Haley Stevens is trying to ratf–k the El-Sayed campaign over Israel

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) sent shockwaves through the U.S. political system when she endorsed GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers this past weekend. Stevens had previously expressed support for Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who narrowly defeated her in the August primary, but her brief backing of the candidate seemed half-hearted. “Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” declared Stevens in a video on Sunday. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.” Stevens has been criticized harshly by members of her own party, and her staffers have quit in protest. “This is a despicable betrayal from Rep. Stevens,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement. “Senate Democrats are united in our support for Abdul El-Sayed, because we know he will fight for the economic interests of working families in Michigan, unlike Mike Rogers, who is a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors.” On MSNBC, Chris Hayes notes that Democratic anger at Steven’s move has “weirdly and counterintuitively” unified the Party heading into the midterms. Multiple Republicans have also praised Stevens for her decision, including President Donald Trump, who said he would love for her to join the GOP. In a New York Times piece on the flip, reporters Reid J. Epstein and Tim Balk detail a series of mounting grievances Stevens developed with the El-Sayed campaign, some of which transcend policy. However, the central component of the beef is obviously Israel. Last month, Stevens began issuing demands to the El-Sayed campaign over a political ad criticizing Israel. The Senate nominee had no connection to the video, which a political action committee called Rebellion PAC created and which had no major spending behind it, but Stevens wanted his campaign to denounce it as antisemitic. Days later, Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, publicly endorsed Rogers and declared that an El-Sayed win would make the world more dangerous for Jewish people. Turkish is an AIPAC donor. The powerful lobbying group has backed Stevens for her entire political career and spent $30 million attacking El-Sayed when the two squared off in the primary. Since the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, there’s been a tendency to interpret all Democratic Party squabbles as an ongoing battle between centrists and progressives, but the Haley Stevens about-face doesn’t really fit that narrative. Sure, El-Sayed has embraced a litany of Bernie Sanders-type domestic positions like Medicare for All and harshly criticized Trump’s disastrous war on Iran, but he’s also garnered the support of establishment Democrats, like Schumer. Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris have even hit the campaign trail with him. In a train-wreck interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper after her endorsement of Rogers, Stevens expressed frustration with El-Sayed’s alleged focus on foreign policy. “Why the anger?,” she asked. “Why the frustration? Why the obsession with Iran and all these other issues about, you know, what’s going on overseas? What are we going to do here in this country?” Haley Stevens: "Why the anger? Why the frustration? Why the obsession with Iran and all these other issues about, you know, what's going on overseas? What are we going to do here in this country?" pic.twitter.com/AAqx6wAR1T— Bulwark Clips (@BulwarkClips) November 2, 2026 An obvious question arises immediately. If Stevens is so focused on domestic issues, then why is her biggest financial backer a pro-Israel lobbying group? “Haley Stevens’s betrayal of the Democratic Party is not just a story about one individual deciding to change sides,” tweeted Quincy Institute’s Eli Clifton, “This is the story of how a politician backed by $30 million in explicitly pro-Israel campaign spending lost her primary and proceeded to back the Republican chosen by those same pro-Israel mega donors for the general election.” This is not the usual story about a centrist punching left. It’s the tale of a disgruntled, failed candidate seemingly torching her political career on behalf of a foreign country. One could argue that the Stevens move constitutes “ratf–king,” a political slang term that refers to underhanded electioneering. The word hit the mainstream during Watergate, when it was referenced in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s All the President’s Men. Last week, a reporter directly asked El-Sayed, “Is Haley Stevens trying to rat f*ck your campaign?,” but he laughed off the inquiry. “That is not a question for me,” the nominee responded. The night after Stevens officially backed Rogers, she sat down for an interview with Olivia Reingold, a writer at Bari Weiss’s Free Press, who co-authored a highly criticized “report” claiming the Gaza famine was overblown and an “investigation” into the “Anti-Israel Spotify playlists” of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife. Stevens told Reingold that she endorsed Rogers because “I think he loves the country.” Should we assume she was referring to the United States?