There are endorsement strategies and there are endorsement strategies where the endorser’s most recent Senate candidate dropped out two weeks ago amid a Nazi tattoo, a sexting scandal, and two sexual misconduct allegations, and Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are backing a new Senate candidate in Michigan this week, which Fox News is covering today under the headline “Bernie, AOC bet big on Senate hopeful in Democratic primary in must-win state.”
The Michigan race is for the seat being vacated by a retiring senator in a state that Trump won in 2024 and that Democrats need to flip to have any chance at a Senate majority. The candidate Bernie and AOC are backing is Lawrence, the progressive whose past statement that Black Democratic leaders “defang the white left” surfaced earlier this week in HuffPost reporting. He is running on Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, and ending US military aid to Israel, in a district that Trump won and where $22 million in general election advertising has already been reserved by both parties. He is, per polling, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary.
Bernie’s previous Senate endorsement was Graham Platner in Maine, who won his primary and dropped out 35 days later when he had accumulated a Nazi tattoo, a sexting scandal, a rape allegation from Jenny Racicot who told CNN’s Jake Tapper “by definition, yes, absolutely” when asked if Platner had raped her, and a second allegation from Lyndsey Fifield involving the non-consensual removal of a condom. Sanders withdrew his endorsement and issued a statement about values and sexual assault. He has since issued a new endorsement in a different state. The Maine seat remains in search of a replacement candidate after the July 13 deadline passed with no confirmed name on the ballot.
Michigan’s primary is this week. The seat is real. The stakes are the Senate majority. AOC’s endorsement track record at the Senate level is two progressive wins in New York in 2022 and a Senate candidate who wore a Nazi tattoo and dropped out in 2026.
When Bernie and AOC’s most recent Senate endorsee dropped out with a Nazi tattoo and two sex allegations and they immediately endorse someone new in a must-win state, which part of the endorsement process is being improved?
Sources
Fox News: Bernie, AOC bet big on Senate hopeful in Democratic primary in must-win state
Fox News: Bernie, AOC to team up with El-Sayed as Dem civil war moves to Michigan
