Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, on Sunday, Nov. 1, two days before Election Day. Abdul El-Sayed beat her for the Democratic nomination in August. Stevens says she remains a Democrat.
“I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today,” Stevens said in a video posted to X after she sat with Rogers at Perfecting Church in Detroit, CBS News reported. She cited El-Sayed’s ties to streamer Hasan Piker and a Rebellion PAC ad she called antisemitic. El-Sayed says his campaign didn’t make the ad, and he disagrees with it.
“I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign,” she said in the video, ABC News reported.
Rogers described the appearance as a stand against hate, CBS reported.
“I’m choosing country over hate,” Stevens said after the service, Al Jazeera reported. “This is not anti-Muslim at all.” If elected, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim U.S. senator.
El-Sayed spoke after a Detroit church service with Rep. Jim Clyburn. “At the end of the day, I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” he said, ABC reported.
Haley Stevens Endorses Mike Rogers Three Months After Opposing Him
Stevens narrowly lost the Aug. 4 primary, Bridge Michigan reported. “I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election,” she said in a statement the next day.
“They want to keep the Senate red, so Mike Rogers can keep rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s harmful agenda,” she wrote of Trump and Rogers.
“This is a despicable betrayal from Rep. Stevens,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X. Her longtime chief of staff, Justin German, had already resigned, CBS reported. “We are shocked and heartbroken,” German said in a statement, Newsweek reported.
Haley Stevens’ Anderson Cooper Interview: ‘A Weight Off My Shoulders’
Reps. Debbie Dingell and Jamie Raskin said Stevens had assured them Saturday evening that she’d vote for El-Sayed, CBS reported. On CNN Sunday night, Anderson Cooper asked what changed.
“Well, look, this is just a weight off my shoulders, OK?” Stevens said, The Hill reported. “Abdul has been getting angrier and angrier.”
Cooper pointed to an X post in which she’d opposed giving “MAGA another Senate seat in November” and asked, “why is it OK now?”
She said she hadn’t voted yet. “So you might change your mind again?” Cooper asked.
Stevens implied Cooper was mad at her, too. “No, I’m not,” Cooper said. “You’re not really answering any of my questions, so it’s somewhat frustrating.”
“I’m a really proud Democrat,” Stevens said, Forbes reported. (Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel Jr. had already posted on X that she “is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future.”)
Dingell called it “one of the most painful interviews I have ever watched.”
Pete Buttigieg on CNN: ‘As Surprised as Anybody Else’
Pete Buttigieg, who lives in Traverse City with his husband, Chasten, told CNN on Sunday he was “as surprised as anybody else.” (The former transportation secretary passed on running for this very seat last year.)
He called the choice on health care and campaign finance clear. “Whatever Haley Stevens says isn’t going to change that for me,” Buttigieg said in a CNN clip. He added he didn’t think “it’s changing that for a lot of Michiganders either.”
El-Sayed’s campaign said it raised $2.4 million Sunday from more than 65,000 donors, Forbes reported.
Mike Rogers’ LGBTQ Record, and Stevens’ Very Different One
Rogers served in the House from 2001 to 2015. In its endorsement of El-Sayed, HRC cited his description of being gay as a “lifestyle choice” and his opposition to marriage equality.
He voted in 2004 and 2006 for a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman, House Clerk records show. Both failed. He voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007 and against repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2010.
In his 2024 Senate race, he signed a women’s sports pledge from Independent Women’s Voice. “Biological men should not be competing with our daughters, period,” he said, Michigan Advance reported. (Colorado votes Tuesday on sex-based eligibility rules for school sports.)
The Human Rights Campaign’s PAC, which endorsed El-Sayed Sept. 17, says Rogers scored zero on every HRC scorecard as a congressman. “Abdul El-Sayed is a doctor, a fighter, and exactly the kind of leader Michigan needs right now,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said.
HRC backed Stevens in her first House race, in 2018. “In Congress, I will work with advocates to pass the Equality Act and ensure the LGBTQ community is protected,” she said then.
She voted for the Equality Act in 2019 and 2021. In 2022, she voted for the Respect for Marriage Act in July and again in December.
