Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Haley Stevens is highly visible in the wake of her Senate primary loss: Meeting with the Dalai Lama<\/a>, crashing \u201cTMZ Live<\/a>\u201d with her new fiancee, getting spoofed<\/a> on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n One place she hasn\u2019t been spotted: alongside her former rival Abdul El-Sayed.<\/p>\n Even though the representative quickly endorsed El-Sayed after their bruising Aug. 4 primary, she\u2019s done little to help him since. That absence is becoming more conspicuous in the closing weeks of a crucial Senate contest, as some of her old supporters continue to vocally resist backing him.<\/p>\n In an interview, Stevens said El-Sayed is building a \u201cnew coalition\u201d in the race against GOP former Rep. Mike Rogers \u2014 and suggested it\u2019s not her place to push some of her more skeptical supporters into joining it.<\/p>\n When asked if she was encouraging her former donors to help El-Sayed, she said she believes her role this election is to \u201cbe part of the coordinated campaign, support where I can,\u201d mentioning Michigan House races. When asked again if she would push donors to back him, she responded: \u201cThat\u2019s Elissa\u2019s thing,\u201d referring to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who has been fundraising for El-Sayed. \u201cI didn’t win a Senate primary,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt’s not like a salty grapes<\/a> deal or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevens said she\u2019d checked in with El-Sayed\u2019s team, but hadn\u2019t met with the candidate himself recently because she\u2019d been traveling.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s changing dynamics, and there’s a new coalition that Abdul has built, and some people are a die-hard part of it, and some people are not. We\u2019re seeing some constituent community pain coming out,\u201d Stevens said, referencing resistance to El-Sayed<\/a> among some Black and Jewish voters<\/a> who backed her in the primary.<\/p>\n \u201cRogers is working the Black community harder and more successfully than we have ever seen a Republican do or at least that I can remember \u2014 ever,” Stevens said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019re also seeing Abdul go up to the UP [Upper Peninsula] and we\u2019re seeing him fill venues in rural Michigan and it\u2019s very real in terms of this coalition he\u2019s built,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n El-Sayed ran particularly strongly during the primary with young voters and in the state\u2019s large Arab-American community, as well as in some rural, more populist parts of the state, and is working hard to expand that coalition in the general election.<\/p>\n Stevens\u2019 remarks come as some of her former backers and financial boosters continue to publicly withhold support from El-Sayed and in some cases openly embrace his Republican rival<\/a>. The ruptures are most visible among the Jewish and Black communities that largely broke for Stevens, and point to enduring friction within Michigan Democrats\u2019 traditional coalition after a bitter primary that she could be in a unique position to mend.<\/p>\n Debbie Rosenman, the chair of Birmingham-Bloomfield Area Democratic Party Club in Stevens\u2019 backyard and an El-Sayed supporter, said Stevens has been \u201cabsent\u201d on the trail and said she was \u201cvery concerned\u201d her coalition is not coalescing around El-Sayed.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel that that could change with more of her public support,\u201d Rosenman said.<\/p>\n El-Sayed\u2019s campaign said the former rivals\u2019 teams keep in close touch and noted several Stevens staffers joined the nominee\u2019s team after the primary.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Abdul campaign is grateful for Congresswoman Stevens\u2019 immediate and sustained support,\u201d El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner said in a statement.<\/p>\n El-Sayed has worked to repair relationships with Black and Jewish leaders. He has endorsements from several of them and is campaigning with prominent Democrats from both communities, including former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris and Slotkin, who is Jewish. He has made more than two dozen visits to Black churches<\/a> and participated in more than 100 events and meetings with Black leaders<\/a>, according to his campaign. He has hired a liaison to the Jewish community, keeps in regular contact with Jewish leaders and has apologized for his controversial remark<\/a> after a synagogue attack in West Bloomfield in the spring that \u201churt people hurt people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI take very seriously that I’m going to represent a large community of Jewish Michiganders, and I want them to know that I’m committed to their safety and their well being, even if there are points in foreign policy on which we might disagree,\u201d El-Sayed said in an interview.<\/p>\n Not everyone has come around.<\/p>\n David Kramer, Stevens\u2019 primary campaign chair and a vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus who introduced Stevens to her fiance<\/a>, is now working with Nonnegotiable Michigan<\/a>, a group of Jewish leaders who have pledged to withhold their support from El-Sayed unless he adjusts his approach to Israel.<\/p>\n Kramer, a prominent Democratic fundraiser in the state who has also previously worked with Slotkin and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, told POLITICO he\u2019s not tapping his donor network for the general election and estimated he\u2019s left upward of seven figures on the table that he could have raised to boost El-Sayed.<\/p>\n Brian Hermelin, a normally Democratic donor who backed Stevens in the primary and leads the Jewish Federation of Detroit, co-hosted a fundraiser for Republican nominee Mike Rogers shortly after the primary that raised roughly $200,000.<\/p>\n Rogers\u2019 campaign has attempted to capitalize on those cracks by launching a \u201cDemocrats for Mike Rogers\u201d group and making overtures to Jewish and Black voters. Bobby Schostak, a former Michigan GOP chair who is serving as Rogers\u2019 finance chair, estimated the Republican\u2019s campaign has brought in roughly $3 million to $4 million since the primary from \u201cnontraditional Republican donors\u201d across the country, including Democrats.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Democratic Party is still divided,\u201d said Democrat Mary Waters, a Black Detroit city councilor who\u2019s met with both El-Sayed and Rogers but remains undecided. \u201cPeople are still so torn about what it is that they want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe Tate, a Black state representative from Detroit who supported Stevens, acknowledged there has been some lingering apprehension around El-Sayed. But he said Stevens\u2019 endorsement of El-Sayed helped convince him to back the candidate and predicted Democratic voters would largely stand by their party, too.<\/p>\n El-Sayed\u2019s donor network may look different from Stevens\u2019, but he\u2019s still posted big numbers. He raised nearly $33 million from July through September, which included some raised before the Aug. 4 primary, compared to Rogers\u2019 nearly $10 million, and has been outspending Rogers on the airwaves.<\/p>\n Some of El-Sayed\u2019s prominent surrogates have also taken steps to court apprehensive Democrats. Jewish leaders like former Rep. Andy Levin, a former synagogue president who Stevens defeated in a 2022 primary, are holding house parties with voters coordinated by the grassroots group Michigan Jews for Democracy. Slotkin has privately pressed senators and donors to boost El-Sayed\u2019s bid.<\/p>\n That includes hosting a fundraiser for El-Sayed in Washington, D.C., in late September with donors who she described as initially \u201cskeptical\u201d of the nominee.<\/p>\n \u201cI talked to them about why I thought it was important and how I don’t agree with Abdul on everything \u2026 but we agree on the really important things, and that’s putting a check and balance on this president,\u201d Slotkin told POLITICO in a brief hallway interview on Capitol Hill the next day. \u201cAnd they donated.\u201d<\/p>\n