A Michigan Democrat has endorsed the Republican candidate in the state’s closely contested U.S. Senate race, just days before the election, after a public feud with her own party’s nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, escalated.
Haley Stevens, a former congresswoman who lost the Democratic nomination to El-Sayed, made a surprise appearance alongside Republican candidate Mike Rogers at a church on Sunday.
“I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign,” Stevens said in a video posted to X shortly after the appearance. “Who we are as Michiganders is not hate, and it is not what we are getting from our Democratic nominee right now.”
“That is why I am endorsing Mike Rogers,” Stevens said.
Stevens also said El-Sayed had told her she was no longer welcome in his campaign.
The pair had been scheduled to appear together at an event on Sunday, but El-Sayed reportedly asked her not to come.
They had clashed publicly over a campaign advertisement from a liberal group that blamed Israel for high food prices.
El-Sayed, who has not commented on Stevens’s endorsement of his opponent, criticized the advertisement and said he had nothing to do with its contents.
The Michigan Senate race is considered by analysts to be one of the tightest in Tuesday’s midterm elections, which will decide which party controls Congress for the next two years.
It is one of a handful of battleground contests that will ultimately decide control of the Senate.