Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens' public endorsement of Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan has injected an unusually bitter rupture into the final days of the U.S. midterm campaign, exposing divisions within a party fighting for control of Congress in closely contested states.
Stevens, who lost Michigan's Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed by less than one percentage point in August, posted a video on X on the Sunday before Election Day declaring that she would support Rogers. "I am not part of Abdul's campaign," Stevens said, referring to El-Sayed.
The endorsement followed days of escalating disagreement between Stevens and El-Sayed over Israel and an outside advertisement that Stevens described as antisemitic. Stevens had issued a limited endorsement of El-Sayed after the primary, but later demanded that he apologize for comments she said were critical of Israel and disavow the advertisement.
Stevens appeared alongside Rogers at a Detroit church on Sunday and later spoke to reporters. El-Sayed, questioned outside another church, offered a brief response: "None of this matters."
Michigan Democrats reacted sharply. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Stevens' move a "despicable betrayal" in a statement, while outgoing Sen. Gary Peters said he was "deeply disappointed."
The fallout also spread inside Stevens' congressional office. Her chief of staff, Justin German, resigned after the endorsement, saying that he and several colleagues were "shocked and heartbroken." Communications director Logan Basch later used an automatic email reply stating that he had left Stevens' office as of Nov. 1.
Michigan rift tests party discipline in a close Senate contest
Stevens' decision gives Rogers an endorsement from a sitting Democratic House member with a profile in the state's political establishment. It also turns a primary dispute into a general-election liability for El-Sayed, whose campaign must keep Democratic voters unified while defending itself against Republican attacks.
The episode reflects a wider strain within Democratic politics over the Israel-Gaza war, outside spending and the limits of party loyalty after contentious primaries. Stevens' criticism placed her at odds with El-Sayed on a subject that has divided candidates and voters across several states.
Michigan's Senate race carries national weight because narrow margins in a handful of contests could decide the chamber's balance of power. A public split involving a defeated primary candidate can be especially disruptive in the final stretch, when campaigns are focused on turnout operations and persuading undecided voters rather than relitigating internal disputes.
Alaska report raises ballot-confusion allegations
A separate controversy in Alaska has focused on allegations that operatives connected to Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola tried to recruit another candidate named Dan Sullivan to run against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
A report based on interviews with 12 people familiar with the alleged effort, text messages and documents prepared for possible litigation said Peltola campaign staff were instructed during the summer of 2025 to seek Alaskans named Dan Sullivan. The alleged plan was described internally as a "ballot composition project," according to Elisa Rios, a former campaign manager who said she was dismissed during an August restructuring.
The report said a retired teacher from a remote fishing village in the Alaska Panhandle, Dan J. Sullivan, subsequently entered the Senate race. Rios alleged that Peltola "definitely knew" about the effort, although she said the candidate did not participate directly.
Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee denied recruiting a decoy candidate or having connections to either Sullivan campaign. Jerid Kurtz, an Ohio-based Democratic operative identified in the report as a central figure, was said to have traveled under the alias "Zane."
The Justice Department has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of the Alaska race if votes cast for Dan J. Sullivan result in the incumbent senator's defeat. The legal challenge could run alongside Alaska's vote count and ranked-choice tabulation, potentially delaying a final result in a race that may affect Senate control.
Alaska's ranked-choice system places four candidates on the general-election ballot, then reallocates votes if no candidate wins an outright majority. The format is designed to ensure that the eventual winner has broad support, but the presence of candidates with identical or highly similar names can create an obvious risk of voter confusion.
Personal attacks define Ohio and Texas contests
In Ohio, the governor's race has been consumed by an advertisement using footage of Democratic candidate Amy Acton's mother, Donna Arthur. In the advertisement, Arthur called her daughter a "liar," said she had "serious problems," disputed Acton's accounts of childhood abuse and homelessness, and urged voters not to elect her governor.
The advertisement drew criticism after spreading on social media. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine objected to the spot, while Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly backed its broadcast. The split among prominent Republicans demonstrated how personal attacks can become a strategic dispute even within the party benefiting from them.
Texas has produced a different version of the same campaign dynamic. Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic candidate James Talarico are competing in a Senate race where spending tied to the contest has exceeded $500 million, according to the figures cited in the campaign coverage.
A Paxton advertisement showing a hand removing missing-child posters from a utility pole drew mockery online and criticism from Democrats. Talarico's campaign answered with a mock sports-betting application asking viewers to predict Paxton's "next scandal," accompanied by the line: "This app is fake, but Ken Paxton's scandals are real."
The four contests show campaigns entering Election Day with increasingly confrontational tactics: defections by former allies in Michigan, allegations of ballot manipulation in Alaska, family-based attacks in Ohio and expensive negative advertising in Texas. In races decided by narrow margins, the immediate challenge for candidates is no longer simply persuading undecided voters, but containing the damage created by their own side's fractures and tactics.
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