Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers exposes Democratic divisions over Israel

The Senate race in Michigan between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers is revealing internal divisions within the Democratic Party over Israel, with Rep. Haley Stevens’ decision to cross party lines and endorse Rogers, magnifying the rift. 

Stevens, who lost the Aug. 4 primary to El-Sayed, made significant political waves by endorsing Rogers on Nov. 1 after attending Perfecting Church in Detroit with him.

“Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” she said.

The infighting between Stevens and El-Sayed centers around the latter’s approach to Israel and its war in Gaza. When the progressive group Rebellion PAC aired an ad linking rising prices to U.S. military aid for Israel, Stevens demanded that El-Sayed condemn the ad and other Israel-related remarks. El-Sayed’s campaign said that they didn’t produce the ad, but that wasn’t sufficient for Stevens. 

Liberal Jewish voters are particularly concerned about El-Sayed being elected as their next senator, leading some 50 rabbis and federation leaders to form Nonnegotiable Michigan. The group is sponsoring a petition that calls on Democrat leaders to “treat Jewish safety, self-definition, statehood and political participation as baseline, nonnegotiable commitments.”  

The political division is significant enough that The Intercept argued in an Oct. 31 piece that centrist Democrats would rather lose Michigan’s open Senate seat than win it with Abdul El-Sayed. Resistance to El-Sayed, the outlet said, stems from his criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza rather than his domestic policy.

The fallout from Stevens’ endorsement and concerns over the reasons she cited for doing so could be why Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chose to appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and single-out Republicans Sen. Ted Cruz, President Donald Trump, and Vice President JD Vance for using rhetoric about El-Sayed that “should appall every decent American.” Their remarks, Sanders said, were “overt, absolute racism.” Sanders said he disagrees with El-Sayed on some policies but predicted voters would reject “that type of ugliness.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told CNN’s “State of the Union” the same day that El-Sayed “is the embodiment of the American dream,” citing meetings he had seen El-Sayed hold with rabbis, imams, and pastors in Michigan.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a Nov. 1 statement on X that Stevens’ decision “is a betrayal of the values of the Democratic Party” and that Democrats “will not allow last-minute political stunts to derail our momentum.” He added that “there is only one choice in the Michigan U.S. Senate race, and it’s Abdul El-Sayed.”

The latest polls show El-Sayed ahead of Rogers. A New York Times/Siena poll of 1,011 likely voters released Nov. 1 had El-Sayed at 53% and Rogers at 42% (3.8-point margin of error), the Siena Research Institute said. A Mitchell Research poll of 636 likely voters taken Oct. 26–27 had El-Sayed at 51% and Rogers at 44%, with a margin of error of 3.9 points.

Earlier polls showed a tighter race. The RealClearPolling average of polls from Sept. 24 to Oct. 22 showed El-Sayed at 47.9% and Rogers at 46.0%, and a Marist poll taken Oct. 15–18 had El-Sayed at 50% and Rogers at 48%. 

Rogers has recently drawn criticism from Catholics over an Oct. 31 statement in which he said Michigan voters “have already decided” the abortion issue and that he wouldn’t do anything to change abortion law if elected to the Senate. 

CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt said in a Nov. 1 statement the group cannot endorse a candidate who supports abortion but that El-Sayed “offers Catholic voters no refuge.”