HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — Rep. Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat, shook up the state Senate race Sunday when she withdrew her support from her party’s candidate and gave it to her Republican opponent. Once the dust settles and the GOP’s Mike Rogers lies in it, she stands tall, but alone, in the Great Lakes State.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rogers by seven points, erasing the eleventh-hour punch Stevens threw at his former primary opponent. The political ploy, hatched by a liberal lawmaker now banned from the Michigan Democratic Party, leaves her without a clear path to further her career.
She defended herself Wednesday as a principled politician unwilling to tolerate El-Sayed’s heated criticism of Israel, one of the United States’ greatest allies in the Middle East. El-Sayed, Stevens said, only became more extreme in her rhetoric as the race continued, making it an easy choice for her to withdraw her support.
“As a student of history, I decided that standing up for what I believed mattered more,” she wrote in a lengthy post on X. “What mattered most was the truth rather than political expediency.”
His conviction could cost him the chance to one day return to Congress, at least while the nation remains hyperpolarized. Her record prohibits her from becoming a Republican and she would be a punching bag for both parties as an independent.
Stevens held her own after a bruising Senate race, but she will find few friends on Capitol Hill willing to help her exit the political arena.
Do you have any questions, concerns or advice? Send them to Ray at rjlewis@sbgtv.com.
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