A last-minute endorsement in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race has reopened Democrats’ divisions and sparked internal party concerns ahead of Tuesday’s elections.
The fiancé of Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens (Michigan), who narrowly lost to Abdul El-Sayed in the bitter August primary, said he would support Republican Mike Rogers in the Senate race because he believes El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel endangers American Jews. Stevens and El-Sayed clashed repeatedly on U.S. support for Israel during the primary.
The defection from Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, follows several others by high-profile Jewish Democrats in Michigan who say they won’t vote for El-Sayed. Stevens’s former campaign chair, who is Jewish, is also going to vote for Rogers, he told Jewish Insider.
The marquee Senate race has been filled with more internal Democratic tension than most as El-Sayed and Stevens continue to disagree over U.S. foreign policy toward Israel, an issue that’s also divided Democrats on Capitol Hill as the party’s voters have grown increasingly opposed to the two countries’ close alliance.
Stevens appeared on CNN shortly after her fiancé’s endorsement and said she still planned to vote for El-Sayed.
“Like a lot of households across America, we’re a household divided,” she said. “I still very much want our Democratic nominee — his name is Abdul — to win this race.”
Stevens has been frustrated that El-Sayed’s campaign hasn’t done more to reach out to her, according to one prominent Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal private conversations. But she remains committed to supporting him.
Her fiancé’s public endorsement is seen as an unwelcome distraction among Democrats ahead of the pivotal race, according to two operatives involved in the race, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. Democratic officials are unsure how much the lingering bitterness from the primary could hurt El-Sayed’s chances on Tuesday. Polls have shown El-Sayed leading Rogers, with a recent CNN poll finding him winning 95 percent of Democratic likely voters, up from 90 percent around Labor Day.
But El-Sayed doesn’t lead by as much as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson leads her Republican opponent, suggesting some damage has been done to El-Sayed from the primary or other fights. Donald Trump narrowly won Michigan in 2024.
El-Sayed told reporters Wednesday evening he is building a coalition of voters who want change on the economy and to push back against Trump, but understands if some people choose not to vote for him over other issues.
“We feel really strong about our ability to bring people together,” he said. “There are always going to be some folks who have different opinions, and they’re welcome to that. That’s the beauty of democracy.”
A spokeswoman for his campaign said they are “grateful for Congresswoman Stevens’ immediate and sustained support.”
Rogers told reporters it was “one of those good surprises” that Stevens’s fiancé endorsed him. “This is a hard decision for a lot of people who have been lifelong Democrats,” Rogers said. “We can’t keep ‘Democrats for Rogers’ signs in the office; they’ve been flying out of there like crazy.”
Stevens and El-Sayed have not appeared together since a Democratic unity breakfast shortly after the primary, and Stevens has been upset over El-Sayed’s campaign using a clip of right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson criticizing Rogers in an ad. Stevens has also criticized an ad by an outside group blaming high prices in the U.S. on Israel, which El-Sayed has distanced himself from.
“I fully believe he can do this, can denounce Tucker Carlson and denounce antisemitic hate, things that make, particularly, minority communities feel less safe, and actually make them less safe,” Stevens said on CNN on Wednesday. “I know he has it in him to denounce these two ads, to take them down. I know that undecided voters would feel very reassured to see this.”
Stevens’s engagement to Turkish, who has donated to both GOP and Democratic candidates in the past, was announced after she lost the primary to El-Sayed. Turkish told reporters in a video posted Wednesday that El-Sayed did not bring the party together after the bruising primary as the couple had hoped.
“When he says ‘genocide’ over and over again, when he refuses to condemn an ad that says Jews are to blame for the price of bananas, he makes my community less safe,” Turkish said. El-Sayed has said he believes Israel has committed genocide in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Genocide is defined as an intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, religious or racial group, wholly or in part.
Turkish said he wanted a more forceful condemnation from El-Sayed for the outside group’s ad, which featured American grocery shoppers complaining that prices were high because of U.S. military support for Israel.
“I have waited week after week, day after day, for him to disavow this hate without equivocation. He won’t do it,” Turkish said in the video. “There is no explaining away hate. And I predict to you that Michigan will reject this.”
El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants who was born and raised in Michigan, has said he loves the Jewish people and that his criticism of Israel should not be conflated with criticizing Jews.
Some prominent Jewish Democrats have backed El-Sayed, including Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who is campaigning with him on Thursday night in Kalamazoo.
“I hope that folks will see us — a Muslim man and a Jewish woman — coming together, even with real disagreements when it comes to issues in the Middle East,” El-Sayed said. “Coming together to fight Trumpism, and to protect our democracy.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most prominent pro-Israel lobby group, funneled tens of millions through its super PAC to support Stevens during the primary. The group is reportedly spending more than $9 million to support Rogers.
Karen Tumulty contributed to this report.
The post New endorsement against Abdul El-Sayed restarts Democratic recriminations appeared first on Washington Post.
