Detroit: The last straw for Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens came on Saturday afternoon.
She was on the cusp of appearing at a unity event with Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated her in an August primary and became Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee. Several powerful intermediaries had been trying to broker peace between the former rivals, who were sparring over El-Sayed’s strong criticisms of Israel.
But after Stevens issued a hostile statement on Friday morning calling upon El-Sayed to condemn an ad made by a supportive political action committee and make other concessions, he stepped before reporters and said what his campaign had been signalling privately: he no longer wanted Stevens to join him at a Detroit church on Sunday.
Haley Stevens speaking alongside Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers (left) after a church service in Detroit on Sunday. AP Photo/Jose Juarez It was one thing not to be welcomed by El-Sayed’s Senate campaign. It was quite another for him to say so in public.
So Stevens on Sunday did what she had been telling everyone she would not do. She endorsed former congressman Mike Rogers, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in a race critical to control of the Senate.
“Abdul made very clear that I was not welcome in his campaign, that he didn’t need me there, that he didn’t want me there,” Stevens said while standing next to Rogers outside a black church in Detroit, where they had just attended the Sunday service.
“I did endorse the Democratic nominee, and he chose to close this campaign by saying I wasn’t welcome. I’ve never been invited to a campaign event. That’s fine. You know, he’s busy. He’s running all around.”
Stevens’ extraordinary declaration and church appearance with Rogers were a stunning denouement of her weeks-long feud with El-Sayed, who narrowly defeated her in the Michigan Senate primary. Throughout their evident tension this northern fall, she insisted she was a team player and a good Democrat who would grit her teeth and back El-Sayed while working hard for other party members on the ticket.
Costly drama for Democrats? Their dispute is deeply personal, involving slights between two mercurial millennial politicians of sizable egos quick to take offence.
El-Sayed, supremely confident, did not wish to give an inch to a defeated rival. Stevens, still absorbing her primary loss, eventually felt scorned by his campaign’s failure to include her in events or reach out for her views, and embarrassed to be told to stay away.
But the breach also represents a major fissure cou
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