I’ve previously written about the quandary faced by far-leftist DSA members/supporters in the general election. After winning the primary as radicals, how do they convincingly tack at least a bit towards the middle?

Here’s how one candidate for the US House of Representatives from Michigan’s 7th District, William Lawrence, dealt with it (the clip is about two and a half minutes long):

William Lawrence’s life story resembles so many other DSA member profiles, although it doesn’t include immigrant parents or having been born in another country. Lawrence was born in Madison, Wisconsin, a deep blue university community, but was raised in East Lansing, Michigan (another university community), son of two law professors at Michigan State University. He graduated from Swarthmore (sociology and anthropolgy degree) – a deeply leftist college – and was a climate activist there and ever since, as well as having been trained in community organizing. And of course, he says Israel has committed genocide.

In that clip of Lawrence explaining his DSA membership lapse, he looks a bit like a deer in the headlights. And yet he managed, in a fairly purple district, to defeat two formidable (and fairly moderate) rival Democrats: Ambassador Bridget Brink and former Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam. Brink was an ambassador to Ukraine appointed by Biden, and in her mid-50s as opposed to Lawrence’s 36.

If you look at the primary results, you can see a familiar pattern. Lawrence got less than half: 43.7%, to be exact. But his two opponents split the difference fairly evenly: 28.8% for Brink and 27.6% for Maasdam. What would have happened had one of them dropped out? I can’t say, but there’s certainly a good chance the remaining candidate might have gotten nearly all the other’s votes and beaten Lawrence.

That didn’t happen. Lawrence will go up against Tom Barrett, the GOP incumbent, but it’s considered a swing district.