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The role of party conventions and assemblies is sparking heated debate in the Democratic Party as it seeks to both capitalize on anti-Trump sentiment and anoint candidates who can win general elections. Some Democrats see closed, activist-driven state party events as opportunities to tap into powerful grassroots energy, but others worry that the functions are brewing a liberal version of the anti-establishment tea party.
That split will be in full view this weekend in Rochester, Minn., as Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a rising progressive star, faces off against Rep. Angie Craig, a battle-tested centrist, for the party’s Senate nomination.
“I’m perilously close to devoting the rest of my life to seeing these conventions ended,” said Joe Radinovich, a former state legislator and longtime Democratic strategist in Minnesota who supports Craig. It’s a “challenge for people who win in competitive places to then seek to elevate themselves through this process.”
Flanagan is widely expected to win the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsement, but Craig is nonetheless competing for party backing ahead of their August primary battle. Lexi Byler, a Flanagan spokesperson, predicted victory at the convention and defended the event as “one of the few places in politics where grassroots organizing and talking directly to voters still matters more than money.”
Yet nominating conventions are proving divisive for Democrats across the country. Both Colorado Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet — who is running for governor — skipped their party’s assembly, choosing to duke it out on the primary ballot against more progressive challengers. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., is soldiering on after losing the party’s top ballot line at his convention to former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin.
Michigan is already weighing changes to its process after its convention devolved into a spectacle of booing by progressive activists that prompted their favorite candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, to reach out to centrist foe Rep. Haley Stevens and call the conduct “unbecoming.” The state may move its primary earlier, make some positions gubernatorially appointed, and shift some statewide races to a regular primary rather than the convention.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., acknowledged to Semafor that the convention scene this spring was not helpful, advising Democrats to “root for our own candidates and organize for our own candidates without being nasty and punitive.”
“I’m kind of done with Democrats being a circular firing squad,” she added. “When we’ve got Trump in the White House doing what he’s doing. I think he’s more than happy to have Democrats at each other’s throats.”
The consequences from the Michigan convention ran deep enough for Democrats to propel a re-examination of nomination votes for university trustees and the state attorney general. El-Sayed didn’t get endorsed over Mallory McMorrow or Stevens, the preferred Senate candidate of many establishment Democrats, but Stevens got jeered for the entirety of her speech to delegates.
“Conventions should be places of enthusiasm and open dialogue and actual discussions on the issues and what Democrats ought to stand for,” said Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich. “It’s when they start to get to a place of disrespect and shouting down voices and calling people names, that’s something I don’t think we have the time for.”
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