• Analysis
Michigan senate race defection fallout: staff resign and El-Sayed raises $1.2 million after Haley Stevens backs Mike Rogers
Hours after Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers two days before the midterm elections, several of her congressional staff resigned and Abdul El-Sayed's campaign raised $1.2 million in four hours, shaking up the michigan senate race.
The defection in the michigan senate race was announced on Sunday, two days before Tuesday's midterm elections, when US Representative Haley Stevens appeared with Republican Mike Rogers at a Detroit church to back him. What followed within hours was an immediate collision inside both parties: resignations on Stevens' own staff, an invitation from Trump to switch parties, and a fundraising windfall for the Democrat she turned against.
Trump invites Stevens to join Republicans
At a political rally in Iowa hours after the endorsement, Trump invited Stevens to join the Republican Party.
He told reporters he would reach out to thank her, calling the endorsement "a smart thing to do because El-Sayed would destroy our country". At the same rally, Trump repeated false claims that Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee, is a "jihadist".
Backlash in Stevens' own ranks
The cost on Stevens' side of the aisle was immediate. A number of her congressional staff resigned over the endorsement, according to reports by CNN and the Hill.
Voters reacted too. In Warren, a Detroit suburb, 72-year-old Pamela Johnson said after casting her ballot for El-Sayed:
"Haley Stevens is a traitor."
The endorsement had come on the very day Stevens was scheduled to appear alongside El-Sayed in a show of party unity, an event that unraveled. Stevens said the rift followed El-Sayed's refusal to condemn an outside group's advertisement that she said blames Israel for high grocery prices.
El-Sayed campaign sees fundraising surge
The backlash translated directly into money for El-Sayed. His campaign raised $1.2 million in the four hours after Stevens endorsed Rogers, a spokesperson said - its second-best fundraising day since the August primary, in which El-Sayed defeated Stevens for the nomination.
El-Sayed told MS NOW he was keeping the focus away from his former primary rival:
"This race was never about me."
Where the race stands
The stakes of Tuesday's vote reach well beyond Michigan:
- •Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House seats are on the ballot, with Republicans holding narrow majorities in both chambers.
- •Polls show Democrats favoured to win the House and locked in a tight Senate battle likely resting on a handful of states, including Michigan and Alaska.
- •If Democrats take a chamber, they could block Trump's legislative agenda for his final two years in office and launch investigations of his administration.
In Michigan itself, a New York Times/Siena poll released and partly conducted on Sunday showed El-Sayed leading Rogers 53 to 42 percent.
