Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) dismissed speculation that she was pressured into issuing her last-minute endorsement of Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers on Sunday.
Stevens, whose endorsement of Rogers over Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party over the weekend, said during a radio interview Monday that “at the end of the day, I made a decision.”
“Immediately after the primary, I tried to do everything right,” Stevens told conservative commentator Scott Jennings. “I put party first. I endorsed him, to which the response was ignored and cut off. And I said, OK, you know, I get that. All right, I’ll just go back to my regular life.”
Stevens, who lost the August primary to el Sayed by 14,000 votes, said she decided to change course because of an advertisement that blamed U.S. support for Israel for high grocery prices. The advertisement, now at the center of the blow-up between her and el Sayed, was produced by a super PAC supporting el Sayed.
“So look, we had an opportunity,” Stevens said. “I gave him an opportunity, to the Senate nominee here in Michigan, to unite around something that everyone can agree on, and then I got disinvited instead.
“This is what happens to women,” she said. “And you know, it’s like any notion that, like, I was forced into doing, you know, what I did. Any notion that I was forced into my decision is all more of the same.”
Stevens’s comments come after speculation that her fiancé, Jason Turkish, who said last week he would not support el Sayed because of his stance on Israel, may have influenced her support of Rogers.
Stevens’s eleventh-hour endorsement of Rogers angered national Democrats, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) calling her flip-flop a “despicable betrayal.”
Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Curtis Hertel wrote on social media that “Stevens is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Politico that Stevens “made a terrible decision” and “blindsided everyone and isolated herself from the House Democratic caucus.”
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“We will have a discussion about appropriate next steps upon our return,” Jeffries told the outlet.
El Sayed, for his part, appeared to brush off Stevens’s support of Rogers, telling reporters that “none of this matters” after a church service el Sayed and Stevens were supposed to attend together. Stevens, instead, appeared alongside Rogers at a separate church.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
