Haley Stevens Was Told El-Sayed Would Finally Condemn an Ad Blaming Israel for Grocery Prices. He Disinvited Her Instead

On Friday morning, Rep. Haley Stevens told Michigan that Democrats finally had their unity moment. By Friday night, the man she lost the Senate primary to had told her to stay away.

Stevens posted a statement saying she had "learned from Democratic Party leaders and emissaries, as reported in the news media," that Abdul El-Sayed "has heard the deep concerns of the Jewish community and is now, for the first time in this campaign, formally condemning" a Rebellion PAC ad that blames Israel for grocery prices. On that basis, she said, she had accepted Rep. Jim Clyburn's invitation to stand with El-Sayed at a Black church in Detroit on Sunday. "I urge voters and the press to confirm it with Abdul directly," she wrote.

The condemnation never came. El-Sayed answered with a statement of his own, and hours later his campaign asked Stevens to skip every remaining event of the race, including Sunday's, according to two people familiar with the decision who spoke to Politico. CBS News and NewsNation, via The Hill, confirmed it through their own sources. The election is Tuesday.

What Stevens asked for

The ad at the center of it is the one we reported on Oct. 26: a grocery-aisle skit from Cenk Uygur's Rebellion PAC in which a woman tells her husband to put the eggs back because "we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians." Uygur is the uncle of streamer Hasan Piker, who campaigned with El-Sayed in the primary.

Stevens's statement laid out the problem plainly. "For days, Abdul's only answer to the Rebellion PAC advertisement produced by Hasan Piker's uncle, Cenk Uygur, was that his campaign was 'not affiliated' with it," she wrote. "A disclaimer is not a condemnation, and everyone in my community knows the difference."

Then she went further than the ad. "The ad did not invent its argument; it dramatized one Dr. El-Sayed has made in his own words throughout this campaign: that Israel is the reason Michigan cannot afford schools, health care, and child care," she wrote. "I therefore expect him to apologize for those statements as well."

Her sharpest line: "Abdul promises to get money out of politics. He can begin by getting Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan cannot afford." She also asked him to pull his own ad featuring Tucker Carlson.

What El-Sayed said instead

El-Sayed's statement on X, posted Friday evening, didn't mention the ad, Israel or an apology. It mentioned Stevens's donors.

"That focus is why our people-powered campaign defeated a historic $70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens," he said. "So while Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago, let's all focus on the task at hand: that's beating Mike Rogers, holding Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All."

One of the people who spoke to Politico said Stevens should stay away "as not to distract from the central issues of the campaign." Stevens told The Washington Post she would not discuss it further until after Tuesday.

Why Detroit matters

The Sunday service wasn't a random stop. It was in Detroit, the one place in Michigan where Stevens beat El-Sayed by a landslide.

In the city of Detroit, Stevens took 61,540 votes to El-Sayed's 33,825 in the August primary, 62.2% to 34.2%, according to the city's official results. That's a 27,715-vote margin. Statewide, El-Sayed won the nomination by 13,792 votes out of more than 1.5 million, 48.45% to 47.55%, in the certified count. Stevens's Detroit margin alone was twice as large as El-Sayed's statewide win.

Those are the voters a Stevens-Clyburn appearance at a Black church was supposed to bring home. Clyburn, whose 2020 endorsement helped carry Joe Biden to the nomination, is still expected at the Sunday service with El-Sayed. Stevens isn't.

A week of crossovers

The Detroit blowup caps a bad week inside El-Sayed's own party. On Wednesday, Stevens's fiancé, Jason Turkish, a Jewish Democratic donor, said he's voting for Republican Mike Rogers. A day earlier, David Kramer, who chaired Stevens's Senate campaign, said the same.

Stevens still says she's voting for El-Sayed. She told CNN on Wednesday her house was "divided." But the one thing she asked for before standing next to him in Detroit was a sentence condemning an ad that tells voters their eggs cost too much because of Israel. He wouldn't say it, and he didn't want her in the room.

Michigan votes Tuesday. Polls close at 8 p.m.