When Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow ended her Senate campaign Sunday, it marked the end of a bid for a candidate who entered with considerable fanfare and a national brand, seen by many as a rising star in the party.
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The organizers of the 2024 Democratic National Convention gave McMorrow a coveted speaking slot to take aim at Project 2025. She received loud cheers in the arena for her passionate address — which memorably included a large copy of the pro-Trump policy blueprint — and was able to introduce herself to millions more Americans nationwide as a young and up-and-coming leader in the party.
Less than two years later, McMorrow is out of the Michigan Senate race. She ended her campaign Sunday, after polling a distant third in the August primary. And she is far from alone among the 2024 Democratic convention speakers floundering on the national stage.
She joins Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, influencers Deja Foxx and Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg, and Republicans-turned-Democrats Kyle Sweetser and former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who have all lost contested primaries since speaking at the 2024 convention.
And there are more who could join their ranks soon: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz looks likely to be the victim of redistricting in Florida, while Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez has trailed two rivals in polls dating back to the spring. Both face primary voters next month. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, meanwhile, advanced to a general election runoff against a Democratic rival, progressive City Council member Nithya Raman, in a close race, while Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, another convention speaker, is locked in a tight Senate primary with Rep. Angie Craig.
Other convention speakers, like McMorrow, have cut campaigns short, including Olivia Troye, a former Trump administration official who ended her congressional bid after the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a new congressional map that voters approved; former Rep. Colin Allred, who ended his Senate campaign in Texas before winning a primary for his old House seat; and California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, who dropped out of the competitive gubernatorial race and instead launched a bid for state treasurer.
Democratic strategists across the party’s ideological spectrum said they found the trend to be notable, if only because it put a huge spotlight on an issue they’re grappling with on the campaign trail: Having connections to the party’s establishment is increasingly doing candidates more harm than good.
“A prime-time slot at the convention is starting to look less like a launchpad and more like a warning label,” said Democratic strategist Alyssa Cass, adding, “In this environment, the establishment’s blessing is a liability.”
“What this all says to me is just how much they have become gatekeepers to a party no one wants to come to,” continued Cass, who has worked with candidates including Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., and New York state Rep. Alex Bores, who fell short in a House primary last month.
This trend is an outlier with other recent Democratic nominating conventions, where fewer speakers have gone down in defeat within the first two years following their speeches. In 2020, only a handful of such candidates found themselves on the losing end of primary elections: Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta both went down to then-Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in a contested Senate primary; former DNC Chairman Tom Perez lost a gubernatorial primary in Maryland; then-Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried fell in her state’s primary for governor; and businessman and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang lost a primary contest for New York City mayor.
Even fewer lost such races following the 2016 convention. That cycle saw then-Rep. Joe Crowley of New York lose a primary contest to now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Californians Loretta Sanchez and Kevin de León lost general elections for Senate to Democrats in their state in successive years.
Tré Easton, a former top Senate staffer for Fetterman, who now works at the Searchlight Institute, a new liberal think tank, said that while he doesn’t believe there is “a straight line” between speaking at the convention and losing these contested primaries, voters are viewing candidates “who remotely reek of establishment or status quo” skeptically.
“I think Democratic primary voters are pissed,” he said, adding, “It isn’t that surprising that folks who’d have enough establishment cred to receive a speaking slot at Kamala Harris’ nominating convention aren’t faring well in this type of environment.”
The Democratic National Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman under then-President Joe Biden, said a through line he sees in these primaries where convention speakers have fallen short is a voter desire for ambitious economic reforms and a more direct party leadership.
“Some Democrats, including me, were so fixated on the danger Trump and MAGA represented that too much energy was spent ‘admiring the problem’ and there wasn’t enough listening to the voters,” he said. “So the party’s answers to folks’ biggest questions were inadequate, and it could seem like reflexively defending institutions, or even pushing cancel culture, were bigger priorities than fighting for economic opportunity and the safety of communities.”
The only convention speakers who have so far emerged from substantial primary contests are Rep. Grace Meng of New York, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms — who won a deeply contested primary for governor in her state, a race that also featured a fellow convention speaker in Duncan — and former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who won a primary for governor in New Mexico.
Progressives have long taken issue with how the 2024 convention handled Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ attack Oct. 7, 2023. Most notably, Democrats did not platform a Palestinian American speaker to address the convention. Now, these DNC speakers ran or are running in races where candidates’ positions on Israel have emerged as a dividing line.
“That refusal still casts a long shadow,” Andrew Bard Epstein, communications director for Claire Valdez, a democratic socialist and New York state assemblywoman who just won a contested congressional primary last month, said of Democrats choosing not to have a Palestinian speaker at the convention. “It’s not surprising the people who made this decision are no longer capable of spotting rising stars.”
To be sure, the 2024 convention featured a number of speakers who do look to play a key role in the party’s future as the next presidential cycle approaches, including Ocasio-Cortez and Govs. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Wes Moore of Maryland, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, among others. And some of the losing candidates faced dynamics in their campaigns that were divorced from national trends, such as Foxx, who had to contend with running against the daughter of the congressman she sought to succeed, and Schlossberg, who was hammered by his opponents on his inexperience and thin résumé.
A Democratic strategist who has worked with center-left candidates this cycle said the trend is not necessarily indicative of a divide between progressives and moderates. Rather, they see it as insider versus outsider.
“Voters remember the 2024 DNC as the party where everyone told them we’d win and then we lost,” said this person, speaking on condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “Why in the world would they reward that crew? … So it shouldn’t be a surprise that not getting invited to the DNC is a better tagline than having gotten on that stage.”
Notably, even as far-left candidates are finding new success in unseating incumbents in recent weeks, Democratic nominees in swing districts overwhelmingly hail from the party’s center-left wing. But even some of their allies worry that these more moderate leaders are out of step with the electorate.
“I just worry that centrist Dems are missing the moment,” said one Democratic operative in Pennsylvania, speaking on condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment, adding, “I think you see folks like McMorrow, who weren’t even centrists, but just wanted to be a little bit of everything. … And people were like, ‘Well, that’s nothing.’”
“Sometimes we think we know who our best folks are on the bench,” this person added. “But then the voters show up and say, ‘Absolutely not, we need more than this.’”
