Progressives See Biggest Win Yet in Michigan While Trump Flexes Power Over GOP
The Morning Buzz: August 5, 2026
1. Progressives See Biggest Win Yet in Michigan While Trump Flexes Power Over GOP
Saige Miller at NPR writes that in Tuesday’s primary elections, voters in Michigan chose progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed as the Democratic nominee for Senate, defeating Rep. Haley Stevens, who was backed by the party’s establishment wing. While Trump-backed candidates in Washington state, Kansas, and Michigan won their party’s nominations. Kansas voters also rejected a Republican-backed proposal to make state supreme court justices elected rather than appointed, and Missouri voters rejected a Republican-led legislature proposal to make it harder to pass future amendments to the state constitution. PRRI finds that 25% of Michiganders identify as liberal, 35% as moderate, and 38% as conservative.
2. Judge Dismisses Jan. 6 Seditious Conspiracy Charges Against Oath Keepers
For the Washington Post, Salvador Rizzo reports that federal judge Amit P. Mehta agreed to dismiss the seditious-conspiracy case against the leader of the Oath Keepers at the request of the Justice Department, marking the end of the legal process to wipe out penalties for Jan. 6 rioters. Judge Timothy J. Kelly, who ruled similarly last month to dismiss charges against the Proud Boys, said judges are constrained to drop charges once prosecutors ask them to. According to PRRI’s 2025 American Values Survey, the slight majority of Americans (51%) have little or no confidence in the Department of Justice. In 2024, PRRI found that around four in ten Americans (39%) agreed that Democrats have weaponized the Department of Justice to try and silence Donald Trump and his supporters, compared with 57% who disagreed.
3. Inside the Democrats’ Push to Win Back Religious Voters
The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Kuo explores the growing number of white Christian ministers running for state and federal office as Democrats. While two Black clergy members currently serve in Congress as Democrats, President Trump and the Republican Party have had a strong hold on white Christian voters over the past decade, with PRRI data consistently showing that white evangelical Protestants are the religious group that holds the most favorable views of Trump. According to the 2025 PRRI Census of American Religion, more than eight in ten Republicans are Christian (84%), with 68% of Republicans identifying as white Christian. Among Democrats, a majority are Christian (57%), but less than a quarter are white Christians (23%).
4. Kansas Voters Reject Another Attempt to Reshape the State’s Abortion Landscape
Shefali Luthra with the 19th reports on Kansas residents’ vote to reject a ballot measure, put forward by conservative legislators, that would have made Supreme Court justices electable by popular vote. Reproductive rights advocates in the state argued the measure was an attempt to overturn abortion rights in the state by remaking Kansas’ high court. These rights were secured in 2019 with a court decision to maintain the right to abortion, and in 2022 when residents voted against a measure that would have overturned that court decision. This comes at a time when many of Kansas’ surrounding states, including Texas and Oklahoma, have nearly entirely banned abortions. The PRRI American Values Atlas finds that six in ten Americans (61%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do a slim majority of Kansans (52%).
What’s Buzzing
Learn more in the Survey Report: 2025 PRRI Census of American Religion