It’s been a hectic Sunday, particularly in Michigan. Here’s what you missed:
Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Abdul El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in the Michigan Senate race. The feud between El-Sayed and his former primary opponent went nuclear after Stevens, disinvited from El-Sayed’s campaign events, appeared to retaliate by backing Republican nominee Mike Rogers. The two had been slated to appear together at a campaign event before a dispute over a third-party ad reopened old divisions.
Democrats in Michigan and nationwide swiftly condemned Stevens for a perceived betrayal. The backlash from Democrats was immediate and near-universal, as top figures in the party, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, branded Stevens’s move a betrayal, rallying behind El-Sayed. El-Sayed, for his part, said he wasn’t concerned by Stevens’ endorsement.
Trump is campaigning in Iowa before heading to a final stop in Kansas. The president is headlining two final in-person campaign events before the midterm elections on Tuesday. The two appearances, initially canceled a few days ago, were hastily rescheduled.
Dan Sullivan promised to accept the results of Alaska’s Senate race. Sullivan, the Republican incumbent in Alaska who has been the target of an alleged ploy by a man with the same name to siphon votes from him to benefit his Democratic challenger, told CNN he would accept the results of the race regardless. Not long after Sullivan’s remarks, a federal judge tossed out a Trump administration lawsuit to block the race’s certification if Sullivan were to lose.
Connecticut senator Chris Murphy has been hospitalized after a stroke. Murphy, a vocal opponent of Trump in the Senate, was taken to the hospital after feeling numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game. His chief of staff said he is awake, alert, and expected to make a full recovery.
Key events
Trump just launched into his latest racist tirade against Somalis, taking aim at the populations in Ohio and Minnesota as well as derogatory comments about the country of Somalia.
“By the way, I will tell you, Somalia has ruined the state of Minnesota,” Trump said. “They’ve ruined it. And by the way, I have to tell you this, I don’t want to be controversial, but they’re trying to do it to one of my favorite places in the world, Ohio. There’s tremendous groups of Somalians going into Ohio, and they’re trying to play with the elections, and they’re starting to form their communities here.”
“We don’t want them,” Trump said, punctuating his words.
He continued: “They’re all over Ohio now, and what they’ve done to Minnesota makes it almost hundreds of thousands of them, and they vote exactly the way they’re told to vote. They come from a country that’s a disaster. It’s a dead country. It’s got no government. It’s got no military. It’s got no police.”
“All it’s got is murder, carnage, and filth, and we don’t want them in this country.”
Trump, speaking in Iowa, praises Stevens’ defection while lobbing Islamophobic insults at El-Sayed
On stage in Iowa, Trump praised congresswoman Haley Stevens’ defection from the Democrats to support Mike Rogers Senate campaign – going so far as to welcome her to join the Republican Party.
“I don’t know Haley, I’ve never met Haley, but Haley said what few people are willing to say,” Trump said.
He continued: “I’d love her to join the Republican Party, actually, I think that could happen maybe. But she showed great and almost unprecedented loyalty to the great people of Michigan.”
He then branded Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim, as a “jihadist,” continuing a line of a Islamophobic attacks against the progressive Democratic Senate nominee.
“Can you imagine, we’ll have to put him through metal detectors…” Trump mused, likening El-Sayed to a terrorist in a remark that drew on anti-Muslim stereotypes.
“Here’s the deal, Donald, listen,” El-Sayed responded on Thursday after Trump made this same suggestion. “I’ll go through a metal detector if you’ll sit for a lie detector. Simple. I got nothing to hide. You’ve got so much to hide.”
Speaking to one of his final campaign crowds of the midterms in Iowa, Donald Trump praised congresswoman Ashley Hinson, the state’s Republican Senate nominee, for losing weight.
“I knew Ashley for a long time, and she was a little bit heavier. She was,” Trump said.
After being briefly interrupted by protesters in the crowd, he concluded: “She put herself in shape, she’s in perfect shape.”
Even by his own standards, Trump has been unusually fixated on GOP candidates’ physical forms in the final days of the midterm campaign. He has repeatedly commented on the form of Ohio Senator Jon Husted’s butt while speaking on the campaign trail. He made a similar comment about musician Nikki Minaj, who has as of late become a staunch supporter of Trump.
Trump takes the stage in Dubuque, Iowa
Donald Trump has just come onstage in Dubuque, Iowa, where he’s headlining the first of two campaign events slated for him today.
Trump’s appearance was initially canceled, along with another event planned for Salina, Kansas, raising some concerns that the president was abdicating his plans to campaign up until the midterm elections. But the president reversed course, rescheduling both events, in addition to a long slate of remote tele-rallies planned for candidates across the country.
Iowa and Kansas are both playing host to unexpectedly competitive Senate races in what are normally Republican strongholds.
Three key takeaways from early voting in midterm elections
Eric Berger
US citizens are casting ballots in record numbers ahead of the midterm elections on Tuesday, another potential indication, analysts say, of voter dissatisfaction with Republicans and Donald Trump.
