El-Sayed focused on policy; Gavin Newsom questioned Stevens’s overnight reversal
Longtime chief of staff Justin German and communications director Logan Basch from Haley Stevens’s campaign were among the workers who reportedly quit, according to CNN correspondent Manu Raju. German then said he was speaking for the campaign team: “As Haley Stevens’ Chief of staff for eight years, I speak on behalf of our team in wholeheartedly supporting Abdul El-Sayed for Senate.” He said, “This election is too important to sow division or stand on the sidelines. We are shocked and heartbroken by Congresswoman Stevens’ decision to support Mike Rogers.”
Stevens made the endorsement in a video posted to X after attending an event with Rogers at the predominantly Black Perfecting church in Detroit on Sunday. She had lost this year’s Democratic primary by a close margin to El-Sayed and, for months, had refused to openly campaign for him, as had other primary opponent Mallory McMorrow. Top Democrats brokered a truce. After they had sparred fiercely in the primary, Stevens accepted El-Sayed’s narrow victory and extended him what The Guardian described as a tepid endorsement. They were scheduled to appear together that weekend at a predominantly Black church in Detroit’s North End. The Guardian described the Michigan race as one of the most fiercely contested Senate contests of the cycle.
Those plans quickly unraveled over Israel. Later last week, Stevens, a staunch supporter of Israel, made clear that her appearance alongside El-Sayed was preconditioned on his denouncing an outside group’s campaign ad that blamed U.S. support for Israel for the rising cost of living. El-Sayed declined the request and accused Stevens of needlessly reopening debates from a settled primary. As the political firestorm unfolded, Stevens endorsed Rogers instead.
In his first public comments since the endorsement, El-Sayed told reporters at a press conference outside a Sunday rally he held, the same rally Stevens had earlier been disinvited from attending. He said, “At the end of the day, I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens.” He added, “I’m just less interested in the politics of it all than I am in the policy of it all.” El-Sayed continued: “If you are somebody who believes that we should stand up to hate, and you have watched this last campaign, I think we probably would not want to support Mike Rogers and Donald Trump and JD Vance.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, reacting on the political talk show 2WAY, said Stevens “went another 180 degrees overnight, so something was going on there.” He added, “She’s been successful at taking our eye off the ball and that’s why I understand party leadership condemning it … This may be curiously the October surprise of sorts.”
Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said Stevens’s decision to campaign with Rogers showed that she had “abandoned everything she claims to care about.” He described Rogers as a man who had repeatedly sold out Michigan’s working class, wanted to pass a national abortion ban and had pledged to be a loyal vote for Trump’s agenda. Hertel also rejected what he called attempts by Stevens and “bad-faith actors” to divide the party and undermine its momentum, saying Democrats would not let “eleventh-hour distractions” deter that momentum.
Progressive supporters also rallied behind El-Sayed. Bernie Sanders wrote on X that Stevens’s staff was “right to resign in disgust,” arguing that Michigan’s election mattered more than her “fragile ego.” He urged voters to “elect Abdul, defeat Rogers and end the Republican rubber-stamp control of the Senate.” Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, said Stevens had “betrayed” working-class people “by endorsing the very Republican she said she wanted to run against.”
Donald Trump, whose policies Stevens’s website had a page devoted to denouncing, praised her at a rally in Iowa for turning against El-Sayed. “It was an incredible thing,” Trump said. “I’d love her to join the Republican party. I think that could happen.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s campaign account called the endorsement a “despicable betrayal” from Stevens but continued to push for unity among Democrats. Schumer said Senate Democrats were united behind El-Sayed because he would fight for working families’ economic interests in Michigan, unlike Rogers, whom he described as a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors. He said Democrats were “equally united in our total revulsion at the racist, Islamophobic, and over-the-top false attacks on Abdul by Republicans.” Schumer said the attacks showed “the total bankruptcy of the Republican Party” and that Republicans resorted to “ugly and un-American fearmongering because they have nothing to offer on the problems that concern people today.”
Democratic commentators also pointed out that Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, had been condemning El-Sayed publicly while supporting Rogers. The Guardian reported that Turkish was vocally pro-Israel, had donated heavily to Democrats in the past and this year also donated to Republican candidates, including Susan Collins.
El-Sayed remained the Democratic nominee against Rogers in the midterm election. Sanders, Mamdani and party officials backed him; German said the Stevens campaign team was supporting him; and Trump praised Stevens’s move. The reaction left the Michigan Democratic Party divided before the election.