Haley Stevens' Own Fiancé Is Voting for Mike Rogers. He Says El-Sayed's Rhetoric Gets Jews Death Threats

Five days before Michigan picks a senator, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed lost a vote at the one dinner table he should have had locked down. Jason Turkish, a Jewish Democratic donor and the fiancé of Rep. Haley Stevens, the woman El-Sayed beat in the August primary, says he's voting for Republican Mike Rogers.

"I've just seen an escalation in his rhetoric since the primary, and it makes folks unsafe. Every time he talks about genocide, Jews get death threats," Turkish told The Detroit News, which broke the story Wednesday. "We have never seen a candidate for U.S. Senate act so recklessly toward the safety of Jews in the community as we have seen from Abdul."

He called his decision "putting country before party." That evening he showed up at a Rogers event at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, a Republican Jewish Coalition forum titled "Who Will Keep Us Safe? Rogers vs. El-Sayed in the Wake of October 7th and the Temple Israel Attack."

Who Jason Turkish is

Turkish isn't a Republican plant. He's a disabilities and civil rights attorney from Huntington Woods, a Democrat who has gotten more involved in politics over the last five or six years. Federal records cited by The Detroit News show he gave nearly $200,000 to federal Democratic candidates and committees this cycle. He has also given to Republicans, including more than $24,000 last year to committees allied with Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

He went to the University of Michigan with El-Sayed and sat in the audience when El-Sayed gave their class's commencement speech. He says he still sees the talent. "Abdul knows how to bring people together," Turkish said. "He's just chosen not to."

He also says he didn't vote for Rogers when Rogers ran for Senate in 2024. That's what makes this vote land. It isn't a lifelong Republican coming home. It's a Democrat who wrote big checks for the party deciding the Republican is the safer bet.

What pushed him over

Turkish said that three months ago he hoped El-Sayed would move to the middle after a primary that split Democrats over Israel. Instead, he told The News, "this ended up not being a close call at all." He laid out the reasons:

First, El-Sayed's remark that Israel isn't a U.S. ally. Second, his refusal at the Oct. 8 debate to say whether Iran or Israel is the bigger threat to America. He called the question "a ridiculous hypothetical."

Third, a viral grocery-store ad from the outside group Rebellion PAC that Turkish says blames Israel and Jews for high prices. El-Sayed has distanced himself from it but hasn't explicitly disavowed its message or asked for it to come down. "It's blaming Jews for problems that are in no way traceable to them: That's an ages-old antisemitic trope," Turkish said.

He also pointed to fundraising emails that keep blaming the pro-Israel group AIPAC, which spent more than $30 million against El-Sayed in the primary, for his money troubles. And to El-Sayed's defensiveness about streamer Hasan Piker, who has faced accusations of antisemitism. El-Sayed hasn't cut ties with Piker, though the two haven't campaigned together since August.

Think of it like a family business. When the founder's own relatives start buying from the competitor, customers notice. They figure the family knows something.

He's the second, not the first

Turkish isn't alone. One day earlier, David Kramer, who chaired Stevens's Senate campaign and was finance chair for Sen. Elissa Slotkin's, [told Jewish Insider]({JI}) he'll vote for Rogers too. Kramer is vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus and says it's the first time he can remember voting for a Republican for federal office.

"As we get closer and closer to the general, it's become clearer to me that Abdul is certainly not moderating at all, and I think really becoming more extreme and more dangerous and less responsive to the Jewish community," Kramer said. Rogers, he said, "seems to know the difference between an enemy of ours in Iran and an ally of ours."

Earlier this month, Kramer and former Michigan Democratic Party chair Lon Johnson wrote a Detroit News op-ed backing Democrats who leave the Senate line blank. Kramer now says a vote for Rogers is "a stronger repudiation" of El-Sayed.

A house divided

Stevens herself is still officially on El-Sayed's side. "Like a lot of households across America, we're a house divided," she said on CNN Wednesday night. "I still very much want our Democratic nominee, his name is Abdul, to win this race."

But she's kept her distance. She endorsed El-Sayed after the primary and hasn't campaigned or appeared with him publicly since a unity breakfast shortly afterward. Asked by CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday whether she was still fully behind him, she said, "Look, I'm on the Democratic ticket, you know. I can't say that I agree with everything that's gone on." On Wednesday she called on El-Sayed to "do the right thing" and denounce two "hateful" ads, one featuring Tucker Carlson and the Rebellion PAC spot.

El-Sayed's answer

El-Sayed didn't argue the point. "To me, this election is about control of the United States Senate. It's about putting a check on Donald Trump," he told reporters. "So if folks see another issue that is more important to them and decide that their disagreement with me on that is bigger than their agreement with me on all these other things, that is their choice." His spokeswoman, Roxie Richner, said, "Our tent is big enough for all those who wish to join it."

Notice what's missing from that answer: any word about the threats Turkish described, the ad he called a trope, or the debate question he dodged.

Why it matters

Turkish was blunt about the cost of his choice. "It's not easy. I'm a lawyer. I'm a civil rights attorney. I care a great deal about our courts," he said. He knows a Rogers win could help President Trump confirm judges. He's voting for Rogers anyway.

"I may disagree with Mike Rogers on a whole host of policy issues, but I have absolutely no reason to believe that he isn't a patriot, that he doesn't love this country, and that he doesn't care about keeping the Jewish people safe," Turkish said. "At the end of the day, that's just got to be the math that matters more, at least this time."

Michigan is one of the seats that decides who controls the Senate. When the people closest to El-Sayed's last opponent start doing that math out loud, every undecided Democrat in Oakland County hears it. Polls close Tuesday.