asked voters to turn their Supreme Court into an elected, politicized body. They told the public it was about the “will of the voters.” They told anti-abortion groups it was about overturning the court’s abortion rights ruling. Kansas voters said no. And in that same state, Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the largest Methodist congregation in America, won the Democratic Senate primary. Kansas hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly a century. Watch that race anyway.

Anti-establishment Dems didn’t win them all. In St. Louis, Cori Bush lost her primary rematch to Wesley Bell, the AIPAC-backed Democrat who unseated her in 2024. And Trump-endorsed candidates won their primaries because his grip on Republican primary voters remains.

But when the question went to everyone, not just the loudest, voters rejected the schemes. When the money told Democrats who to pick, they picked for themselves. Eighty percent of Missouri voters is not a partisan number. That’s neighbors, across every line we’re told divides us, refusing to be managed.

Last night goes a long way to prove that you cannot buy a primary or angle in a ballot measure from people who are paying attention.

Keep voting like it’s your government.

Because it is.

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The Dad Briefs covers the civic, political, and quietly human stories that shape family life in America — with recipes along the way.