We The People 2026 Special primary coverage
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
MS Now presents the chart-topping original podcast, The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Each week, Nicole speaks with some of the people who inspire her the most. This week, former acting director of the FBI, Brian Driscoll. There's a lot of people that were pushed out that with no malice or thoughts of retribution in their heart want to serve and correct if there are broken pieces to pick them up and rebuild. And I think we're all going to be prepared for that no matter where we end up. The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, everybody, it's Rachel Maddow here. Forgive me popping in deer feed like this, but I wanted to tell you that more than a dozen of us from MSNOW are going to be in Texas on Saturday, September 26th. I'm going to be there. Lawrence O'Donnell will be there. So will Jen Psaki and Stephanie Ruhl and Ali Velshi and Chris Hayes and Jacob Soboroff and Simone Sanders Townsend and, and, and... A whole bunch of us are all going to be there in Texas. Tickets start at just over $30 each. It's in Arlington, just outside Dallas. There's a ton to do there. If you come, you'll get to meet all of us. You'll also get to meet everybody else there, all these other great people from our great MSNOW community. We'd love to see you.
And if you buy a ticket to the Texas event, you will get access to our new MSNOW membership free for a year. We're really excited about it. It launches later this summer. You'll be able to talk with me, talk with some of the other hosts. But Tickets for Texas are on sale now. You can learn more at ms.now slash together. Hope to see you in Texas. We're coming into the last poll closing of the night coming up on 11 p.m. Eastern. In Washington State, residents there vote by mail.
What states and races are MSNOW covering in tonight’s primary returns?
If you choose, so everybody gets sent a ballot so that you can return by mail. If you choose, instead of mailing in your ballot, you can take your ballot to a drop box or to a voting center. And if you do that, you have until 8 p.m. local time to do that. 8 p.m. local time is five seconds ago. So in Washington, there's a bunch of interesting races to watch. In terms of Democratic Party machinations, we've been watching the Democratic member of Congress, Marie Glusenkamp-Perez. She's sort of an outspoken centrist, kind of an idiosyncratic, interesting Democratic member of Congress. She's facing primary challengers in her southwestern Washington state district. It's an R-plus-2 district. Trump narrowly won that district in 2024.
She's narrowly won that race twice. So we'll be watching that. Washington is also a state where we've got the top two candidates advancing to the general election, regardless of which party they are in. So we'll be having a look at those Washington results when we are first starting to get them. We are still very closely, though, watching the Senate race in Michigan as the Democratic primary in the Michigan Senate race continues to be a real nail biter. The polling in this race shifted over time. It sort of made people think that there was going to be a really big difference in the early vote as compared to the same day vote. But I think a lot of the prognostication on this one is falling by the wayside as we now just have to watch the actual vote come in.
And what you see on the right side of your screen here is an interesting factor. We've got 42 percent of the vote here overall. You see how tight it is between Abdul Al-Sayed and Haley Stevens. But on the right side of your screen there, that is Mallory McMorrow, who was in this race until July 5th when she dropped out, but she is still on the ballot. And pulling 3.7% of the vote is no way to get yourself elected senator. But it is an interesting factor that may become really operative in terms of us understanding the dynamics of this race as they come in. Right now, the difference, she's got 22,861 votes. Mallory Morrow, again, she's not still in the race. Look at the difference between Abdul Al-Sayed and Haley Stevens.
It's 20,000 votes. So in a close race, every single vote can matter, and quirky dynamics in two-slash-three-way races can be potentially determinative.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:38
2
What states and races are MSNOW covering in tonight’s primary returns?
1:38–6:52
3
How is Washington State’s vote-by-mail and top-two primary system affecting results?
6:52–11:11
4
Why is the Michigan Democratic Senate primary seen as a bellwether in 2026?
11:11–16:02
5
How are polling models and early-vote vs. same-day vote assumptions shaping expectations?
16:02–47:30
6
What local dynamics in Detroit, Wayne County, and Hamtramck could decide the Michigan primary?
47:30–51:45
Speakers
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