Self-described “lefties” like Muthukuda came out in droves after Trump’s election with a sense of duty to become politically active. Many say they were motivated not only by a distaste for Trump, but inspiration from Sanders’ campaign.

Progressive planks usually include pushes for universal health care and a $15 minimum wage, and a roiling frustration with politicians who accept money from interest groups and large political action committees, or PACs.

Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan, said the lure of such policies predates Sanders’ campaign.

“Progressive issues have won on the ballot even in states where Democratic candidates have not,” Scott said.

In 2014, for example, Alaskans legalized recreational marijuana, while voters in Arkansas, Nebraska, Alaska and South Dakota raised their minimum wages.

“Now elected officials are catching up with where the policies are,” he said.

Other progressives express exasperation with a Democratic Party they contend panders to moderates while leaving potential votes from its base on the table.

“I honestly think the real momentum is in the progressive movement,” said Kelly Collison, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party Progressive Caucus. “The thing we need to do is actually just go left and pick up all these people.”

More than 48,000 people who voted in the 2016 Democratic Party primary did not vote in the general election, according to data Collison said she obtained from the Secretary of State’s voter registration database. These numbers suggest that many Sanders supporters stayed home, rather than hold their nose and back Clinton.

Fred Woodhams, spokesman for the Michigan Secretary of State, said his office hasn’t analyzed the data in this way, so he could not confirm whether Collison’s numbers are accurate.

Collison said she fears the same will happen this November if Democrats can’t unite.

Yet if Democrats veer too far left in the primaries, they run the same risk in a general election as Republicans who swing too far right: Unable to win the support of the state’s moderate and undecided voters.

That’s a concern for Scott Bell, another leader of the Lansing-area Indivisible group, who calls himself a “realistic progressive.” Count Bell as a believer in incremental change, which can put him at odds with the urgency felt by his peers.

“We’re arguing for big, grandiose ideas,” he said. If progressives were in power, it might be possible to make all the changes they want at once. “But right now,” he said, “that is not possible.

“You’re literally just screaming at a wall.”

Veering to the left

Regardless of whichever candidates prevail Sunday at the party’s endorsement convention, there is little question that the party’s left wing has gained clout since 2016. Progressive women, veterans and people of color are running for office and making their voices heard in a party that Bell said too often produces “milquetoast” candidates.

“Now we’re at the point where the people who have the most skin in the game — the middle class and the lower class — have jumped in and said enough is enough,” Bell said.

Ann Arbor businessman and gubernatorial candidate Shri Thanedar calls himself a “fiscally savvy Bernie Sanders” on the campaign trail, though doubts are being raised about his bona fides. Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit health director, has former Sanders campaign organizers on staff and vows to accept no corporate PAC money. And Whitmer talks about her 2012 initiative to fund free college education and her 2013 fight to expand Medicaid.

Whitmer’s challengers are attacking her progressive credentials, in large part because of her acceptance of corporate campaign contributions — namely from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Her willingness to accept the donations is “antithetical” to the desires of Democratic voters, said El-Sayed, who notes that single-payer health care is becoming a more central plank for Democratic voters nationally. “It speaks to the overall mismatch between where Democrats are and where the Democratic Party should be.”

Whitmer spokeswoman Annie Ellison counters that Whitmer “has been on the front of progressive issues for a really long time. But being in the (legislative) minority, she's also learned how to work with a Republican governor or a Republican Legislature to get things done.”

Whitmer also has locked up numerous endorsements from unions, which have long held sway over state Democratic politics, despite being weakened in recent years.

But union leaders, too, are seeking to close divides with progressives. They note that labor has reliably supported worker-focused, progressive causes for years, from repealing the state’s right-to-work law to pushing for a $15 hourly minimum wage and expanding voter rights.

“I’ve been a progressive all my life,” said Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, which backs Whitmer for governor and Miles for Attorney General.

“If you look at the issues that they’re pushing, they’re our issues, for the most part,” Bieber said. “I can’t draw a line of distinction where we’re not on the same page.”

For all the setbacks, unions still hold enormous sway, remaining among the top donors to state House and Senate Democratic funds. Whether they can convince many of their own members to return to the Democratic fold remains an open question.

“Trump came in and seduced some of our members with his promises on trade,” Bieber said. “We’re going to put the facts out there and let our members decide. Frankly, we’re going to call balls and strikes on Trump.”

Bieber said that no matter which candidates win the Democratic nod for state races, labor will back them. It’s the only way to reverse what he calls the GOP’s anti-worker policies of the last eight years, from passage of right to work to the erosion of retirement and unemployment benefits.

Gender on the ticket

Ideological unity isn’t Democrats’ only challenge this election cycle. Gender issues are bubbling beneath the statewide campaigns.

The party conceivably could put up an all-female slate of candidates this November, should Whitmer, Benson and Nessel win their nominations. That prospect has prompted some in the party to quietly question such an outcome this fall.

In January, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan — one of the state’s most influential Democratic politicians — worked behind the scenes with union leaders to recruit other candidates as an alternative to Whitmer. Among the names floated were U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, of Flint Township, and U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, of Bloomfield Township, both of whom declined.

Duggan later endorsed Whitmer’s candidacy, telling reporters that “Gretchen Whitmer is the best candidate in my view. She’s our candidate moving forward, 150 percent.”

While some Democratic insiders said the recruiting campaign was inspired by concerns about Whitmer’s electability, others expressed concern that sexism was seeping into the campaign even as the nation reckons with how to respond to a troubling pattern of sexual harassment and assault.

Record numbers of female candidates are running for office across the U.S., many motivated by Trump’s presidency.

Women voters in particular are motivated and increasingly supporting Democrats, said Richard Czuba, a Lansing-based pollster with The Glengariff Group Inc. And independent voters in Michigan are leaning more to the left than they have in past election cycles, according to a poll Czuba conducted in January for The Detroit News and WDIV-TV.

The poll found if independent voters were to choose today, they’d be nearly 10 percent more likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans.

“Democrats’ favorite pastime is to eat their own. Whitmer is a perfect example,” Czuba told Bridge.

When polling showed Whitmer leading Republican frontrunner Bill Schuette by 7 points, even with concerns about her name recognition, “I didn’t hear one Republican voice out there saying, ‘Oh, we need to get rid of Schuette.’ And yet you have these voices in the Democratic Party — coming largely from men — that Whitmer’s not strong enough. Yet step back (and) look at this race: Clear frontrunner, wrapped-up endorsement and largely cleared the field from any known male names. If anybody else was running, you’d look at them and say, ‘That’s been pretty effective.’”

Byrum, the former House Democratic Leader, said Trump’s election was an “awakening” for women afraid of what his policies, behavior and comments about women could mean for their families and children.

“Women are always underestimated,” she said, “and it’s hard to put together a campaign that will outwork a female. I’d put my money on Gretchen Whitmer right now.”

Scott, of Progress Michigan, said that comparing Whitmer to other female politicians such as Clinton based on gender alone “is playing right into Republicans’ hands … that’s also sexist,” he said. “Every candidate should be judged on their own merits.”

A blue wave?

In a packed Saginaw union hall in March, with the words “Laborers vote! Laborers win!” painted on the walls, the four Democratic gubernatorial candidates (Whitmer, El-Sayed, Thanedar and business executive Bill Cobbs) explained why they should lead the party’s comeback.