Shocking news out of Michigan this morning where Haley Stevens, the losing candidate in the Senate Democratic primary, has suddenly endorsed Republican candidate Mike Rogers.
Stevens, whose primary campaign against U.S.-born Egyptian-American Abdul El-Sayed was heavily funded by the pro-Israel AIPAC, had previously pledged to support El-Sayed. Earlier this week her Jewish fiance endorsed Rogers, leading to attempts among the Democratic establishment to hold a unity rally today. However tensions between the El-Sayed and Stevens camps continued to escalate this week. As recently as yesterday, Stevens was reportedly continuing to tell Democratic party figures that she would continue to support El-Sayed. Now, this. Stevens is currently the Representative for the Michigan 11th, a safe Democratic seat, but is not running for re-election in light of her Senate bid; reportedly her entire senior staff have resigned this morning in light of her endorsement.
Polling in recent weeks has consistently shown El-Sayed ahead of Rogers; the current polling average as shown on Nate Silver’s site has El-Sayed at 49.6%, versus 45.5% for Rogers. How much impact will Stevens’ late endorsement have? I’m not sure there is much relevant precedent to consider here. I should mention that the vitriol against El-Sayed by his political opponents has gotten very extreme in recent days, including but not limited to Trump having referred to him as a “Jihadist”. While I don’t agree with El-Sayed across his entire platform of ideas, every time I listen to him I am more impressed with his political talent. As far as I’m concerned, he’s far, far closer to being a “great American” than is our President.
In other news this morning, Senator Murphy (D-CT) has suffered a stroke, at the age of 53. A potential Presidential candidate in 2028, in recent months he has been an increasingly visible Democratic figure on foreign affairs and military issues.
Finally, as I was writing this a federal judge released an opinion dismissing a recent DOJ lawsuit, U.S. v. Alaska, which attempted to preemptively prevent Alaska from certifying the results of the upcoming Senate election, on the grounds of potential voter confusion regarding the presence of the two Dan Sullivans on the four-person ranked choice ballot. There was reporting this week connecting the Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, to the presence of the non-incumbent Dan Sullivan on the ballot; she denies involvement. Honestly, this all feels like much ado about nothing, particularly in a ranked choice state. But there has been a lot of noise about it in recent weeks and it will be interesting to see what effect, if any, that noise has on the results of the election.