Haley Stevens' Fiancé Says He Will Vote Republican as Michigan Senate Race Heats Up

The United States Senate race in Michigan has taken a new turn. Jason Turkish, the fiancé of Representative Haley Stevens — the former primary rival of Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed — has said publicly that he cannot vote for El-Sayed and will instead vote for Republican nominee Mike Rogers.

Turkish, a Jewish registered Democrat, told The Detroit News of his decision. On Wednesday night he appeared at a Rogers event sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, Michigan, and spoke to reporters on the sidelines of that event.

Turkish said he had waited, watched and listened for El-Sayed to moderate, but that El-Sayed had not moderated and had instead escalated. He said the situation had grown worse as the general election campaign went on, and accused El-Sayed of driving people further apart rather than bringing them together.

Turkish said El-Sayed's anti-Israel rhetoric makes his community less safe. He said that when El-Sayed says "genocide" over and over again and refuses to condemn an advertisement saying Jews are to blame for the price of bananas, he makes his community and many other communities less safe. He added that every time El-Sayed talks about genocide, Jews receive death threats, and said no candidate for the US Senate had acted so recklessly toward the safety of Jews in the community.

Turkish also rebuked El-Sayed's ties to California streamer Hasan Piker, who once said America deserved the 9/11 attacks. He said El-Sayed had refused to distance himself from Piker and had become verbally combative in recent weeks with reporters who asked him about Hasan.

Turkish is a Democratic donor who has also given to some Republicans. He described his decision as putting country before party, saying everything heard from El-Sayed includes equivocation to explain away hate, and that there is no explaining away hate. He predicted Michigan would reject El-Sayed.

Stevens, however, has not backed down from her support for El-Sayed, who defeated her in a closely fought Democratic primary this summer. She told CNN that, like a lot of households across America, theirs is a house divided, and that she still very much wants the Democratic nominee, Abdul, to win the race because there is so much on the line.

At his Wednesday night campaign event, Mike Rogers said El-Sayed is not someone who can be let into the United States Senate. Rogers said that if someone does not know Iran is America's enemy and cannot condemn a Hezbollah-inspired attack, they have no business in the Senate. He made no mention of Turkish's vote in his remarks.

Turkish is the second major figure from Stevens' orbit to back Rogers in recent days. Her former campaign chair, attorney David Kramer, said on Tuesday that he also plans to vote for Rogers. Stevens endorsed El-Sayed after the primary but has not campaigned or appeared with him publicly since a unity breakfast shortly afterward.

El-Sayed is a long-time critic of Israel and calls the war in Gaza a "genocide". Israel argues that it is fighting terrorists who use Gaza civilians as human shields, and that it takes efforts to avoid civilian casualties, such as notifying people and telling them to evacuate buildings before strikes.