Rep. Haley Stevens went on CNN's AC360 on Sunday night to answer for the staff revolt over her endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan's Senate seat — and in a tense 15-minute interview with Anderson Cooper, two days before Tuesday's vote, she would not explain what changed her mind overnight. Asked why she reversed course, she said backing Rogers was “just a weight off my shoulders,” accused Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed of “getting angrier and angrier” and of telling Democrats “this is a party you don't belong in,” and insisted: “My mind is made up, I'm rock solid. I'm an independent woman, I made my decision.”
Cooper pressed the question she never answered: Rep. Debbie Dingell says Stevens assured her at midnight on Saturday that she would not endorse Rogers — so what changed between then and Sunday morning, when Stevens appeared beside Rogers at a Detroit church? Stevens disputed the timing of the call, said she had spent time alone with her thoughts, and, pressed again to confirm Dingell's account, accused Cooper of “editorializing.” Only last week, when her own staffers urged her not to endorse Rogers, she had texted back, according to a person who saw the message: “Omg why would you think I would do that??!!”
Cooper then put the walkout to her directly: her longtime chief of staff Justin German has resigned saying the staff were “shocked and heartbroken,” and reports say more than half her staff have quit. After a long silence, Stevens asked, “Was that a question, Anderson?” She then called the departures a “transition,” saying: “I'm running down my office. It's all been packed up. These are great individuals who, you know, I care a lot about… they're free to share their views on this. I am not trying to upset anyone. I'm just being honest with my constituents and what I'm hearing from people.” She said she still has an incredible team in Washington who are casting votes. Cooper also confronted her with her own August post warning that Rogers would be a “rubber stamp” for President Trump's agenda; she did not explain the change.
Dingell, appearing on CNN immediately afterward, called it “one of the most painful interviews I have ever watched” and confirmed on air that Stevens had assured her she would not endorse Rogers — “Yes, she did. Multiple times.” Dingell said she had been worried about Stevens all week. Earlier on Sunday, Stevens had been heckled as a “traitor” at a press appearance alongside Rogers, and El-Sayed's campaign said it raised $2.4 million on Sunday — its biggest fundraising day yet — off the back of her endorsement.
For Michigan voters, the interview is now part of what they carry into Tuesday: the congresswoman who crossed party lines with the race's biggest endorsement in its final hours says she is “rock solid,” her own chief of staff and, by the reports put to her on air, more than half her office have walked out over it, and the colleague she assured the night before says she was told the opposite, multiple times. The seat she is no longer contesting — and the Senate majority that may turn on it — will be decided with those words on the record.
President Trump used his Sunday rally in Dubuque, Iowa, to invite Rep. Haley Stevens to leave the Democratic Party. Hours after the Michigan congresswoman stunned her own party by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate, Trump told the crowd: "I'm happy with what she did. She was very brave in doing it. So, I don't know Haley — I've never met Haley — but Haley said what few people are willing to say. I'd love her to join the Republican Party, actually. I think that could happen." He said Stevens had shown "great and almost unprecedented loyalty to the great people of Michigan" by backing Rogers over Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
The invitation capped a full day of courtship. Earlier on Sunday, Trump praised Stevens on Truth Social as a "Highly Respected Democrat," "especially our African American and Jewish populations," writing: "It's a thing called bravery, and few people have it like just displayed by Congresswoman Haley Stevens!" Before the rally, he told reporters he would reach out to thank her, and when asked whether she should become a Republican, he answered: "I'd love to have her." House Speaker Mike Johnson said he had already sent her a note: "I sent her a note and told her how great she was and how much we appreciated that. She's standing for truth."
Stevens has given no direct answer to the invitation. In the video announcing her endorsement on Sunday, she said: "I'm still a very proud Democrat." Her state party treats the break as final — Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel has said she is not a current member of the state party, nor will she be in the future. For Michigan voters, this lands two days before an election that helps decide control of the Senate: the President is openly recruiting a sitting Democratic congresswoman while her own party cuts her loose, in a race still contested — the final New York Times/Siena poll has El-Sayed leading Rogers by 11 points, 53 to 42, though a CNN poll last week put the gap at seven and a Decision Desk HQ average at about four. Whether or not Stevens ever switches, a party fighting itself in public two days out does Rogers' work for him — and Michigan households will live with what this seat decides.
— Previously posted on Sunday, November 1, 2026 —
Rep. Haley Stevens has defended her surprise endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers, telling reporters in Detroit on Sunday, after attending service with Rogers at Perfecting Church: "I'm not turning my back on Democrats." "It is this one vote," she said. "It's my personal and private decision." "I still love the party." The press gaggle ended abruptly after a heckler called her a traitor.
Her stated reason was hate. "When you see us standing with Hasan Piker and repeated hate, it's not acceptable," she said, referring to the streamer El-Sayed campaigned with during the primary. "That's it." Stevens had backed El-Sayed after losing the August primary to him and had indicated she would vote for him until Sunday. She said she meant that endorsement — but she had also been disinvited from El-Sayed's closing event on Sunday, an appearance brokered by Reps. Jim Clyburn and Debbie Dingell, after she criticised El-Sayed on Friday for not disavowing an outside ad tying Israel to grocery prices. "Abdul was very clear," she said. "He said, 'Don't come.'"
Rogers said he was honoured by her support and called the endorsement an example of courage in politics. The Democratic pushback continued: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who chairs the Senate Democrats' campaign arm, called Rogers a rubber stamp for President Trump, said the stakes could not be higher and said Democrats stand firmly behind El-Sayed. El-Sayed himself gave no direct response to the endorsement in the reporting; his campaign had said the grocery-price ad was not his and that he did not agree with it. A Decision Desk HQ polling average has El-Sayed leading Rogers by roughly four points. For Michigan voters, the fight lands on a seat that could decide control of the Senate — and on a question the primary put at the centre of the race: what a candidate's party will and will not stand next to.
