Michigan Democrats Rally Behind El-Sayed

DETROIT — Key Democrats said Sunday they would not let Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers divide the party ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Stevens, a sitting member of Congress, was all but formally exorcised by her party after she publicly endorsed Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers over Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, whom she had previously endorsed and pledged to support through the general election, despite lingering tensions from their August primary.

Over the past few weeks, the congresswoman has changed her position on supporting El-Sayed, moving from being critical of the nominee but still supportive of the overall ticket, to outright joining Rogers at a Detroit church on Sunday where she heaped praise on Rogers for supporting some of her campaign platforms involving housing and Black-owned businesses.

Later, on CNN, Stevens said that she found El-Sayed’s campaign to be getting “angrier” against those who opposed him, and cited what she felt were instances of antisemitism from the campaign. Stevens said that ranged from campaigning with controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker to Abdul-Sayed’s lack of condemnation of an ad purchased by a political action committee run by Piker’s uncle.

“Abdul has been getting angrier and angrier, and I was just trying to help,” Stevens told CNN. “I endorsed him, and that ad was very painful. There are so many Democrats who want to vote for the Democratic nominee, and they’re just being told this is a party you don’t belong in. This is a campaign you don’t belong in. … I’m making a decision here, and that’s just where I landed on.”

Stevens could not, however, pinpoint an exact moment on when it was that she changed her mind, saying the decision had been building up for her and that Sunday’s turn to Rogers represented “a weight off her shoulders.”

Before Stevens decided to support Rogers, which appeared to be a snap decision earlier Sunday morning, as she told CNN, Stevens was set to attend a church service with El-Sayed and U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, a former Stevens supporter who is backing El-Sayed since he became the nominee. The engagement was brokered by U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who had played the intermediary between El-Sayed’s campaign and Stevens.

Stevens had agreed but put conditions on the visit, including a call that El-Sayed disavow the ad produced by Ugyur, and other examples of rhetoric El-Sayed used to question the U.S. relationship with Israel. A major platform of El-Sayed’s campaign is acknowledging Israel has been committing a genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

While that characterization remains controversial, it is backed up by multiple international organizations including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders and a United Nations commission.

El-Sayed did not budge and asked Stevens’ campaign to stay out of the race through Tuesday’s election. Stevens repeatedly told CNN that being disinvited from the church event marked a turning point. It was reported that several of her staff were waiting for her at North End Church of God in Christ in Detroit, where El-Sayed and Clyburn were holding a Souls to the Polls event on Sunday.

Instead, Stevens showed up at the Perfecting Union church, led by Pastor Marvin Winans of gospel music fame, to take in a morning of worship with Rogers, his wife, and Stevens’ fiance, attorney Jason Turkish.

Gongwer News Service reported that former Michigan. Gov. Jim Blanchard said he had spoken to Stevens on Saturday night and she said she would support El-Sayed. Blanchard told the outlet that Turkish, who had openly supported Rogers over the last few weeks, may have had a strong influence on Stevens’ decision.

“He was all distraught,” Blanchard told Gongwer. “He was all strung out about Abdul. I let her know, he’s not a good influence.”

Either way, the move sent shockwaves across the political universe in Michigan and beyond.

Several national Democrats who had openly supported Stevens in the primary, including one of her biggest national surrogates, Neera Tanden, said her endorsement of Rogers was a sellout.

Supporting Mike Rogers “is a betrayal of everything Haley Stevens has fought for her entire career,” Tanden said in an X post. “It’s also a betrayal of all of her supporters that believed in her.”

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel wrote in an X post that Stevens was no longer a Democrat and she had no opportunity to run as a Democrat in the future after her stunt with Rogers.

The party removed Stevens from its elected officials page entirely, taking down her name and her photo from the list.

Instead of going all in on criticizing Stevens, El-Sayed took the higher ground, called her antics a distraction, and urged members of the media to stay focused on his campaign messages rather than the drama of the race. 

“At the end of the day, I don’t think about Haley Stevens,” El-Sayed said. “None of this matters.”

In a media scrum outside the church on Sunday afternoon, El-Sayed was adamant that he would only take questions that had to do with his campaign and its policy points and that he would end the press availability if any “horse race” questions emerged.

Those types of questions were immediately shouted at El-Sayed, however, and he promptly ended the Q&A to begin his event with Clyburn.

Clyburn praised El-Sayed without mentioning Stevens on Sunday.

“We have been doing what we possibly can to make this great country of ours accessible and affordable for all of our citizens,” Clyburn said. “This campaign is about making healthcare and education accessible for all our citizens. It’s about making housing, and energy affordable for all of our citizens. And it’s about having candidates for office who will be accountable to all of our citizens.”

Clyburn said he was pleased to be in Detroit with El-Sayed and to stand “in solidarity” with his campaign.

Dingell, whose voice was hoarse, strained and dry by Sunday evening, was the one of several main speakers at a unity event held outside of United Auto Workers headquarters in downtown Detroit.

She also urged the national media to not become distracted by what she called drama in the 11th hour of the race.

“I’m just going to say it straight,” Dingell said Sunday. “There has just been too much drama created by national media and not enough attention on the people I talk to every day. If you’re worried about the direction that the country is going in, and what we have done to the African American community … do you think that Mike Rogers, a Republican senator, will support us in doing any of that?”

Other Democrats who spoke included state Sen. Jeremy Moss of Bloomfield, who is running for Stevens’ 11th District seat; state Rep. Donavan McKinney of Detroit, who is running to replace U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar in the 13th District; and former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, who was defeated by Stevens in the 2022 primary.

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak, who had been in the race against Stevens and El-Sayed before dropping out, also spoke about the stakes of the election and called out Stevens — without naming her — for the dustup she caused on Sunday morning.

“The message that I hope you heard today is that we are locked in,” McMorrow said. “Are we ready to ignore all of the nonsense? Because let me tell you, my phone has been pretty busy today. I don’t know if you saw some news, but here’s the thing: A lot of those texts and a lot of those phone calls were not from Michiganders, they are from reporters all across the country who are treating this election like an episode of Real Housewives of Michigan.”

McMorrow was adamant that this was “not a reality TV show” or about “people’s emotions” or someone trying to get “their last 15 minutes before they no longer have a title.”

“This is about Michiganders, because today, while all of those messages were coming in, I heard from people in church this morning … who said what do we do to stop this president?” McMorrow said. “I want to answer all the reporters who texted me to ask, ‘Is this going to change anything?’ Are we divided? No. Are we united? Yes. Are we going turn out every vote? Yes. Are we going to lock in and send Abdul El-Sayed to the Senate? Yes.”