Updated November 2, 2026 at 8:42 AM EST
DETROIT — Democrats in Michigan and Washington are furious after Rep. Haley Stevens revoked her endorsement of former primary rival Abdul El-Sayed to back his Republican opponent in the race for U.S. Senate, Mike Rogers.
The dramatic reversal less than 48 hours before Election Day stunned Stevens allies and friends in Michigan and on Capitol Hill, with several saying publicly she was reassuring them up until the eleventh hour that she would continue to support El-Sayed, even as the rift between the two Democrats spilled back into public view in the final days of the race.
Despite efforts by Democrats to bring Stevens and El-Sayed together in a show of unity before Election Day, around 11 a.m. on Sunday, Stevens arrived at the Perfecting Church in Detroit to sit in the pews not with her party's nominee for Senate, but with his Republican opponent.
Soon after, she announced she was endorsing Rogers, who she once slammed as a rubber stamp for President Trump.
"Abdul made very clear that I was not welcome in his campaign, that he didn't need me there, that he didn't want me there," Stevens told reporters standing alongside Rogers. "I did endorse the Democratic nominee, and he chose to close this campaign by saying I wasn't welcome."
The August primary divided Michigan Democrats, exposing fractures over Israel and the direction of the party broadly. El-Sayed defeated Stevens by about 1 percent of the vote.
Some voters who backed Stevens have remained hesitant about El-Sayed. But most prominent Democrats rallied around him after the primary and did so again on Sunday. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Stevens' actions on Sunday a "despicable betrayal."
Retaining Michigan's open Senate seat is seen by Democrats as critical to retaking the chamber. Polls have suggested the race could be narrowly decided.
A dramatic five days in Michigan
During the primary, El-Sayed and Stevens frequently clashed over rhetoric and positions related to Israel. El-Sayed is a vocal critic. Stevens a staunch defender. El-Sayed regularly scorched Stevens for the millions of dollars in spending on her behalf by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC in his calls to curb the influence of special interest money in politics.
Stevens, and some Jewish voters, also raised concerns about statements El-Sayed and some of his supporters, like left-wing streamer Hasan Piker who campaigned with El-Sayed, have made.
In August, after Piker implied Jews' support for Israel puts them at risk of personal violence, El-Sayed did not disavow him, but told reporters Piker did not speak for the campaign.
And after a March attack on a Detroit-area synagogue preschool by a man who had family killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon, El-Sayed said violence is a cycle and that "hurt people, hurt people." He later apologized, saying the timing was inappropriate.
In recent days, Stevens had started to ramp up criticism of El-Sayed, saying he was not doing enough to reassure uncertain Jewish and Black voters who supported her during the primary.
On Wednesday, Stevens' fiance, Detroit-area lawyer Jason Turkish, said he planned to vote for Rogers. In a TV appearance, Stevens said she was still supporting the Democratic nominee.
It was around this time that Rep. Debbie Dingell, the dean of Michigan's Democratic House delegation, was trying to organize a joint appearance between El-Sayed and Stevens. The idea was for the two to attend a Sunday Souls to the Polls event at a church in Detroit alongside Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a prominent Black Democrat.
But on Friday, Stevens set a condition for her participation — that El-Sayed reject a digital ad supporting him that blamed U.S. aid to Israel for high grocery prices and apologize for rhetoric she considered to be inflammatory and offensive. The ad was linked to Cenk Uygur, of the left-wing outlet Young Turks, not El-Sayed's campaign.
Tensions continued to ratchet up, with El-Sayed releasing a statement of his own saying Stevens, "seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago." Dingell says she told Stevens not to attend the event because the turmoil had become a distraction.
El-Sayed's campaign said he had nothing to do with the ad, and on Saturday, told reporters he did not agree with its content. Asked by reporters if he wanted Stevens to come to the church with him, El-Sayed said, "I would rather not distract from the key issues of the campaign."
