Democrat Backs Republican in Michigan Senate Race at the Last Minute as Rival Reports Record Fundraising Haul

In Michigan's U.S. Senate race, Democratic Representative Haley Stevens has abandoned her own party's candidate at the last minute and endorsed the Republican contender. Republicans have touted the endorsement as a major coup, while Democrats have played down its impact and pointed to a record fundraising haul for their candidate, Abdul El-Sayed.

President Donald Trump called Stevens' endorsement of Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers an act of bravery and said it showed great loyalty to Michigan. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Haley had done a heroic and important thing for the country.

El-Sayed's campaign, meanwhile, said it brought in $2.4 million in the hours after Stevens' endorsement, its best-ever fundraising day. In a statement, the campaign said the haul would go towards ensuring El-Sayed's message — money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All — reaches every Michigander in every corner of the state during the critical final stretch.

According to the campaign, the record haul came from more than 65,000 donors, nearly half of them contributing for the first time.

Rogers said in an interview on Fox News on Monday that they did not know until they were on their way to church, when a phone call told them she had made the switch. In his words, this was Abdul's own doing, and what Stevens did was nothing but courageous.

Stevens' endorsement came after months of tension with El-Sayed since he defeated her in the Democratic primary in August by one percentage point, after a bruising contest filled with personal attacks. Though they appeared together in the initial days after the primary, Stevens never appeared with El-Sayed on the trail. On Sunday she praised Rogers' outreach to Black voters.

In recent days things came to a boil after Stevens' fiancé Jason Turkish announced he would vote for Rogers and attended an event with Rogers and Republican Senator Ted Cruz last week, and Stevens called on El-Sayed to disavow a pair of ads she said were offensive to Black and Jewish voters. El-Sayed said one of the ads was not run by his campaign and that he did not agree with it.

There appeared to be initial agreement for Stevens to appear with El-Sayed at a unity event at a Black church in Detroit alongside Democratic Representative James Clyburn and Senator Angela Alsobrooks, but those plans fell apart. A source said the El-Sayed team had disinvited her, although Michigan Representative Debbie Dingell said she was the one who made that decision.

El-Sayed dismissed the endorsement's impact, telling reporters that at the end of the day he does not think about Haley Stevens and that none of this matters. Dingell said on Monday that she had spoken to Stevens repeatedly over the past week, that many people had been trying to push her to do this and they were worried about her, and that on Saturday night Stevens had assured her she would not support Rogers — only for Dingell to wake on Sunday and find she had.

Virgie Rollins, chair of the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus, said in a statement that she was dismayed Stevens had revealed herself to be a sellout who used Black Michiganders for a political stunt. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Monday that Stevens had made a terrible decision, blindsided everyone and isolated herself from the House Democratic caucus, and that there would be a discussion about appropriate next steps upon their return.

Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said Stevens' endorsement shows she has abandoned everything she claims to care about, and that she is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the move a despicable betrayal, and several of her House Democratic colleagues suggested she should be expelled from the House Democratic caucus. Stevens told reporters she fully represents, and is fully in, the Democratic Party.

Polls put El-Sayed ahead in the contest. A CNN poll last week found about 75 percent of Black voters backing El-Sayed and 10 percent backing Rogers. A CNN poll in October showed El-Sayed leading 49-42, while a New York Times/Siena poll conducted in the last week of October and released Sunday showed the race at 53-42 for El-Sayed. El-Sayed, however, said he does not take polls very seriously after the primary, when polls showed him leading by a comfortable margin before the votes were cast.