Michigan Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers praised Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens for putting America ahead of her party Monday while accusing Democrats of viciously attacking the congresswoman after she stunned her party by endorsing him over Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
Rogers told Brian Kilmeade on the “Brian Kilmeade Show” that Stevens’ endorsement “flipped this thing upside down,” saying the congresswoman called him Sunday morning while he was on his way to church before ultimately deciding to publicly back his campaign following her bruising primary loss to El-Sayed.
“This is a congresswoman who just stood up and said, ‘America is more important than my party right now,'” Rogers said. “And we cannot elect somebody who is so anti-Jewish, who is divisive, who’s angry, who was mean about his politics. It’s just the wrong thing to do.”
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Rogers’ comments came as Fox News reported Monday that Stevens’ endorsement triggered backlash from top Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Schumer called the move a “despicable betrayal,” while Pelosi accused Stevens of “dangerously” betraying Michigan families by backing Rogers.
The endorsement marked a dramatic break for Stevens, who had stopped short of explicitly endorsing El-Sayed in the weeks after losing the Democratic primary but continued to publicly align herself with the party. During an October CNN interview, Stevens was repeatedly pressed on whether she supported El-Sayed and declined to explicitly say she endorsed him, instead stressing that she was “still on the team” and planned to support Democrats on the ballot.
The tensions between the former primary rivals had been building in the closing stretch of the race. Stevens pressed El-Sayed to condemn an outside group’s ad linking U.S. support for Israel to higher grocery prices, which she called antisemitic, before El-Sayed’s campaign asked her to stay away from its remaining campaign events. El-Sayed said his campaign did not produce the ad and that he disagreed with its contents.
Meanwhile, days before she publicly endorsed Rogers, Stevens’ fiancé, Jason Turkish, had already broken with the Democratic nominee. Turkish, a Jewish Michigan attorney and registered Democrat, told reporters at a Rogers campaign event that he planned to vote for the Republican, arguing that El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel had made the Jewish community “less safe.” Turkish described his decision as “putting country before party.”
Still, even hours before the endorsement, Stevens appeared to be denying that she planned to back Rogers. Fox News Digital reported Monday that Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said she spoke with Stevens around midnight Saturday and was told reports of an impending Rogers endorsement were a “rumor” and “not true.”
However, hours later, Stevens was standing alongside Rogers at a Detroit church service, where she ultimately announced she would cross party lines and endorse him over El-Sayed.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen. We were driving to the church yesterday morning when the call came in,” Rogers said. “I just invited her to come in. She decided between when she got in the car and she got to the church, she was going to not only withdraw the endorsement, but endorse me.”
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Rogers, who said the pair had a “great conversation” on the phone, also pushed back on suggestions that Stevens had received anything in exchange for the endorsement, saying his campaign had no advance knowledge that she planned to back him.
“Absolutely not. Matter of fact, we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Rogers said when asked whether he had offered Stevens anything. “She said, ‘I’ve not asked anyone to go with me, I’m just telling you what I’m doing.'”
Rogers then took aim at Democrats who have attacked Stevens since her announcement.
“They want to attack Haley Stevens for saying, ‘I’m a Democrat, I’m voting Democrat up and down the ticket, except for one race, Abdul El-Sayed. I am voting for Mike Rogers,’” Rogers said.
“Their whole plan now is to come out and attack her with viciousness,” he continued. “She’s the only one in the Democrat Party today that has enough common sense to know you elect somebody that hates a group of people this much, it’s gonna be a disaster for Democrats and America.”
During his appearance on Kilmeade’s radio show, Rogers was pressed on a New York Times/Siena poll released Sunday that showed El-Sayed leading him 53% to 42% among likely Michigan voters, a significantly wider margin than other surveys of the race.
Rogers rejected the findings, pointing to his campaign’s internal polling and modeling, which he said showed the race within one or two points.
“We have it as a one- or two-point race,” Rogers said. “Our polling, our modeling and polling shows this is tied or we’re up by two. So we think that’s closer to the truth.”
Rogers also argued that the poll underestimated his support among Black voters in Detroit, saying his campaign had made “great inroads” in the community.
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His comments come after Stevens publicly questioned El-Sayed’s outreach to Black voters. During the October CNN interview, when she would not explicitly back El-Sayed, Stevens said she had urged El-Sayed and his campaign to deliver a speech to the Black community.
“But yeah, I mean, that didn’t happen,” Stevens said at the time. “That speech hasn’t happened.”
