Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign has asked former primary rival Representative Haley Stevens to stay away from his remaining campaign events, collapsing a planned show of party unity just days before Tuesday’s election.
Why it matters: Michigan’s open Senate seat is rated a toss-up and could help decide control of the Senate, so a public split between the Democratic nominee and his former rival in the final weekend risks depressing turnout among Stevens supporters whose votes El-Sayed still needs.
Politico first reported the request on Friday night, citing two people familiar with the decision, according to multiple outlets. One of those people said Stevens should stay away so as not to distract from the central issues of the campaign. A source speaking on condition of anonymity later confirmed the request to USA Today, and CBS News, CNN and NBC News also confirmed it through their own sources, according to Newsmax.
Stevens and El-Sayed had been expected to appear together on Sunday at a church in Detroit alongside Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. It would have been their first joint appearance since a post-primary unity breakfast in August. By Saturday, an advisory for the event from El-Sayed’s campaign listed only El-Sayed and Clyburn, and later listings added Senator Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland instead of Stevens.
The breakdown followed a day of duelling public statements on Friday. Stevens announced that morning that she would attend the Sunday event, describing El-Sayed’s condemnation of a controversial outside advertisement as “expected”. She also pressed him to condemn the advertisement as antisemitic and to apologise for his own campaign rhetoric about Israel.
The advertisement, from Rebellion PAC, a political action committee founded by progressive commentator Cenk Uygur, shows a couple in a grocery store discussing whether they can afford food because money goes to supporting Israel and, in one version, to killing Palestinians. Stevens and other critics say the advertisement blames Israel and Jewish Americans for high living costs at home. Stevens wrote: “A disclaimer is not a condemnation, and everyone in my community knows the difference.”
El-Sayed’s campaign has said the advertisement is “not affiliated in any way” with his campaign. In a statement posted on X on Friday night, El-Sayed fired back at Stevens directly. “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,” he wrote, referring to the Republican nominee and former congressman.
Rogers seized on the feud on Friday, praising Stevens on X as a “courageous leader” and saying she was right to demand an apology.
El-Sayed defeated Stevens in the August Democratic primary by about one percentage point, and she endorsed him in her concession speech. Stevens won 51 percent of the vote in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, to El-Sayed’s 45 percent, according to the Washington Post.
Her fiance, Jason Turkish, told the Detroit News on October 28 that he planned to vote for Rogers. Stevens has since said that she herself plans to vote for El-Sayed.
Clyburn had helped broker talks between the two camps on Thursday night and into Friday morning, according to the Washington Post. Friday briefly looked like a breakthrough before the request that Stevens stay away was reported.
The seat is held by retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up. Democrats had hoped a united front in Detroit would help consolidate a coalition divided by a bitter and expensive primary.
Whether Stevens appears at any El-Sayed event before Tuesday remains unconfirmed. Stevens did not immediately respond to questions about whether she would stay off the campaign trail, while El-Sayed’s campaign declined to comment beyond its Friday statement. What is confirmed is that the Sunday event will go ahead without her, and the nominee’s closing message is now focused squarely on Rogers.
