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Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) said she believes Rep. Haley Stevens’s (D-MI) decision to buck her party and endorse Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers instead of Democrat Abdul el Sayed will backfire in the tight Michigan Senate race.
Stevens ran as a moderate against socialist-leaning el Sayed in the state’s Democratic primary earlier this year. She endorsed el Sayed after losing the primary, but repeatedly expressed concern over his positions on Jews and Israel, before ultimately pulling her support from him on Sunday and backing Rogers.
Dingell said she had discussed the race with Stevens and been assured she was still endorsing el Sayed the night before her colleague announced the defection to Rogers. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Dingell said she believed the switch would backfire, citing historic donations made to el Sayed after Stevens’s announcement.
“I think that this is backfiring,” Dingell said. “Abdul has raised more money today, more than a million dollars, talking to different people that have been at different polls … By the end of the day, I thought Abdul was going to win, but I felt a shift just being out, as I always am, this afternoon. So I think this race is going to be close.”
El Sayed raked in $1.2 million in the four hours after Stevens backed Rogers, marking his second-best fundraising day since winning the Democratic primary nomination against Stevens and state Rep. Mallory McMorrow, in August, according to Politico. El Sayed raised a total of $2.4 million on Sunday, shattering the campaign’s single-day fundraising record, according to his campaign.
Stevens’s move to buck her party on Rogers triggered instant outrage from Democratic colleagues, some of whom began pushing to remove her from the caucus.
In reaction to Stevens’s CNN interview with Cooper explaining her decision, Dingell and McMorrow, who endorsed el Sayed after losing to him in the Democratic Senate primary, said they were “worried” about her, claimed the interview was one of “the most painful” they’ve ever watched, and suggested she is mentally struggling or was forced into the decision by her fiancee, Jason Turkish. Turek is also a Democrat, but said last week that he would not be supporting el Sayed, citing concerns that the Senate nominee refused to say earlier this month whether Iran or Israel poses a greater threat to the United States.
Republicans slammed the controversy.
“It is wildly insulting that Debbie Dingell and Mallory McMorrow are insinuating that Congresswoman Stevens is mentally ill and that Jason influences her decision making in an unhealthy way,” Rogers said. “Congresswoman Stevens should be commended for her courage to stand up to hate and put Michigan first.”
Stevens’s endorsement switch came after she had long pushed back against el Sayed’s views on Jews, his refusal to affirm Israel’s right to exist, and his move to repeatedly campaign with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, due to concerns he holds openly antisemitic views. Piker has expressed support for Hamas, framing the terrorist group that controls Gaza and supports the elimination of Israel as a critical part of the “Palestinian resistance.”
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Last week, the saga blew up further when a super PAC run by Piker’s uncle, Cenk Uygur, ran an ad backing el Sayed that blamed Israel’s war in Gaza for economic issues in Michigan. Stevens and others condemned the Rebellion PAC’s ad as antisemitic and asked el Sayed to disavow it. El Sayed declined to do so, instead accusing Stevens of seeking to “relitigate a primary that ended three months ago.”
The Michigan Senate race is viewed as one of the tightest in the country. Polling appears to indicate that el Sayed holds a narrow edge. Prediction markets say he will handily win the race, as of Monday morning.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
