Prominent Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens has endorsed the Republican candidate in the state’s midterm election over her party nominee’s position on Israel and antisemitism.
In a dramatic switch of allegiance, the congresswoman has withdrawn her previous support for Abdul El-Sayed and publicly backed Mike Rogers two days before polling day.
The endorsement followed an escalating dispute with El-Sayed – to whom Stevens narrowly lost in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat – over Israel and antisemitism.
Stevens’ longtime chief of staff, Justin German, and several other staff members, resigned in protest over her decision to endorse Rogers.
“I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate. I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign. I do not stand with Hasan Piker, who gets trafficked on our college campuses,” Stevens said in a video recorded from her car.
“What our students see, what our children see and who we are as Michiganders is not hate, and is not what we are getting out from our Democratic nominee right now,” she added.
Piker, a prominent left-wing influencer whose rhetoric about Israel and Jews has drawn accusations of antisemitism, appeared with El-Sayed at campaign events, including on college campuses, during the Democratic primary.
Stevens accused El-Sayed of antisemitism during the bitter campaign.
In August, El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker after the influencer suggested that pro-Israel rhetoric by American Jews could lead to violence against them.
El-Sayed said at the time that “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople”.
More recently, Piker compared the heavily Jewish Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield to a “KKK neighbourhood,” saying the “supremacist attitude underlying their worldview is identical”.
El-Sayed condemned the remarks. “Comparing Jewish Michiganders to the Ku Klux Klan is utterly inappropriate and flat-out wrong,” he said.
Tensions between Stevens and El-Sayed intensified last week over an advertisement by Rebellion PAC, a progressive group not connected to any party that linked US military assistance to Israel to rising grocery prices.
The ad had been produced by progressive commentator Cenk Uygur, Piker’s uncle and co-founder of the far-left group The Young Turks.
Stevens called on El-Sayed to condemn the advertisement, which the Anti-Defamation League described as “a case study in antisemitism”, and to apologise for his own past statements about Israel.
“Abdul promises to get money out of politics,” Stevens said on Friday. “He can begin by getting Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan cannot afford.”
Stevens, who had previously said she would vote for El-Sayed but would not campaign for him, announced on Friday that she planned to appear with him at a Detroit church on Sunday after being told that the Democrat nominee intended to condemn the advertisement and apologise for some of his previous statements about Israel.
El-Sayed said the advertisement had been produced by an outside group, did not represent his campaign and that he disagreed with its contents – but accused Stevens of seeking to “relitigate a primary that ended three months ago”.
The rapprochement quickly collapsed. El-Sayed’s campaign subsequently asked Stevens to stay away from its remaining campaign events.
On Sunday, instead of campaigning for El-Sayed, Stevens appeared with Rogers at Perfecting Church in Detroit and endorsed the Republican.
“This is the conscience of the Senate right now, and our Michigan moment,” Stevens said. “And I’m just letting you know where I am. I’m still a very proud Democrat. I still very much believe in everything I voted for and said.”
Appearing alongside Rogers at a press conference later on Sunday, Stevens again pointed to Piker.
“We can’t stand with hate. We can’t stand with Hasan Piker,” she said.
Rogers also addressed the Rebellion PAC advertisement. “Blaming a certain group of people for your problems – that sounds like 1933,” he said.
“It has consequences for those communities. Jewish Democrats are calling me, afraid for their children to stay in the state of Michigan,” Rogers added.
The endorsement triggered an immediate backlash from prominent Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described Stevens’s decision as “a despicable betrayal.”
The dispute has highlighted broader tensions between El-Sayed and some Jewish Democrats over his positions on Israel.
Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, a Jewish Democrat and civil rights attorney, announced last week that he would vote for Rogers, claiming El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel had made the Jewish community less safe. David Kramer, a Jewish Democrat who chaired Stevens’s Senate campaign, has also said he would vote for Rogers.
Rogers and El-Sayed are competing for the seat being vacated by retiring Senator Gary Peters in a race with implications for control of the Senate.
Rogers previously represented Michigan in the US House for 14 years, rising to chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Before entering Congress, he served as a US Army officer and FBI agent. The Detroit News endorsed Rogers in September, calling him “the prototype of a United States Senator.”
US President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Rogers, praised Stevens on Sunday for crossing party lines, calling her decision an act of “bravery” and saying she had demonstrated “great and almost unprecedented loyalty” to the people of Michigan.
El-Sayed dismissed Stevens’s decision at a press conference on Sunday. “At the end of the day I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” he said.
A former Michigan public health official and the son of Egyptian immigrants, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate if he wins.
El-Sayed has denied being antisemitic and has repeatedly denounced antisemitism throughout his campaign.
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