Trump urges Haley Stevens to join Republicans as Schumer calls her Rogers endorsement a 'despicable betrayal'
President Donald Trump praised Haley Stevens's endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers as 'brave' and said he would love her to join his party, while Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called the move a 'despicable betrayal' two days before the Michigan Senate vote.
President Donald Trump has urged Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens to join the Republican Party after she endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan, turning an already extraordinary break with her own party into one of the defining rows of the final days before the United States midterm elections.
Stevens, who lost Michigan's Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed in August, announced on Sunday, 1 November, that she was backing Rogers instead of her party's nominee. She had appeared alongside Rogers at a church service in Detroit earlier that day, and said in a social media video that she did not belong in El-Sayed's campaign.
Speaking before a rescheduled Republican rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday, Trump called Stevens's endorsement 'a big move' and 'brave'. He told reporters he had contacted her to thank her, had told her she had done the right thing, and added that he would love to have her join the Republican Party.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was with the president, said he had sent Stevens a note saying she was 'standing for truth'. Johnson told the Iowa crowd that Stevens loved her state, had served it as best she could, and was speaking the truth in a contrast election, in his words, between common sense and what he called a far more extreme alternative.
Trump also used the rally to launch a series of attacks on El-Sayed, repeatedly calling the Democratic nominee a 'jihadist' and suggesting he was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. USA Today reported that those claims were made without evidence, and El-Sayed has disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed would be the first Muslim American elected to the United States Senate if he wins on Tuesday, 3 November.
The reaction from senior Democrats was swift and unusually blunt. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on social media that Stevens's move was 'a despicable betrayal', adding that Senate Democrats were united behind El-Sayed because, in his view, El-Sayed would fight for the economic interests of working families in Michigan.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined the criticism, saying working-class voters' healthcare, rent and bills were on the ballot and accusing Stevens of betraying them by endorsing the Republican she had once said she wanted to run against. The head of the Michigan Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, said Stevens was not a current member of the state party and would not be in the future.
Reports also said Stevens's chief of staff and communications director had resigned following the announcement, although Stevens herself has not announced any intention to change her party affiliation. A former adviser to her Senate campaign, Mario Morrow, told USA Today that two campaign advertisements had weighed heavily on her, including one by an independent group supporting El-Sayed that she wanted denounced and another featuring El-Sayed and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that she had publicly demanded be taken down.
El-Sayed himself has sought to move the contest back to household costs. Asked about Stevens on Sunday, he told reporters he did not think about her, and said Michigan's 10 million people deserved better on gas and grocery prices. He has argued that voters are focused on the cost of living rather than the campaign row.
The row comes as Trump prepares a closing midterm message of his own. A White House official said on Sunday that the president would deliver remarks on Monday, 2 November, at the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, hours before voters go to the polls. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 Senate seats are being contested on Tuesday, and the outcome will decide control of Congress for the final two years of Trump's presidency.
For now, the Michigan race remains one of the closest watched in the country. Rogers gains a prominent cross-party endorsement at the last moment, El-Sayed retains the formal backing of the Democratic leadership, and Stevens's own political future is now an open question, with no party switch announced and the election itself only a day away.
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