A Democrat in Michigan has endorsed the Republican candidate in the state’s crucial US Senate contest, as a spat with her own party’s candidate Abdul El-Sayed escalated just days before the vote.
Haley Stevens, a sitting congresswoman who lost out on the Democratic Senate nomination to El-Sayed, made a surprise appearance alongside the Republican candidate Mike Rogers on Sunday.
“I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign,” she said in a video posted to X shortly after that appearance. “Who we are as Michiganders is not hate and is not what we are getting out from our Democratic nominee right now.”
“That’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers,” Stevens said.
The move stunned many of Stevens’ fellow Democrats who condemned her decision to break from the party and switch her support just two days before the election, with one calling it a “despicable betrayal”.
The public feud between Stevens, a centrist Democrat, and El-Sayed, who represents the party’s left-wing, has boiled over in recent days.
Stevens called on El-Sayed to denounce a campaign advert from an outside liberal group that linked US support for Israel with high prices. El-Sayed criticised the advert and said he had nothing to do with its contents.
Stevens had been scheduled to appear at an event with El-Sayed on Sunday in an effort to display party unity, but he reportedly asked her not to come and she chose to attend a church service with his Republican opponent instead.
“This is a very close election, we all know that, but Abdul made 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 as she stood alongside Rogers outside the church.
When asked about Stevens’ endorsement, El-Sayed told reporters he was focused on the problems Michiganders are facing.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think about Haley Stevens,” he said on Sunday. “None of this matters.”
