Haley Stevens’s Political Suicide Mission

W e are days from the November elections in a year that otherwise looks bleak indeed for the Republican Party. And yet in Michigan’s crucial Senate race — in a state with reliably Democratic DNA, a state that despite its recent (and narrow) flips for Donald Trump in two presidential years hasn’t sent a Republican senator to D.C. since 1994 — nominee Abdul El-Sayed is facing unexpectedly sharp dissent from within the Democratic tent.

The rest of the statewide Democratic Party (reluctantly, but obediently) got in line behind El-Sayed, who narrowly won the August 4 senatorial primary. And yet that primary was bizarre indeed, one of two Midwestern primaries whose polling averages seem to have been unusually skewed by progressive hopes versus on-the-ground reality. (The other race was Francesca Hong’s in nearby Wisconsin.) El-Sayed had been put up in the polling averages by something like ten points, only to ultimately eke out victory by 13,792 votes.

And the loser of that primary, Representative Haley Stevens, has clearly neither forgotten nor forgiven El-Sayed’s constant, fierce attacks on her during his unusually churlish primary campaign — casting her as a pawn of AIPAC, sinisterly serving Jewish interests instead of Michiganders. (What Michigan Democrats truly care about, El-Sayed contends, is ending genocide in Gaza by the illegitimate Jewish ethno-colonialist state of Israel.)

And Stevens has, to her credit, finally hit the breaking point of her conscience. Perhaps the point was forced with a goad, because her fiancé Jason Turkish gave an interview to the Detroit News announcing that he would be casting his vote this year for Mike Rogers, because he put “country before party” and cannot support a man who — with brash, condescending arrogance — denies the right of a Jewish state to exist, makes false and cruelly cynical accusations of Israeli genocide, and — oh, incidentally — has significant personal and family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. As Turkish said, it’s “very simple.”

Though Stevens’s incredibly wholesome Michigan accent might make you think otherwise, neither Stevens nor her fiancé is naïve. If any more evidence were needed that Turkish wasn’t entirely freelancing, it came in the form of Stevens setting the terms for a pre-election “unity event.” The full text must be reprinted here to properly convey the level of Stevens’s passive-aggression:

Rep. Haley Stevens Welcomes Abdul El-Sayed’s Expected Condemnation of Antisemitic Campaign Advertisement, Thanks Congressman Jim Clyburn for Coming to Michigan to Bring Democrats Together

Nominee is expected, for the first time in this campaign, to formally condemn the eleventh-hour Rebellion PAC advertisement, produced by Cenk Uygur, the uncle of his campaign surrogate Hasan Piker, that advances the lie that Israel is to blame for everything Michigan families cannot afford; Stevens urges the press to confirm that condemnation with him directly, and says the same standard applies to his own words and to his campaign’s Tucker Carlson ad.

On Sunday morning, I will go to church in Detroit with my dear friend and mentor, my colleague and a national Democratic leader, Congressman Jim Clyburn. Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed will join us. Jim Clyburn is the son of a minister from Sumter, South Carolina, who was jailed as a college student for demonstrating against segregation and met his wife of fifty-eight years in that jail. He became the first Black South Carolinian sent to Congress in nearly a century and twice served as Majority Whip of the House, and in 2020 it was his voice that won the hearts and minds of Americans and determined who would be the next President of the United States. He is a living legend of the civil rights movement. This summer he came to Michigan to stand with me. I did not win. On Sunday he will stand in a Black church in Detroit for the party he has served his whole life, and I will be standing there with him.

For days, Abdul’s only answer to the Rebellion PAC advertisement produced by Hasan Piker’s uncle, Cenk Uygur, was that his campaign was ‘not affiliated’ with it. That ad tells Michigan families they cannot afford groceries because their money has to be set aside ‘for killing Palestinians,’ and it blames our close ally Israel for everything Michiganders cannot afford. The chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League called it ‘a case study in antisemitism.’ A disclaimer is not a condemnation, and everyone in my community knows the difference. I have learned from Democratic Party leaders and emissaries, as reported in the news media, that Dr. El-Sayed has heard the deep concerns of the Jewish community and is now, for the first time in this campaign, formally condemning that ad for what it is. That is why I accepted Congressman Clyburn’s invitation to appear with Abdul on Sunday. I urge voters and the press to confirm it with Abdul directly.

But the ad did not invent its argument; it dramatized one Dr. El-Sayed has made in his own words throughout this campaign: that Israel is the reason Michigan cannot afford schools, health care, and child care. The standard here is simple. If those words are wrong when a Political Action Committee supporting his campaign says them, then they are equally wrong when Abdul says them, and Abdul has said them from the start. I therefore expect him to apologize for those statements as well. Abdul promises to get money out of politics. He can begin by getting Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan cannot afford. And it is my hope and expectation that, out of the same respect for Michigan’s Black community, he will take down his own advertisement featuring white Christian nationalist Tucker Carlson, an insult to the congregation that will welcome us on Sunday.

I say this with no race to run and nothing to gain. The Jewish and African American communities of my district deserve to see their leaders show up for them rather than fight over them. Jim Clyburn has spent his life showing what that looks like. I am honored to go to church with him.

Well then! Notice the clever blindside Stevens hits El-Sayed with: not El-Sayed’s by-now partisan-coded associations with the Muslim Brotherhood, but rather his explicit endorsement by politically toxic anti-Americans like Hasan Piker, Cenk Uygur, and Tucker Carlson. (Lest you think Carlson is a cheap inclusion on this list, he endorsed El-Sayed months ago, and for all the predictable reasons.)

Will the rally happen? Probably not! Because at this final moment, Abdul El-Sayed has refused to take demands. He responded last night to Stevens’s public demands with his own public remonstrance:

Our campaign is and has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing: Skyrocketing gas prices, unaffordable groceries, and the inability to see a doctor.

That focus is why our people-powered campaign defeated a historic $70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens. Now the stakes are even higher—defeating Trump’s hand-picked candidate, taking back the Senate, and defending our democracy.

That should be the priority for all of us right now. So while Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago, let’s all focus on the task at hand: that’s beating Mike Rogers, holding Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All.

Oh, how delightfully petty a response, and how revealing as well. El-Sayed will not back down or be bullied about the one thing he truly believes in and cares about, more than any easily abandoned promises of Medicare-for-All: his loathing of Israel, a supposedly “genocidal” state.

On this rock he will stand and fight. And don’t kid yourself: On this rock he may win.