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| Michigan Reps. Haley Stevens (D?) and Mike Rogers (R) |
The Michigan Senate race has been the ugliest of the cycle (for the Democrats...Republicans in Texas can compete with this). While Democrats had tough primaries in states like Texas, Wisconsin, & Minnesota, the party has largely moved past it, and to be honest-so had Michigan. If you look at internal partisan numbers in most polls, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the Senate, actually does better with Democrats than former Rep. Mike Rogers (the GOP nominee) does with Republicans. This doesn't feed into preexisting belief systems about the race (the media more often portrays the Democrats as divided than the GOP in the Wolverine State), but it is in fact fact: El-Sayed has coalesced the Democratic Party behind him. You've seen that in the way that major establishment figures like Barack Obama & Gretchen Whitmer have made a point of campaigning for him in the past few months since the primary.
The sole exception to this has been Rep. Haley Stevens (D), his main opponent in the primary (their other opponent, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, has heartily backed El-Sayed and has campaigned for him). Stevens had done a unity breakfast with El-Sayed after the primary, but otherwise had avoided campaigning with him. This was not the case for people like McMorrow, Angie Craig (MN), and Francesca Hong (WI) who not only did the unity breakfast, but also made a point of campaigning for their opponents. McMorrow has been all over the media for El-Sayed, Craig recently went door-knocking with Peggy Flanagan in Burnsville, and Hong has done events for David Crowley throughout the fall. But Stevens has largely avoided El-Sayed, and offered tepid praise (though always still an endorsement)...
...that is until this morning. This morning, Stevens appeared with Rogers at a Detroit church, and afterward issued a short video on social media declaring that she was going to be voting for Mike Rogers, not the Democratic nominee. She said in the video that "education was on the ballot," and that this is "Phil Hart's seat"...side bar, and totally not the point but I'm going to make it the point for a second: this isn't Phil Hart's seat. Phil Hart served in the Class 1 seat currently held by Elissa Slotkin presently...he never held the seat currently up on Tuesday (and now held by Gary Peters). Really not a big thing, but if Stevens was going to betray her party, she at least could've checked Wikipedia first. End side bar.
Stevens move is shocking, to say the least, and honestly feels a bit erratic. As recently as Wednesday (yes, four days ago Wednesday) she said publicly in an interview on CNN that while her fiancee was voting for Rogers, she would be backing the entire Democratic ticket. Her exact quote was "I still very much want our Democratic nominee, his name is Abdul, to win this race." Rep. Jamie Raskin, one of Stevens' colleagues went on Meet the Press this morning and stated he'd spoken with Stevens, and she had every intention of voting the full Democratic ticket. For the record, I don't believe that Raskin lied here-I feel confident that Stevens did, in fact, assure him that she was voting this way, and honestly I will admit I'm getting some Nancy Mace vibes from Stevens that feel very odd in the past couple of weeks (which also aligned with the announcement of her engagement) given how inconsistent she's been in her public behavior.
The fallout of this feels questionable. As I said, El-Sayed has overwhelming Democratic support and while he's running behind Jocelyn Benson, he's led in virtually every poll for months. Stevens insinuates she's just acting as one in her video, but honestly...she might be. Statements this morning rallying behind El-Sayed were issued by everyone from Chuck Schumer to the Congressional Black Caucus. I don't think this moves the needle to Rogers, and if it does, I don't think this was what did it...but I do think that the media (and the Left) will blame her for it if Rogers wins, which honestly feels calculus that Stevens appears to be too foolish to have factored into this decision (or she doesn't care).
Stevens has not hurt El-Sayed, but she has definitely hurt the case for moderate Democrats going forward in uniting the party. Never mind that most moderates who lost acted like Angie Craig this cycle, endorsing their primary opponent. Never mind that someone like, say, John Fetterman was the candidate not of the establishment (that was Conor Lamb), but of the right (not to mention Bernie Sanders supporters like Graham Platner, Nina Turner, & Tulsi Gabbard who have had similar issues with backing the Democratic nominee). Stevens has fed into a preexisting paranoia that moderate Democrats won't welcome the Left into the party, and made it reality. What she did was wrong (I think Jeffries should kick her out of the caucus on Wednesday, and I never want her to be on a Democratic ticket again...I half wonder if she'll run for her old seat as a Republican now in 2028), but the damage is going to hurt candidates like her way more than it'll hurt El-Sayed.
2 comments:
Great work, John. I was aghast to learn of Stevens's behavior. Her time in politics is effectively done. She has done damage to party unity, but hopefully after this cycle, we won't need to hear from her again. I feel disappointed to know that I backed her over El-Sayed months ago (although I backed McMorrow over both of them), and she really did betray her supporters in Michigan. Oh well - when she becomes a total pariah, regardless of if this had to do with a mental health episode, she may finally realize the gravity of what she did.
No voter's record is perfect (I've backed candidates I have regretted before...John Edwards comes to mind). But I'm glad that it'll be AES and not her at this point (still wish we were about to crown McMorrow though).
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