U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) endorsed Republican candidate Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate on Sunday, dramatically breaking with her party two days before the midterm elections.
The endorsement followed an escalating dispute with Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, to whom she lost in the party’s primary, over Israel and antisemitism. Stevens’s chief of staff, Justin German, resigned on Sunday, with additional resignations expected, The Washington Post reported.
“I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate. I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign. I do not stand with Hasan Piker, who gets trafficked on our college campuses,” Stevens said in a video recorded from her car. “What our students see, what our children see and who we are as Michiganders is not hate, and is not what we are getting out from our Democratic nominee right now.”
I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today. pic.twitter.com/pQgfSBuhOJ
— Haley Stevens (@HaleyforMI) November 1, 2026
Piker and antisemitism
Piker, a prominent left-wing streamer whose rhetoric about Israel and Jews has drawn accusations of antisemitism, appeared with El-Sayed at campaign events, including on college campuses, during the Democratic primary.
In August, El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker after the streamer suggested that pro-Israel rhetoric by American Jews could lead to violence against them. El-Sayed said at the time that “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople.”
More recently, Piker compared the heavily Jewish Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield to a “KKK neighborhood,” saying the “supremacist attitude underlying their worldview is identical.”
El-Sayed condemned the remarks. “Comparing Jewish Michiganders to the Ku Klux Klan is utterly inappropriate and flat-out wrong,” he said.
Growing Democratic rift
Stevens announced her endorsement shortly after appearing with Rogers at Perfecting Church in Detroit on Sunday. She had originally been scheduled to appear at a campaign event with El-Sayed.
“This is the conscience of the Senate right now, and our Michigan moment,” Stevens said. “And I’m just letting you know where I am. I’m still a very proud Democrat. I still very much believe in everything I voted for and said.”
El-Sayed’s campaign had asked Stevens to stay away from its remaining campaign events as tensions between the two Democrats escalated.
Stevens last week called on El-Sayed to condemn an advertisement by Rebellion PAC, an outside progressive group, that linked U.S. military assistance to Israel with rising grocery prices. The ad was produced by progressive commentator Cenk Uygur, a co-founder of the far-left group The Young Turks and Piker’s uncle.
“Abdul promises to get money out of politics,” Stevens said on Friday. “He can begin by getting Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan cannot afford.”
El-Sayed said the advertisement was not produced by his campaign and that he disagreed with its contents. He accused Stevens of seeking to “relitigate a primary that ended three months ago.”
Jewish Democrats back Rogers
The dispute has also highlighted tensions between El-Sayed and some Jewish Democrats over his positions on Israel.
Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, a Jewish Democrat and civil rights attorney, announced last week that he would vote for Rogers, saying El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel had made the Jewish community less safe. Stevens’s former campaign chairman, David Kramer, who is also Jewish, has likewise said he would support Rogers.
Rogers and El-Sayed are competing for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), in a race with implications for control of the Senate.
Rogers previously represented Michigan in the U.S. House for 14 years, rising to chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Before entering Congress, he served as a U.S. Army officer and FBI agent. The Detroit News endorsed Rogers in September, calling him “the prototype of a United States Senator.”
ActJew, a nonpartisan Jewish civic-engagement organization focused on combating antisemitism, has also endorsed Rogers. The group said its 2026 endorsements were based on candidates’ support for the Jewish community and Israel and their record of confronting antisemitism.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Rogers, praised Stevens on Sunday for crossing party lines, calling her decision an act of “bravery” and saying she had demonstrated “great and almost unprecedented loyalty” to the people of Michigan.
El-Sayed, a former Michigan public health official and the son of Egyptian immigrants, would become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate if he wins.
