Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate on Sunday, two days before Election Day, reversing her support for Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race. Stevens, who lost the August Democratic primary to El-Sayed, appeared with Rogers at a Detroit church service before announcing the switch in a video posted online.
Stevens said she did not feel welcome in El-Sayed’s campaign. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign,” she said in the video, according to USA Today. She also pointed to El-Sayed’s supporters and to a dispute over an outside group’s advertisement linking U.S. aid to Israel with grocery prices, which she described as antisemitic. El-Sayed has said he disagrees with the ad’s contents.
The move stunned fellow Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the endorsement a “despicable betrayal” and said Senate Democrats were united behind El-Sayed. Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel said Stevens was no longer a member of the party, according to NBC News.
Several members of Stevens’s own House staff resigned after learning of the decision on social media, her chief of staff Justin German said in a statement urging voters to back El-Sayed. Stevens defended the switch in a television interview on Sunday, saying El-Sayed had told her he did not need her endorsement.
The seat belongs to retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, and the outcome could help decide which party controls the Senate. A recent CNN poll had El-Sayed leading Rogers by seven points before the endorsement. President Donald Trump praised Stevens’s decision and urged her to join the Republican Party.
Source: USA Today
