William Lawrence Dropped the DSA Publicly, but Sources Say They Never Left His Campaign
People inside the campaign also credit Brink staying in the primary with helping Lawrence win
East Lansing – After William Lawrence’s primary win, he quickly disavowed the Democratic Socialists of America in a CNN interview, but sources inside his campaign say the DSA became even more deeply embedded in his campaign. They know that media scrutiny would require disguising who is actually working for him, and who he is working for.
Speaking to Michigan Enjoyer under the condition of anonymity, sources say key DSA activists and campaign aides inside the Lawrence campaign grew paranoid around Lawrence’s ties to the radical organization.
“They’re incredibly aggressive, organized and focused, well-trained in recruiting, staffing, and activism, but they’re also revolutionaries used to operating under the radar and in the shadows. They’re distrustful and not used to getting this type of attention,” one source explained.
Due to the added media scrutiny, Lawrence’s team allegedly decided it was best if the national and local DSA orgs not officially endorse his campaign out of fear it could repel average voters and invite further conservative attacks. Lawrence—much like Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed—is sophisticated enough to run a “wink wink” Trojan Horse campaign.
The more eye-opening reveal was the gamesmanship of the primary itself.
A battleground congressional seat once held by Sen. Elissa Slotkin and currently held by Republican Tom Barrett, the Democrat primary received less media attention than the fight between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens, but for close observers, it will go down as one of the more bizarre fights in recent years.
Lawrence entered the race in late August 2025, more than a month after former U.S. ambassador Bridget Brink and former Navy Seal Matt Maasdam. Polling data throughout the race had Lawrence in the lead by such healthy margins that discussion soon turned to which of the two establishment candidates should drop out.
Neither Brink nor Maasdam blinked, despite having little name recognition, energy around their campaigns, or any data indicating a fighting chance. This reporter was even fielding calls from national political pundits scratching their heads at the absurdity of the Brink/Maasdam campaigns.
Maasdam, with a far stronger resume, had Slotkin at his back, so he wasn’t budging. But Brink had considerable baggage from the Trump and Biden admins in her past. A career foreign service employee with the stink of the Russian/Ukrainian war all over her? Who was telling her she even had a shot?
According to one source, Brink, who filed to run first out of the three, was a useful idiot for the far left and the Lawrence campaign.
“Brink won that campaign for us,” said one source inside the Lawrence campaign. “It was a universally believed that she was staying in to the end to split the establishment vote to help Lawrence.”
On paper, her politics and the groups and politicians that endorsed her are closer ideologically to Lawrence, and Maasdam, compared with Lawrence, looked like a conservative.
Brink immediately endorsed Lawrence after the race, but Maasdam also appeared on a Unity Tour with Lawrence.
Our sources say the current effort by Lawrence and his team is to keep DSA motifs in campaign at a bare minimum, lest they “freak out the normies” during a general election.
At a recent Lawrence campaign team meeting, held in conjunction with DSA party members, everyone was required to show identification upon entering the room.
This level of scrutiny is common with events organized by the DSA or their associated organizations. During the 2025 People’s Conference for Palestine at Huntington Place in Detroit—promoted and partially organized by the DSA—entrance into the event was virtually impossible without signing over your life.
An invasive clearance form was required where the applicant was required to provide as much personal information as legally permissible. I thought for a moment I was buying a Jet Ski with a co-signer.
It’s a chilling irony: The DSA wants to dismantle liberal open society, and they are already workshopping the paranoid socialist system they want to replace it with.
