A Democrat Endorses the Republican in Michigan's Senate Race, Two Days Before the Vote
Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost Michigan's Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed his Republican opponent Mike Rogers on Sunday — at a Detroit church, in a video, and over the resignations of her own staff.
The strangest endorsement of the 2026 midterms landed on Sunday in Detroit. Rep. Haley Stevens, a Democrat who lost her party's Michigan Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed in August, endorsed the Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, two days before an election that could decide control of the U.S. Senate, the Associated Press reported. Stevens appeared with Rogers at a service at Perfecting Church in Detroit, then announced the endorsement in a social media video. 'I do not belong in Abdul's campaign,' she said, calling herself 'a very proud Democrat' and the race 'the conscience of the Senate right now and our Michigan moment.'
The split had a same-day cause and a longer history. Stevens had been scheduled to appear Sunday at a different Detroit church alongside El-Sayed and Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, NPR reported; after her campaign asked her not to attend — following her October 30 statement calling on El-Sayed to condemn an outside political action committee's ad — she went to church with Rogers instead. 'Our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away, and he's right,' she said in the video. 'And that's why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.' She pointed to El-Sayed's campaigning with the streamer Hasan Piker as a central disagreement. The endorsement cost her staff: her longtime chief of staff resigned, with more departures expected, the AP reported, and Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel said it 'shows that she has abandoned everything she claims to care about.' Rogers said he was 'honored' by her support.
El-Sayed, campaigning a few miles away at a Souls to the Polls event at Northend Church of God in Christ, declined the fight. He told reporters he does not think about Stevens and was focused on the cost of living and the issues in front of voters, USA TODAY reported. The Michigan seat — held by retiring Democrat Gary Peters — is one of the handful expected to determine whether Republicans keep their 53-47 Senate majority, which is why a cross-party endorsement in its final 48 hours is national news and not a local spat. Texas voters watching their own Senate race, where the Talarico-Paxton contest is comparably tight, will recognize the arithmetic: in a chamber this close, one state's feud can move the whole map.
