Representative Haley Stevens has endorsed Republican Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers, abandoning the Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed less than 48 hours before Election Day.
Stevens announced her decision in a video posted on social media on Sunday after appearing with Rogers at a church service in Detroit. She had spent months publicly supporting the Democratic ticket and was a former primary rival of El-Sayed.
“As you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul, said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away, and he’s right,” Stevens said. “And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate today.”
El-Sayed dismissed the significance of the move when questioned outside a “Souls to the Polls” event at a Detroit church, saying he did not think about Stevens and did not believe voters did either.
“None of this matters,” he said. “You know what matters. You can go, like, 15 minutes that way, or 15 minutes that way, or 15 minutes that way. And there are families who are preparing to send their kids to schools tomorrow that look like they did 50 years ago. They’re worried about what they’re going to feed their kids for lunch. They’re worried that if one of their kids gets sick, they’re not going to be able to pay the bills.”
Michigan Senate race dispute
Stevens said she did not stand with Hasan Piker, the streamer who campaigned with El-Sayed during the primary. In August, after Piker implied that Jews’ support for Israel put them at risk of personal violence, El-Sayed sought to distance himself from the controversy, saying Piker did not speak for his campaign, but he stopped short of disavowing him.
Stevens had also criticised El-Sayed for not doing enough to reassure Jewish and Black voters who had supported her during the primary. Relations between the two Democrats had deteriorated publicly for weeks before her endorsement.
The dispute intensified after Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, said he planned to vote for Rogers. Stevens subsequently said in a television appearance that she still intended to support the Democratic nominee.
She urged El-Sayed to condemn an advert by Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks, which blamed Israel for high grocery prices in the United States. “The ad tells Michigan families they cannot afford groceries because their money has to be set aside ‘for killing Palestinians,’ and it blames our close ally Israel for everything Michiganders cannot afford,” she wrote.
El-Sayed’s campaign said he had nothing to do with the advert and criticised its contents on Saturday.
Stevens had been due to attend a Detroit church event with El-Sayed and Representative James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, in what was intended to be a unifying appearance before the election. She said she set a condition for attending: that El-Sayed reject the advert and apologise for rhetoric she considered inflammatory and offensive.
The event went ahead without her. Her communications director’s email auto-reply said he was no longer working for her office as of Sunday, while several former campaign staff members criticised her decision on social media.
The endorsement drew sharp condemnation from senior Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described it as a “despicable betrayal”.
Curtis Hertel, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said Stevens had abandoned her principles by campaigning with Rogers, whom he accused of repeatedly selling out Michigan’s working class, supporting a national abortion ban and pledging to back Donald Trump’s agenda.
The confrontation reflects a wider division within the Democratic Party over Israel and political rhetoric surrounding the country, a dispute that is expected to continue beyond Election Day and feature in the party’s preparations for the 2028 presidential nominating process.
