Representative Haley Stevens endorsed former Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican running against Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, after El-Sayed said publicly that she was not welcome in his campaign. Stevens made the announcement on Sunday while standing beside Rogers outside a Black church in Detroit, where the two had attended the Sunday service.
El-Sayed defeated Stevens in a summer primary and went on to become Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee in a race considered critical to control of the Senate. The two former rivals had been sparring over El-Sayed's strong criticisms of Israel, and several influential intermediaries had been trying to broker peace between them ahead of a planned unity event at a Detroit church on Sunday.
The rupture accelerated on Friday morning, when Stevens issued a hostile statement calling on El-Sayed to condemn an advertisement produced by a PAC supporting him and to make other concessions. El-Sayed then stepped before reporters and said what his campaign had been signaling privately: that he no longer wanted Stevens to join him at the church event. Being unwelcome was one matter, according to the account of the split; having the nominee say so in public was another.
Speaking next to Rogers after the service, Stevens said El-Sayed had made his position plain. "Abdul made very clear that I was not welcome in his campaign, that he didn't need me there, that he didn't want me there," she said, adding that she had endorsed the Democratic nominee and that he chose to close the campaign by saying she was not welcome. She also said she had never been invited to a campaign event.
The relationship shattered partly because of Israel, but also because of sensitive egos and hurt feelings, and the split had been months in the making.
Sources: The New York Times Politics.