WASHINGTON – A progressive House candidate whose surge in a battleground district in Michigan has alarmed Democratic party officials once said Black U.S. political leaders are a “pillar” of the “capitalist, imperialist” American establishment whose backing for Democratic leadership “defangs the white left.”
William Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement who is running for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 7th congressional district, made his comments on the Sept. 10, 2024 episode of his podcast, Hegemonicon, which featured conversations about social movements and politics.
“The extent to which the older generation of Black political leadership are such a pillar, frankly, for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power through their role as this kind of traditionalist, establishment-ist pillar of the Democratic Party, it’s a big problem,” Lawrence said around the 41:48 mark of the podcast. “It’s a big problem for left politics in this country. And it gets us every single time. It really defangs the white left and puts us in impossible positions, really.”
Lawrence said Friday he regrets his past comments, which were part of a conversation about Black liberation with his guest, Khury Petersen-Smith, a young Black activist and the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
“I have tremendous respect for Black community leaders, who have been at the forefront of the fight for freedom for centuries,” he told HuffPost in a statement. “This was in the context of a wide-ranging conversation with a guest on the show about racial dynamics in progressive politics. I regret how this specific point was expressed.”
Lawrence is running in a toss-up district covering much of south-central Michigan on a left-wing platform. The seat is currently held by Republican Tom Barrett and is seen as one of the Democratic Party’s best pickup opportunities in 2026, with Democratic and Republican super PACs already reserving $22 million worth of airtime for a general election battle.
The fight for the Democratic nomination here had long been seen as a fight between Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL, and Bridget Brink, a diplomat who served as ambassador to Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion. Both candidates had raised millions of dollars as of March, far outpacing Lawrence.
But the 35-year-old Lawrence has surged in recent weeks, earning the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive favorite in the state’s U.S. Senate race. The race is now seen as firmly a three-way contest.
A national Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to frankly discuss the party’s chances in the seat, said party officials feared Lawrence would be the worst of both worlds electorally, arguing he would bring the baggage of leftist politics without outsider credentials.
“He has all of the downside and none of the upside of a candidate like El-Sayed,” the strategist said. “Could he win? Maybe. But we’d be making it considerably harder for ourselves by nominating someone whose views are extreme and whose background is part of a system voters hate.”
Lawrence’s campaign is clearly aware of electability concerns, and released an internal poll this week showing him narrowly leading Barrett.
In one sign that the party’s establishment is freaking out about Lawrence’s bid, a Democratic political action committee called “Crush MAGA PAC” is spending $532,000 on a new attack ad against him in his Michigan district. It accuses Lawrence of “running a dark money organization” investing in “Wall Street, big oil, and data centers” and campaigning “against Democrats.”
Parts of the ad are incredibly misleading. The investments in “Wall Street, big oil, and data centers” refer to the $11,000 in his retirement fund. The claim that he campaigned “against Democrats” by voting “uncommitted” in the 2024 primary ignores the context of what was happening at the time: 100,000 Michigan voters used their primary vote that year as a form of protest over both parties supporting the genocide in Gaza.
The ad also doesn’t mention that Lawrence campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, voted for the Democratic ticket and publicly encouraged others to do the same, even if he did register his reservations about Harris and now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
In a statement, Lawrence ripped Crush MAGA PAC’s connections to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose super PAC funneled money to a group linked to Crush MAGA. Progressives have increasingly pulled away from pro-Israel groups over their unconditional support for the Israeli government amid the Gaza genocide. AIPAC has also advocated for Trump’s military action in Iran, despite the war being deeply unpopular among Americans.
“A SuperPAC run by D.C. insiders and tied to [pro-Israel groups] is spreading ridiculous smears about me because I’m the only candidate who will take on the billionaire class and the pro-war lobby,” he said. “I’m focused on beating Tom Barrett. The D.C. consultants should be doing the same.”
A key part of Lawrence’s rise, strategists working on the race said, has been his outspoken opposition to data centers — which put him in direct competition with many Democratic leaders in the state who have sided with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and boosted the projects as a way to create jobs and improve the state’s economy.
In his first ad of the campaign, Lawrence instead slams the data centers as a drain that will ruin landscapes and “tank property values.”
“Will Lawrence won’t let us be bullied by big corporations,” a local property owner says at the conclusion of the 30-second ad.
A second major factor is the rise of El-Sayed, who is in a neck-and-neck race with Rep. Haley Stevens for the state’s Democratic Senate nomination. Many Democrats in the district are linking the two progressives, who have cross-endorsed each other and are set to campaign with Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) next week in Lansing.
Both Maasdam and Brink, however, are still winning large chunks of El-Sayed voters in internal polls, in part because they have touted anti-corruption bona fides which appeal to left-leaning primary voters. Maasdam has declined corporate PAC money and supported a ban on congressional stock trading, and Brink has highlighted her work in Ukraine to ensure American funds were not wasted.
Maasdam has been the beneficiary of most outside spending in the race, with his campaign and its allies outspending Brink by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, though little has been spent to boost Lawrence so far.