Through Saturday night, Stevens was telling Democrats including Dingell and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., that she would not rescind her endorsement of El-Sayed. Still many Democrats were not sure whether Stevens would come Sunday morning. In the end, she did not and appeared instead with Rogers, at another church roughly six miles away.
"I'm not trying to harm anyone," Stevens told reporters. "I've worked really hard for Democrats. I'm not turning my back on Democrats. It is one vote. When you see repeated hate, it's not acceptable. I still love the party."
Rogers said Stevens "showed courage and bravery in putting Michigan first."
The original event went on without her, as El-Sayed joined Clyburn and other prominent Black politicians and faith leaders to rally voters on the last day of early in-person voting. El-Sayed told reporters outside that he does not think about Stevens.
"None of this matters," he said. "You know what matters. You can go, like, 15 minutes that way, or 15 minutes that way, or 15 minutes that way. And there are families who are preparing to send their kids to schools tomorrow that look like they did 50 years ago."
Swift fallout from Detroit to Washington
Elected Michigan Democrats' rallied around El-Sayed. The Michigan Democratic Party Chair, Curtis Hertel, wrote on X that Stevens was no longer a member nor would she be in the future.
Stevens' chief of staff for eight years, Justin German, wrote in a statement that he and many of Stevens' congressional staff resigned Sunday morning, saying they are "shocked and heartbroken" by Stevens' decision to endorse Rogers.
"I have severe concerns about AES' rhetoric redounding dangerously on Jews," Michigan State Rep. Noah Arbit wrote on X, referring to El-Sayed. "I have shared those concerns with him & publicly. But the sane answer for anyone who claims to care about democracy, rule of law, minorities cannot be to embrace Rogers' disgusting, dangerous Islamophobia."
Rogers and other Republicans, including Trump, have focused their closing argument painting El-Sayed as dangerous and un-American, accusing him without evidence of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah, which El-Sayed has forcefully denied.
At rallies, El-Sayed says Rogers is using his faith and his name to distract from soaring prices. El-Sayed would be the first Muslim American elected to the U.S. Senate.
In a CNN interview Sunday night, Stevens struggled to explain why she reversed after telling colleagues she would not.
"I was shocked when I saw what happened on Sunday," Dingell told NPR in an interview on Monday. "I'm worried for her. I was very sad to watch her interview last night."
Will the last minute drama sway voters?
There are Democrats who did not vote for El-Sayed in the primary and struggled with whether to vote for him this fall. At a farmer's market and Halloween festival in Oakland County, retiree Jan Jacobs, a member of the temple that experienced the truck attack in March, says she voted for Democrats across the board, but left the Senate race blank.
"I understand we want to have Democrats represented in the Senate, I'm just not sure if this is the right person for me," she said on Saturday.
Michelle Boddy, who wants a Democratic Congress to check Trump, said while she wasn't initially sold on El-Sayed, she got there. "I know how Obama feels about democracy and the fact that he endorsed him gave me a sense of yes, that's the person to vote for."
El-Sayed has been making the case that he can win by harnessing anger at establishment politicians to sway young voters, disengaged voters and former Trump voters.
At an early vote location in Macomb County, Jason Kerr said he voted for Trump in 2024. Now he is voting for El-Sayed. He is frustrated with how Trump has handled his second term.
"I'm just surprised by some of the decisions that have been made," Kerr said. "Making statements that inflation is not that bad. That gets difficult for me, when messaging doesn't match what's actually going on."
Will this latest drama with Stevens sway significant numbers of undecided voters? El-Sayed says it will not. "I'm a gut politician, I think it's had a reverse impact," Dingell told NPR.
But this was not the closing discussion his campaign was hoping for.
The turmoil, though, has re-exposed fault lines within the party that have been deepening all year — not just over Israel, but about the party's identity going forward.
Even if Democrats reclaim one or both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, that won't resolve these questions. So this debate will likely continue especially as Democrats prepare to choose a presidential nominee in 2028. One of the earliest primary states to weigh in will be Michigan.
Copyright 2026 NPR
