Midterm elections...a division that threatens the hopes of Democrats in the state of Michigan

Two days before the midterm elections, Republicans led by US President Donald Trump received an unexpected boost on Sunday (November 2, 2026); This was in a decisive race for a Senate seat in Michigan, after Democratic Representative Haley Stevens publicly supported Republican candidate Mike Rogers when she appeared next to him in a church in Detroit.

Haley Stevens lost the Michigan Democratic Party's primary for Senate to Abdul Sayed in a closely contested race. “There is no place for me in Abdul’s campaign,” Stevens said in a video posted on social media.

Division among Democrats

Stevens' endorsement of Rogers came on a day she was supposed to appear with El-Sayed in a show of party unity. But the planned event collapsed after Stevens called on Al-Sayed to denounce an announcement by an external committee, which the representative said held Israel responsible for rising food prices in the United States. "We cannot stand with hate," Stevens told reporters on Sunday as she stood next to Rogers after joining him at a church service in Detroit.

Mr. Stevens' campaign recently asked Stevens to avoid attending his events until Election Day so as not to "distract attention from the campaign's central issues," a person familiar with the matter said. At a time when Republicans sought to exploit Stevens' move. “This is the courage in American politics today,” Rogers said. “When you see a party, or at least a segment of it, veer toward the extreme hatred they unleash toward a group of people, it becomes dangerous.”

While CNN and The Hill reported that a number of Stevens' congressional staff had resigned over the endorsement, according to a statement attributed to Stevens' chief of staff, Justin German, in which he supposedly stated, "As of this morning, many members of our team have resigned, including me." The statement described German as "shocked and heartbroken" by Stevens' endorsement. The authenticity of the source could not be verified.

An invitation from Trump to join the party

Hours after she posted the video, President Donald Trump called on Stevens during a campaign rally in Iowa to join the Republican Party. ⁠He told reporters before that that he would contact her to thank her for the support, which he described as “a smart move because the master will destroy our country.”

He repeated untrue claims that Mr. is a “jihadist,” attacks that fall within a broader pattern of inflammatory rhetoric by Trump and other Republicans targeting Arab Americans and Muslims. Al-Sayed was subjected to a campaign of racist and Islamophobic attacks. He rejected these accusations and described questions about his loyalty to the United States as “shameful.”

What do the numbers say?

At first glance, the move appeared to have little impact on some early voters in Michigan, where Mr. Rogers leads by about four points, according to Real Clear Polling estimates. Reuters quoted some voters, such as Pamela Johnson (72 years old), after she cast her vote for Mr. in Warren, a suburb of Detroit, as saying that “Haley Stevens is a traitor.” It also quoted David Kollar, a 32-year-old elementary school teacher, who said Stevens' endorsement "seemed like a last-minute distraction." He added that he voted for El-Sayed because of his support for universal, government-funded health care.