Democratic U.S. Representative Haley Stevens announced Sunday that she is endorsing Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan’s open Senate seat, breaking sharply with her party and her former primary rival just days before an election that could help determine control of the upper chamber.
Stevens made her announcement in a video statement following a Detroit-area church service where she and her fiancé, Jason Turkish, appeared alongside Rogers and his wife, Kristi. The endorsement comes after a planned joint appearance between Stevens and Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed collapsed amid a public dispute over Israel and an outside political advertisement.
“Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said in her video announcement. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.”
The political rupture capped days of escalating friction in the battleground state. El-Sayed narrowly defeated Stevens in an August Democratic primary. Although Stevens subsequently stated she would vote for the nominee, tensions resurfaced after Turkish publicly declared his intention to vote for Rogers, citing concerns that El-Sayed had not adequately addressed antisemitism.
On Friday, Stevens publicly urged El-Sayed to condemn an independent left-wing group’s campaign advertisement that linked U.S. support for Israel to high domestic grocery prices. El-Sayed responded by accusing Stevens of relitigating the primary. On Saturday evening, El-Sayed stated that the advertisement was not produced by his campaign and added that he did not agree with its contents.
Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell, who had worked to arrange a joint appearance between Stevens and El-Sayed, said she ultimately asked Stevens not to attend after the dispute became a distraction. Dingell appeared Sunday at a different Detroit-area church alongside El-Sayed, South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn, Maryland Senator Angela Alsobrooks, and Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow.
The fallout within Democratic ranks was immediate. Sources reported that Stevens’ chief of staff and communications director both resigned following the announcement, and the Michigan Democratic Party issued a formal rebuke. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reaffirmed national Democratic support for the nominee, stating that Senate Democrats remain united behind El-Sayed because he will fight for working families’ economic interests.
Appearing at a separate news conference with Rogers, Stevens acknowledged the intense backlash but defended her pivot as a matter of leadership and integrity. El-Sayed, speaking at his own news conference, sought to pivot away from the intraparty feud and focus on economic issues such as healthcare, education, gas prices, and grocery costs.
“I’m just less interested in the politics of it all than I am in the policy of it all,” El-Sayed told reporters, declining to answer directly when asked if Stevens had betrayed the party. He emphasized the ongoing final stretch of early voting, which began on October 24, well before the weekend’s public rupture.
