DETROIT — Michigan Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens on Sunday endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, saying she objects to the "hate" promoted by her Democratic primary opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, and some of his high-profile supporters.
"If Mike Rogers can share his vision clearly, precisely, answer questions, and if he comes across honestly, transparent—I think it could [change minds]," one woman told the Washington Free Beacon as she left Perfecting Church in Detroit.
Above all, the rising tension between Stevens and El-Sayed—of which Stevens’s endorsement of Rogers was simply an exclamation point—has become the defining media narrative in the closing days of the race. For the past week, Stevens, who had not appeared on the campaign trail alongside El-Sayed, had been making increasingly awkward television appearances, making clear the relationship between the two had grown untenable. It is presumably not the note on which El-Sayed would have wanted to close the race, and he refused even to discuss the explosive news when pressed about it by reporters.
"If you want to ask me questions about the issues the people in my state are facing," El-Sayed told reporters on Sunday, "I am happy to answer them. If you want to ask me questions about some intrigue and about two folks who aren’t here right now, I’m going to be less interested in answering, just putting it out there."
Stevens had backed El-Sayed, albeit tepidly, after losing to him in the primary and made the surprise endorsement in a video posted to X on Sunday while she and Rogers sat next to each other in the church. Her announcement came two days after El-Sayed publicly disinvited her from his own Sunday appearance at a black church in Detroit that also featured Stevens’s mentor, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.). Stevens had demanded El-Sayed condemn an antisemitic ad run on his behalf by Cenk Uygur, the uncle of El-Sayed campaign surrogate and anti-American streamer Hasan Piker. Instead, El-Sayed released a statement criticizing Stevens and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
"We can't stand with hate. We can't stand with Hasan Piker," Stevens told reporters after the morning service. "All I can do is lead with love and integrity."
"This was a personal and private decision," she continued. "I woke up this morning and I decided to go to church. And I'm here with the person who I am voting for for United States Senate, and that is Mike Rogers."
Democratic leaders had hoped Stevens’s planned "unity" appearance with El-Sayed would help the Democratic nominee repair his strained relationships with the Jewish and black communities, voting blocs that Stevens carried during her narrow primary loss to El-Sayed in August. But just two days after the announcement of the event on Friday, Stevens was in Detroit stumping for Rogers.
"Abdul was very clear. He said, ‘Don't come,’" Stevens said on Sunday. "When it really comes down to it, this is how I'm casting my ballot."
Rogers told reporters outside the church that he "got the call this morning" from Stevens, and that he was "honored to have earned [Stevens’s] vote."
"When young Jewish women have to hide their Star of Davids to walk across the University of Michigan campus, we have gone too far. When young men have to wear ball caps over their yarmulkes, for being Jewish, we have gone too far," Rogers said. "This is more a statement about standing together against hate and the future of this state and this country than it is anything else."
Church attendees told the Free Beacon that they were encouraged to see the display of bipartisanship at the service and that it might even change some votes.
"I thought [the joint appearance] was interesting. It could be taken as bipartisan, people working together on both sides, Democrat and Republican. That could be a good thing," the first churchgoer said. "But it also could be a dig [that] elevates the tension," she added.
Another woman leaving the church said she hadn’t "made up her mind yet" on the election, but was "very pleased that [Rogers] did stay for the whole service."
"We do have a lot of candidates who come when they’re running for something, and he did stay for the whole service," she said. "So I appreciate that."