— Previously posted on Sunday, November 1, 2026 —
Michigan's Democratic Party leadership publicly rebuked Rep. Haley Stevens on Sunday after she appeared with Republican Mike Rogers at a Detroit church and endorsed him for the U.S. Senate, two days before he faces the party's own nominee, Abdul El-Sayed. State party chair Curtis Hertel said in a statement that the party stands united and fully behind El-Sayed, and that by campaigning with Rogers, Stevens had "abandoned everything she claims to care about." The party, he said, rejects attempts by Stevens and bad-faith actors to divide it and blunt its momentum.
The party's first vice chair, Portia Roberson, said Michigan Democrats are voting for El-Sayed and condemned Stevens for standing with Rogers at the church two days before what she called the most important Senate race in the country. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer went further in a post on X, calling Stevens' move a "despicable betrayal," saying Senate Democrats are united in their support for El-Sayed, and describing Rogers as "a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors."
Stevens answered that her endorsement was a response to hate, and to El-Sayed's ties to the political streamer Hasan Piker. "It's my personal and private decision. I still love the party," she said, pointing to her years of work and votes for the party and saying she will keep serving it through the end of her term. She had been due to appear with El-Sayed at his closing event the same day, but was dropped from it after demanding that he condemn a Rebellion PAC ad she called fearmongering for tying grocery prices to U.S. military aid to Israel. Rogers said the endorsement was about standing together against hate and about the future of Michigan and the country. El-Sayed himself made no public statement in the reports of the rebuke.
For Michigan voters, the picture two days before the vote is extraordinary: the Democratic congresswoman who lost the August primary is now campaigning for the Republican against her own party's nominee, in a race that could decide control of the U.S. Senate — and her party's state chair, vice chair and Senate leader have all lined up publicly against her for it.
— Previously posted on Sunday, November 1, 2026 —
Hours after Rep. Jamie Raskin told a national television audience that Haley Stevens is voting the Democratic ticket, the Michigan congresswoman appeared on Sunday alongside Republican Mike Rogers at Perfecting Church in Detroit — a public show of support for the man facing Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee who beat her in August's Senate primary, in Tuesday's election.
Reports of the appearance describe Stevens standing with Rogers at the church; no statement from Stevens formally endorsing Rogers was found in the reporting, and the appearance itself is what is verified. It came the same day she was pulled from a closing event with El-Sayed and Rep. Jim Clyburn — the organizer, Rep. Debbie Dingell, said it had become too distracting — and it lands against her own words on CNN on October 28, when she said, "Of course I'm voting for our Democratic nominee for Senate," and against the pledge she made after the primary to help El-Sayed however she could.
For Michigan voters, the two pictures now sit side by side two days before the vote: the Democratic leadership's account that Stevens is with the ticket, and the Republican nominee photographed with her at a Detroit church in a toss-up race that could decide control of the Senate.
— Previously posted on Sunday, November 1, 2026 —
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin used a Sunday appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" to shut down talk of a Democratic split in Michigan, saying Rep. Haley Stevens had told him the night before that she is voting the straight Democratic ticket — which means a vote for Abdul El-Sayed, the man who beat her in the Senate primary — and that she would be celebrating with Democrats on Tuesday night.
Raskin said he had spoken with both Stevens and El-Sayed on Saturday night, and he gave her position in her own terms: she is "voting straight down the line on the Democratic ticket." He waved the feud off as an inside-baseball squabble, said Democrats had never been more unified or more focused, predicted a Michigan landslide, and closed with, "Haley gets it. Abdul gets it."
The clash he was asked to calm is a real one. El-Sayed beat Stevens in August's primary by about one point — 48.5% to 47.5%, a margin of roughly 15,700 votes — in a race where a super PAC affiliated with AIPAC spent close to $30 million backing Stevens, a strong supporter of Israel, against El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel's war in Gaza.
The fight flared again in the final week after an outside group, Rebellion PAC, ran an ad linking U.S. support for Israel to high grocery prices. Stevens demanded that El-Sayed condemn it. On October 31 he repeated that the ad was not made by his campaign and that he did not agree with its contents, and Stevens answered that she was glad to hear it, urging people to stand up when anyone tries to set Democrats against each other. Days earlier her fiancé had told The Detroit News he was voting for Republican Mike Rogers, while Stevens herself told CNN on October 28, "Of course I'm voting for our Democratic nominee for Senate."
The awkwardness did not fully lift on Sunday. Stevens was pulled from a closing event with El-Sayed and Rep. Jim Clyburn — the organizer, Rep. Debbie Dingell, said it had become too distracting — and instead appeared with Rogers at a Detroit church service.
President Trump, at his Mar-a-Lago Halloween party on Saturday, praised Stevens for fighting hard in the primary and said El-Sayed "should not be in the Senate" — a line that sits against Stevens' own stated plan to vote the Democratic ticket.
What it means for Michigan voters: the seat, open because Sen. Gary Peters is retiring, is rated a toss-up and could decide control of the Senate. A CNN/SSRS poll on October 29 put El-Sayed at 49% to Rogers' 42%, and nearly $300 million has been spent on the race. Whether Democrats hold together behind their nominee — including the congresswoman he beat — is the difference between keeping a seat the party cannot spare and handing it to President Trump's endorsed candidate, and with it a vote on the taxes, judges and spending bills that reach every household in the state.
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