Updated November 2, 2026: Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign says it raised $2.4 million on Sunday, the day Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. The campaign called it the biggest single fundraising day of his run for Michigan’s open Senate seat.
The campaign said more than 65,000 people gave, an average of $36.74 each, and more than 29,000 of them were giving to El-Sayed for the first time. The money came in fast: the campaign said it took in $1.2 million in the first four hours after Stevens’s endorsement, at that point already its second-best day since El-Sayed won the Democratic primary in August.
All of these figures come from the El-Sayed campaign itself. They have not been checked against a Federal Election Commission filing, which campaigns submit later.
“As Michiganders head to the polls, the momentum behind Abdul’s campaign has never been stronger,” campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak said.
The Rogers campaign did not announce a matching fundraising total, and it had not responded directly to El-Sayed’s figures in the reporting checked on Monday morning. Rogers spent Sunday welcoming Stevens’s support, and he defended her against Democrats who questioned her decision, saying she “should be commended for her courage to stand up to hate and put Michigan first.”
Michigan voters decide the race on Tuesday, November 3.
DETROIT — Rep. Haley Stevens, a Democrat who lost Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary in August, endorsed the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers, on Sunday — two days before an election that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Stevens appeared with Rogers at a Sunday service at Perfecting Church in Detroit, then posted a video formally backing him.
“As you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul, said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away. And he’s right,” Stevens said in the video. “And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today. I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign. I do not stand with Hasan Piker, who gets trafficked on our college campuses.”
“I’m still a very proud Democrat,” she said.
Outside the church, Stevens said she is “one vote in this state,” and that her own household is divided: her mother cast her vote for Rogers, while her father voted for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee. She said about 90 percent of the rest of her ballot stays Democratic, but she “can’t stand with hate.”
“I’m not turning my back on Democrats,” she said. “It is this one vote.”
The break followed a public fight last week. On Oct. 30, Stevens demanded that El-Sayed condemn an ad by an outside group, Rebellion PAC, that blamed Israel and U.S. aid for high grocery prices, and she called on him to apologize for his own words on Israel. “A disclaimer is not a condemnation, and everyone in my community knows the difference,” she said. El-Sayed disavowed the ad’s content. His campaign then asked Stevens to stay away from its events, and a joint church appearance planned with Rep. Debbie Dingell was called off.
Her own staff split with her on Sunday. Justin German, her chief of staff for eight years, said in a statement that he and “many members” of the team had resigned that morning. “We are shocked and heartbroken by Congresswoman Stevens’ decision to support Mike Rogers,” he said, urging voters to back El-Sayed and Democrats “up and down the ballot.” The Detroit Free Press reported that well over half of her congressional staff quit.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the move “a despicable betrayal” and said Senate Democrats are “united in our support for Abdul El-Sayed.” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said the state party “stands united and fully behind Abdul El-Sayed” and that Stevens “has abandoned everything she claims to care about.”
El-Sayed, told of the endorsement while campaigning at a Souls to the Polls event in Detroit, brushed it aside. “I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” he said. He told reporters he is focused on “the 9,999,998” other people in Michigan: “They pay too much in gas. They pay too much in groceries.”
Rogers welcomed the backing. “I’m honored to have Haley Stevens support today. I’m honored to have earned that vote,” he said outside the church. “This is more a statement about standing together against hate and the future of this state and this country than it is anything else.”
President Donald Trump praised Stevens in a social media post Sunday afternoon. “Wow, this is BIG!” he wrote, saying she had shown “great and almost unprecedented loyalty to the Great People of Michigan.” “It’s a thing called bravery, and few people have it like just displayed by Congresswoman Haley Stevens,” he wrote.
Michigan’s Senate seat is open, and Republicans hold the chamber 53-47, so the race is one of a small number that could decide control for the last two years of Trump’s term. The RealClearPolitics polling average had El-Sayed ahead of Rogers by 3.5 points heading into Sunday.
