House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries chastised Rep. Haley Stevens on Monday for her eleventh-hour decision to endorse Republican Mike Rogers over Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the race for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, adding that party leaders are weighing whether to punish her in the coming weeks.
“Haley Stevens made a terrible decision, blindsided everyone and isolated herself from the House Democratic caucus,” Jeffries wrote in a statement. “We will have a discussion about appropriate next steps upon our return. At the moment, we have one mission and that’s to win on Tuesday.”
Eight House Democrats, granted anonymity to speak frankly, told The Washington Sun that as of Monday, the caucus has not discussed any specifics on whether Stevens will face any punishment. Two of them said there is interest in enforcing consequences against Stevens. One said they’d support a motion to remove her from committee assignments in the lame duck session.
But a big Democratic win on Tuesday could also potentially overshadow any future discussions.
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“Winning has a way of solving a lot of issues,” a third House Democrat said. “I expect us to be looking forward to January. We’re going to have to be focused not on settling scores, including within the caucus, but we’re going to need to be focused on moving the country forward.”
A fourth House Democrat told The Sun: “My instinct is that on the 9th everyone will have moved on. Unless [El-Sayed] loses.”
The House and Senate have been on recess for the midterm elections and aren’t scheduled to return until Nov. 9.
It’s not just Democrats on Capitol Hill weighing Stevens’ future after her stunning defection — Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel announced that Stevens was no longer a part of the state’s branch of the party hours after she made the endorsement.
“Congresswoman Stevens is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future,” Hertel wrote Sunday on X.
Hertel told The Sun that Stevens had not renewed her membership with the state’s branch of the party, which made the situation “a lot easier.”
Any conversations Hertel has had with national Democratic Party leaders have been focused on taking care of Stevens’ staff, which he says the congresswoman “put in a terrible situation.”
Several of Stevens’ top congressional staffers announced their decision to leave her office after she decided to endorse Rogers.
“As of this morning, many members of our team have resigned, including myself,” Justin German, Stevens’ former chief of staff, wrote in a statement, while encouraging people to vote for El-Sayed and “Democrats up and down the ballot.”
Stevens did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Democratic congresswoman’s last-minute swap, just two days before the midterms, left many in her party shocked. When Stevens appeared on CNN Sunday night to explain her decision, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan) described the conversation as “one of the most painful interviews I’ve ever watched,” and Democratic strategists appearing on the network expressed concerns for Stevens’ mental state.
Stevens lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed in August, and the congresswoman initially backed the Democratic nominee and said publicly that she planned to vote for him.
But the El-Sayed campaign asked Stevens to stay away from his campaign events in the final lead-up to the midterms following a disagreement over an ad, produced by an outside group, that was critical of U.S. aid to Israel, Politico reported Friday.
Following the rescinded invitation, Stevens appeared with Rogers at a campaign stop outside a church in Detroit Sunday morning and endorsed him in a video she posted shortly after.
“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,” Stevens said. “He’s right, and that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate today.”
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