Haley Stevens endorses Mike Rogers after once calling him a nightmare

A YouTube video by The Daily Show under the title "Haley Stevens Flips Against El-Sayed & the Media Goes Poll-Crazy | The Daily Show" centers on Rep. Haley Stevens’s late break with her party’s Senate nominee. The channel’s description says Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, who she once called a “nightmare,” right before the midterms, and frames the segment as Jon Stewart breaking down election-week headlines.

The description also says Stewart warns against overconfidence in a 2026 blue wave and faults news networks for relying on polls that disappoint viewers every cycle.

Stevens released her own endorsement video on Sunday, Nov. 1, two days before the Nov. 3 election. “Hey, Michigan, 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,” she said, according to NBC News. “And he’s right, and that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today. I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign.” She added: “I do not stand with Hasan Piker, who gets trafficked on our college campuses.”

Stevens had lost the Michigan Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed on Aug. 4. The seat is being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters. Rogers, a former Michigan congressman and FBI agent, lost the 2024 Senate race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin and is the Republican nominee again. NBC News reported that El-Sayed’s campaign asked Stevens not to attend campaign events after a public dispute over an outside ad she called antisemitic. Stevens had been expected to support the party ticket; instead she appeared with Rogers at Perfecting Church in Detroit on Sunday before announcing the switch, NBC News and CBS News reported.

The fallout was immediate and attributed across multiple outlets. Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel wrote on X that Stevens “is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future.” Stevens’s chief of staff, Justin German, and several staffers resigned. In a statement, German said the team was shocked and heartbroken and added: “We encourage everyone to exercise their civic duty, vote for Abdul and Democrats up and down the ballot, and stand up for the America we all believe in.” Virgie Rollins, chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Black Caucus, said in a statement that Stevens “revealed herself to be a sellout who used Black Michiganders for a political stunt.” CBS News reported that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who had backed Stevens in the primary, called the move a “despicable betrayal.”