Michigan Senate race: Last-minute “betrayal” by Democrats

There was a nasty surprise on Sunday for Abdul El-Sayed, the left-wing Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan. Two days before the US midterms on November 3rd, his party colleague Haley Stevens, who lost to him in the Democratic primary, announced that she would support his opponent, Republican Mike Rogers. The background is the opposing positions on the issue of Israel.

Stevens made a surprise appearance with Rogers on Sunday. An event with El-Sayed was actually announced for the same day. “This is a very close election, we all know that,” Stevens said after the appearance at a church in Detroit. “But Abdul made it very clear that I was not welcome in his election campaign,” she said.

Stevens' desertion was strongly condemned by Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the move a “despicable betrayal.” “We Democrats in the Senate stand united behind Abdul El-Sayed because we know that he will stand up for the economic interests of working families in Michigan – unlike Mike Rogers, who is a stooge of Donald Trump and billionaire donors,” Schumer wrote on X. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also made similar comments.

Michigan Democratic Chairman Curtis Hertel said on X Sunday: "Congresswoman Stevens is not currently and will not be a member of the Michigan Democratic Party." The state party had completely removed Stevens from its elected officials page, removing both her name and photo from the list. Stevens currently sits in the House of Representatives as a representative for Michigan, but is not running for this position again.

As expected, Stevens' change of course was applauded by Republicans. “Wow, this is BIG!” President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, calling her move “brave” and offering Stevens to join the Republicans. The MP had previously rejected this.

Republican candidate Mike Rogers was honored. It's "above all about standing together against hate and about the future of this state and this country," said Rogers after the appearance with Stevens on Sunday.

The background to the differences between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens is primarily their attitude towards Israel. El-Sayed has repeatedly condemned US support for the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank and wants to stop arms deliveries to Israel. Stevens, on the other hand, is considered a staunch supporter of Israel. In the election campaign for the party's internal primary, she was supported by the Israel lobby Aipac (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) with almost 30 million US dollars - the highest amount the organization had ever invested in a single race.

At the center of recent developments was an independent commercial supporting El-Sayed's campaign. The clip suggests that support for the Gaza war is responsible for the current inflation in the US. Although El-Sayed had stated that she had nothing to do with the content of the commercial, Haley Stevens had cited it as one of the reasons for her decision and condemned the content as anti-Semitic. The commercial was run by Rebellion PAC, a lobbying organization founded by Cenk Uygur, the uncle of controversial left-wing streamer Hasan Piker.

Abdul El-Sayed, who would be the US's first Muslim senator if he wins the election, remained calm about the latest turn of events. “At the end of the day, I don’t think about Haley Stevens,” the 41-year-old doctor said on Sunday at a campaign rally in a church attended primarily by African Americans. “None of that matters.” Instead, he thinks about the “9,999,998 people who aren’t these two [Haley Stevens and Mike Rogers].”

El-Sayed had been repeatedly attacked by right-wing and republican groups because of his religion. Donald Trump had repeatedly called him a “jihadist” and joked about his middle name, Mohamed. Mike Rogers claimed the Democrat had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The current developments come at a bad time for the Democrats. The Senate race in Michigan is considered close. While Democrats could achieve their goal of winning the Senate majority in the midterms through a variety of scenarios, almost all of them require a victory in Michigan.

While the state hasn't elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate in more than 30 years, polls suggest El-Sayed doesn't command the same level of support as other statewide Democratic candidates in Michigan. To what extent El-Sayed's clear stance on the Middle East conflict plays a role in this is unclear. A slim majority of people in Michigan reject US support for Israel, consistent with US trends. Jewish voters, many of whom voted for Haley Stevens in the primary, make up about 1.4 percent of the vote in Michigan, while Muslims make up 2 to 3 percent.

The Democratic candidate had recently regained support among the black population, with whom El-Sayed also had difficulties in the primaries and who accounted for 11 percent of the vote. Campaign appearances with former presidential candidate Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama in Detroit two weeks ago contributed to this. In current polls, El-Sayed leads Rogers by between 2 and 11 percentage points.

The research was made possible by a Daniel Haufler scholarship from the taz panter foundation.