Democrat Haley Stevens’s shocking last-minute endorsement of Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican Senate candidate, in the run-up to the elections has sparked fierce backlash from members of her party.
Stevens, who narrowly lost in the Democratic primary for Senate to Abdul El-Sayed, announced her support for Rogers after a feud with the El-Sayed campaign over an outside group’s advertisement, which blamed the high cost of living on US support for Israel.
Stevens had said she would appear at a campaign event if he denounced the advertisement. El-Sayed’s campaign disinvited her.
Following the extraordinary public rupture on Sunday, El-Sayed’s campaign said it raised more than $2.4m, a fundraising record in the final days of a race that could determine control of the US senate. The Democrat’s campaign said more than 26,000 people contributed for the first time on Sunday.
New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, described Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers as “a despicable betrayal”.
“Senate Democrats are united in our support for Abdul El-Sayed, because we know he will fight for the economic interests of working families in Michigan, unlike Mike Rogers, who is a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors,” Schumer posted on social media.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker, posted that Stevens had “chosen to dangerously betray Michigan families’ healthcare, freedoms and future with her horrific endorsement”.
The New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said that “working class people’s lives are on the ballot on Tuesday”.
“Haley Stevens just betrayed them by endorsing the very Republican she said she wanted to run against,” Mamdani posted.
Stevens refused to clearly explain what led to her endorsement of Rogers in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN Sunday evening. “I’m just casting my one vote this way,” Stevens said, while insisting she still wanted Democrats to win the majority on election day.
“I am not trying to upset anyone,” she added. “I’m just being honest with my constituents and what I’m hearing from people, and in fact, I’ve been hearing from a ton of Dems, Anderson, who said: ‘Thank you, this is how we felt; we haven’t liked this campaign; it’s painful.’”
Cooper pressed Stevens, questioning whether being disinvited from El-Sayed’s campaign event triggered her endorsement of Rogers. At one point, Stevens refused to answer the question, allowing several seconds of silence to air.
Stevens has continued to defend her decision as she faces accusations of betrayal from Democrats, including calls for her expulsion from the House caucus. Several members of her congressional staff resigned in protest. In an interview on Monday, she compared herself with Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a one-time progressive who now frequently breaks with his party, especially over supporting Israel.
“You see a Democrat from Pennsylvania, you know, his name’s a lightning rod in the party. His name’s Fetterman,” she told conservative commentator Scott Jennings. “They say the same thing about him.”
Curtis Hertel, the chair the Michigan Democratic party, said in a post that Stevens was not a member of the party “nor will she be in the future”.
A Detroit journalist, Sam Robinson, shared a video in which Hertel was asked why he thought Stevens made the endorsement.
“Obviously there are sour grapes from the election, but there is no reasonable explanation for this. I have known Haley Stevens for a long time, and I know what she has fought for her in her career, and this is the antithesis of all of that,” Hertel said.
Debbie Dingell, a veteran Michigan House Democrat, dismissed Stevens’s endorsement as a distraction from voters’ concerns about the cost of living.
“That’s what they’re talking about, not Congresswoman Stevens’ continued efforts to get attention,” she said in a statement.
On MS Now on Sunday, El-Sayed encouraged undecided Michigan voters to stand with him to protect democracy in the United States. “The divide in our politics isn’t left versus right; the divide in our politics is the people who are locked out versus the people who are locking them out,” El-Sayed said.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Rogers praised Stevens for her endorsement. “I know Democrats are thumping their chest and saying she has done something other than courageous,” he said. “It was nothing but courageous.”
Charlotte Clymer, a blogger and activist who supports Democrats, told the Guardian she had considered Stevens a friend for several years, and said the congresswoman’s decision to back Rogers “is like endorsing Donald Trump”.
“This is like living through a bad dream. It really is,” Clymer said. “If you had told me there’d be a sitting Democratic member of Congress who would switch like this, Haley would not have come to mind.”
She called Stevens a lawmaker of “strident integrity” who has stood up for LGBTQ+ rights, unions and abortion access. As tensions rose with the El-Sayed campaign Clymer said that on on Saturday she texted Stevens, who replied with messages assuring her she still supported the Democratic nominee. Clymer said she texted again after Stevens released a video endorsing Rogers on Sunday, but has not heard back.
“It really is bizarre. It feels like there [is] a body snatcher moment. Someone has kidnapped Haley Stevens and replaced her with a completely different person,” Clymer said.
Meanwhile, Trump praised Stevens’s endorsement of Rogers on his platform Truth Social and described her as a “highly respected Democrat”. He again cheered Stevens during a campaign rally on Sunday in Dubuque, Iowa, and encouraged her to switch parties.
“I’d love her to join the Republican party, actually, I think that could happen maybe. But she showed great and almost unprecedented loyalty to the great people of Michigan,” Trump said.
When asked about Trump praising her, Stevens told CNN: “Well, I impeached him twice,” before criticizing Republicans for being “really focused on just letting Trump be the dictator”.