A unity event may not happen, after Michigan’s Democratic Senate candidate and one of his primary opponents traded barbs. Meanwhile, Americans are embracing early voting with fervor this election season, and — in a sudden reversal — President Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail.
Here’s what you might have missed on the campaign trail Friday.
Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed might not have gotten the unity memo
A campaign event that was meant to heal Democratic rifts in Michigan, and perhaps win over hesitant voters, has instead opened up new rifts between two former rivals.
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Michigan) and her primary opponent, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, were scheduled to appear together Sunday at a Black church following a week of growing tension between the pair. Now, the two Democrats may not meet.
The El-Sayed campaign asked Stevens on Friday night not to attend any events with the candidate for the remainder of the campaign, according to two people familiar with the request, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation. Politico first reported El-Sayed’s request.
Stevens has not said whether she still plans to attend the event Sunday.
The El-Sayed campaign’s request follows Stevens’s fiancé announcing this week that he would back GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers instead of El-Sayed, and a day that saw the two campaigns sniping at each other in dueling statements.
On Friday morning, Stevens released a statement confirming the church visit. It also called on El-Sayed to apologize for his critiques of U.S. aid to Israel and to explicitly condemn an outside group’s ad purportedly in support of him. The ad was sharply critical of U.S. aid to Israel, and some Jewish groups have described it as antisemitic.
Stevens wrote that she agreed to the joint appearance because she believes El-Sayed plans to formally condemn the ad. El-Sayed’s team has previously distanced itself from the spot, which never ran on television.
In response, El-Sayed released a statement Friday evening in which he said he defeated Stevens despite “$70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC” — a pro-Israel political action committee — meant to boost her candidacy.
“While Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago, let’s all focus on the task at hand: that’s beating Mike Rogers, holding Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All,” El-Sayed said in his statement.
Rogers released his own statement Friday night, calling Stevens “a courageous leader who deserves the respect of every Michigan voter,” and saying that he is the sort of ally to Michigan’s Jewish and Black communities whom Stevens had called on El-Sayed to be in her Friday statement.
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The Democratic infighting comes as the party vies to win control of the Senate. There are several paths that would lead to a Democratic Senate majority, but most rely on the party winning in Michigan.
Polling suggests El-Sayed is locked in a tight race with Rogers, and his level of support is lower than that of other Democrats running statewide. He and Stevens sparred often in the primary, many times about Israel.
The Democrats’ relationship drew new scrutiny this week, after Stevens’s fiancé made his announcement, citing El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel and its relationship with the United States as the reason for his decision.
Stevens has said she supports El-Sayed but has not publicly appeared with him since shortly after he won the primary.
In her statement, Stevens said the joint appearance at the church was part of a visit Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-South Carolina) was making to the state. Stevens emphasized that Clyburn asked her to attend, that she was “honored” to go to church with the longtime lawmaker — whom she called a “dear friend and mentor” — and that “Abdul El-Sayed will join us.”
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who also competed in the Democratic primary this cycle and who has campaigned with El-Sayed, said to The Washington Post’s Dan Merica in a statement that “Michigan could very well be the state that flips control of the Senate,” and it is imperative Democrats do all they can to ensure El-Sayed wins his race.
“Cut the shit. Lock in. Knock doors. Get out the vote. That’s it,” she said.
Nearly 50 million Americans have already voted, including the pope
Pope Leo XIV, who is registered to vote in Illinois, has cast a mail-in ballot for the midterm election, the Vatican confirmed Friday to The Washington Post’s Rome bureau chief, Anthony Faiola.
The pope joins the nearly 50 million Americans who have already voted early for Tuesday’s election, according to the early-voter tracker at the University of Florida’s Election Lab. That includes both mail-in voting and early in-person voting in states where it’s allowed.
Michael McDonald, a professor at the university who maintains the tracker, said that according to his calculations, we have now exceeded pre-election voting levels in the last midterm election in 2022. (McDonald’s 2022 figures don’t include some mail-in votes that were tallied after Election Day.)
“I can see that turnout is up. It’s up everywhere,” he said. “We’re in store for an election that’s going to have a higher turnout rate than 2022.”
Mail-in voting has remained popular even as Trump continues to disparage it, according to a deep dive from Post reporters Patrick Marley, Leslie Shapiro and Laura Meckler.
Trump will hold rallies in Iowa and Kansas, actually
Trump has rescheduled two weekend rallies, in states that have surprisingly competitive races, just one day after canceling them.
The president will campaign in-person in Iowa and Kansas, Washington Post White House reporter Natalie Allison has learned.
Trump’s political team canceled the events on Thursday, and said the president would instead hold tele-rallies. The shifting plans added a sense of whiplash to an already frenetic final stretch of campaigning as Republicans fight to hold their congressional majorities.
Iowa and Kansas both have Senate races that appear to be unusually close. While both have reliably sent Republicans to the upper chamber in recent years (or recent generations in Kansas’s case), Democrats say they see a path to changing that this year.
Trump is traveling to Daytona Beach, Florida, for a rally on Friday. The president will try to boost the state’s Republican nominee for governor, Rep. Byron Donalds — who also seems locked in a closer-than-expected race.
One report says Democrats could win their largest majority since 2009
Democrats are favored in enough House races to win the majority, according to the nonpartisan election prognosticator Cook Political Report. Post Congress reporter Mariana Alfaro writes that the report found Democrats could end up with up to 240 seats, their largest majority since 2009.
Why are things looking for good for Dems? In part, it’s the fact that so many Americans are sour on the economy.
As the party out of power, Democrats can point a finger at Republicans as the reason prices keep rising. And Trump has contributed to those rising prices, both with his administration’s tariffs and the war in Iran. Post reporters Alfaro, Matthew Choi and Anna Liss-Roy report that Democrats are borrowing their “keep focus on the economy” playbook from Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, when he attacked Democrats (then in power) over high prices and pledged to bring costs down.
Other nuggets you may have missed
- There’s a lot of last-minute election litigation.
- Midwestern retirees in Florida could push the state left.
- Democrats were much more willing to talkfor our Kansas poll.
- If Republicans lose big next week, will this man be the one Trump sets up to take the blame?
- An unexpectedly competitive race featuring a Trump superfan in a red district.
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