Ann Althouse mentions that the following is the top-rated comment at this NY Times article:

Third Way and some other centrist [Democrat] groups seem far more interested in defeating progressives than defeating MAGA and far more interested in telling Democratic voters they’re wrong than earning their votes. If moderates are losing, then the problem is with those candidates, not the progressives who beat them.

Top-rated comment? But it seems to be ignoring the difference between primary elections and general elections, a distinction that’s been known for just about forever. What appeals to the primary voter in a party tends to be more extreme than what will win in the general – not always, but often.

It’s a problem that doesn’t exist in deep blue or deep red states; in such venues, the candidate of the majority party almost inevitably wins. But in states that are at least potential toss-ups in the general, one way to deal with the dichotomy between the primary and the general is to manage to nominate a candidate who is perfectly positioned: extreme enough to satisfy the “base” but moderate enough to appeal to the more moderate voters in the state. Another way to deal with it in such states is to have the nominated candidate pretend to be moderate in the general election, but show his or her extreme leftism only after the win. Call it the Spanberger approach.

Then again, perhaps the author of the most-favored comment believes that extreme leftists really are in the majority, or can control the outcome of elections through fraud.

Note that Michigan’s El-Sayed won the primary election with less than 50% of the vote from Democrats. He beat his Democrat opponent Stevens by a tiny margin, and some of the votes went to distant third-place candidate Mallory McMorrow, who had previously withdrawn from the race and yet received 4% of the vote. McMorrow’s withdrawal was widely thought (and I agree) to have been an effort to increase Stevens’ changes of a win. If so, it didn’t work. But if Michigan had a system whereby primary winners had to receive 50% or more of the vote, it would have forced a runoff. Who would have won such a race? I can’t say.

Nor can I say who will win the general in Michigan, El-Sayed or Rogers (the Republican). Needless to say, I sincerely hope it’s the latter.