![\"Former](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/GettyImages-2302614751-e1793600556850.jpg?fit=4000%2C2000\")
Michigan Democratic Senate<\/span> primary loser Rep. Haley Stevens on Sunday released a video that will place her in an ignominious legacy of establishment Democrats who act against the collective good.<\/p>\n And, like others on the list, she did it for the sake of one thing only: Israel.<\/p>\n In the video \u2014 filmed on her phone, in her car, and at an awkward angle \u2014 Stevens announced her endorsement of Republican candidate Mike Rogers against the Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed. Stevens had previously called Rogers a \u201crubber stamp for Donald Trump\u2019s dangerous agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevens\u2019s defection follows a pathetic effort to suggest that El-Sayed must make greater overtures to Israel supporters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI don\u2019t belong in Abdul\u2019s campaign,\u201d said Stevens about El-Sayed, the candidate who currently enjoys<\/a> 95 percent of Democratic voters\u2019 support in Michigan, according to polls.<\/p>\n Stevens\u2019s defection follows a pathetic, Islamophobic, and chaotic effort over the last weeks to suggest that El-Sayed must make greater overtures to Israel supporters.<\/p>\n Stevens now follows in the footsteps of other conservative Democrats who have shown an extreme disregard for the welfare of people in this country and beyond.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We might recall former Sen. Krysten Sinema<\/a> of Arizona<\/a>, who left the Democratic Party while still in office and notoriously<\/a> delivered a dramatic thumbs down and curtsy when voting against a raised minimum-wage provision during the height of the Covid pandemic. Sinema and fellow then-Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia also joined<\/a> with Republicans to effectively tank major voting rights legislation in 2022.<\/p>\n And, of course, there is the entire<\/a> Senate career of conservative<\/a> pro-Israel fanatic<\/a>, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who still remains a nominal<\/a> Democrat. Fetterman offers a consistent master class in dangerous extremism<\/a> and should be seen as a profound political liability by his own party.<\/p>\n It is, after all, so-called moderates like Stevens who are the radicals. As writer Eoin Higgins noted, an array of Democrats have revealed themselves more willing to see Republicans win<\/a> than allow the party\u2019s left-wing flank<\/a> \u2014 or, more to the point, criticism of Israel\u2019s genocide \u2014 to gain further ground.<\/p>\n And while there is little political agreement between the right and left wings of the Democratic Party on a whole array of issues, defeating Republicans, particularly Donald Trump\u2019s Republican Party, was at least the stated goal of even the most conservative of Democrats.<\/p>\n To so openly fail on even those basic electoral terms should be the very definition of a political liability for a party.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, left-wing candidates running on popular policies<\/a> with support networks built from the ground up have again and again been treated as the primary internal enemy<\/a> by the party establishment.<\/p>\n Stevens had perhaps thought she could rely on this pattern. Numerous<\/a> powerful Democrats and Israel apologists like Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., were slow to get behind El-Sayed and have continued to pick fights<\/a> over his policies on Israel.<\/p>\n Stevens\u2019s Rogers endorsement was not, however, met with the tolerance that Democratic rightward lurches have typically enjoyed. In a bellwether moment, another strong supporter of Israel, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called<\/a> her endorsement of the Republican candidate \u201ca despicable betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n The condemnation is the correct response of a party leader to a member taking active steps to thwart a crucial Senate race. It may not mark a shift for Schumer away from his own reliable conservatism and support for Israel\u2019s genocide, but it nonetheless reflects a shifting<\/a> political landscape<\/a> when a figure like Schumer sees greater political expediency in standing with a progressive, Israel-critical, Muslim candidate, than with the radical centrist wrecker with whom Schumer is more ideologically aligned.<\/p>\n\n
Shifting Winds<\/h2>\n