Voting was particularly high in states that feature tight Senate races that could determine which party controls the chamber.
So far, the numbers show reasons for optimism from Democrats, setting up a possible rebuke of Trump once the votes start being tallied
Read the full breakdown from my colleague Eric Berger:
It’s been a hectic Sunday, particularly in Michigan. Here’s what you missed:
Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Abdul El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in the Michigan Senate race. The feud between El-Sayed and his former primary opponent went nuclear after Stevens, disinvited from El-Sayed’s campaign events, appeared to retaliate by backing Republican nominee Mike Rogers. The two had been slated to appear together at a campaign event before a dispute over a third-party ad reopened old divisions.
Democrats in Michigan and nationwide swiftly condemned Stevens for a perceived betrayal. The backlash from Democrats was immediate and near-universal, as top figures in the party, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, branded Stevens’s move a betrayal, rallying behind El-Sayed. El-Sayed, for his part, said he wasn’t concerned by Stevens’ endorsement.
Trump is campaigning in Iowa before heading to a final stop in Kansas. The president is headlining two final in-person campaign events before the midterm elections on Tuesday. The two appearances, initially canceled a few days ago, were hastily rescheduled.
Dan Sullivan promised to accept the results of Alaska’s Senate race. Sullivan, the Republican incumbent in Alaska who has been the target of an alleged ploy by a man with the same name to siphon votes from him to benefit his Democratic challenger, told CNN he would accept the results of the race regardless. Not long after Sullivan’s remarks, a federal judge tossed out a Trump administration lawsuit to block the race’s certification if Sullivan were to lose.
Connecticut senator Chris Murphy has been hospitalized after a stroke. Murphy, a vocal opponent of Trump in the Senate, was taken to the hospital after feeling numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game. His chief of staff said he is awake, alert, and expected to make a full recovery.
At a press conference outside of Mike Rogers’ event, Haley Stevens was heckled and called a traitor after she said “nothing is perfect” in response to a question from a reporter asking how she could support a candidate who stands in opposition to so many of the policies she campaigned on. She was quickly ushered away before finishing her response.
Donald Trump, posting to his personal social media account, gloated over Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race:
“Wow, this is BIG! Congresswoman Haley Stevens, a Highly Respected Democrat, who narrowly lost in the Primary to Abdul Mohamed El-Sayed, and who has been breathlessly wined and dined by the Dumocrats to help in their Michigan Campaign for the United States Senate against Mike Rogers, has just ENDORSED Mike Rogers for Senate! Her following is huge, and the level of respect from the People of Michigan, especially our African American and Jewish populations, is virtually unparalleled. Haley said what few people are willing to say. She showed great and almost unprecedented loyalty to the Great People of Michigan with what she did. It’s a thing called bravery, and few people have it like just displayed by Congresswoman Haley Stevens! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Curtis Hertel Jr., the chair of the Michigan Democratic party, appeared to say on social media that Haley Stevens had been expelled from Michigan’s Democratic Party over public her break with Abdul El-Sayed.
“Congresswoman Stevens is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future,” Hertel said in a post.
In a separate statement, Hertel threw his full support behind El-Sayed and tore into Stevens for her decision to support a Trump-backed candidate like Rogers.
“Haley Stevens’ decision to campaign with Rogers—a man who has repeatedly sold out Michigan’s working class, wants to pass a national abortion ban, and has pledged to be a loyal vote for Trump’s agenda—shows that she has abandoned everything she claims to care about,” Hertel wrote.
He continue: “We reject the attempts by Stevens and bad-faith actors to divide our party and undermine our momentum, and will not allow these eleventh-hour distractions deter us.”
One man’s campaign finance operation offers a glimpse in Republican dark money network
In the summer of 2024, a non-profit called the Green Dragon Coalition wired the last $20,000 of a $445,000 grant to a Super Pac. Its tax return for that year would describe the purpose of the transfer as “educational”.
The same day, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, the Super Pac spent $8,000 attacking Celeste Maloy, the Republican congresswoman for Utah’s second district, four days before the primary that would decide whether she kept her seat. It had already spent more than $400,000 promoting her challenger, Colby Jenkins, who was running to her right with the endorsement of the rightwing Utah senator Mike Lee.
One man was involved at every stage, and his name is on the paperwork for the charity that raised the money, the non-profit that passed it on, the Super Pac that the non-profit donated to and the campaign this money eventually supported.
His name is Thomas Datwyler, and his businesses are mostly headquartered in a rented address in Hudson, Wisconsin, a town of 15,000 near the border with Minnesota. Datwyler operates at an industrial scale, acting as treasurer of more than 350 federal political committees in the current election cycle, including 115 congressional campaigns and 100 Super Pacs, and as an officer of more than two dozen non-profits.
The extent of Datwyler’s activities over several political cycles raises questions about the attitude of Republican campaigns and candidates to campaign finance in the run-up to the November midterm elections, and the evolution of so-called “dark money” electoral funding.
Jason Wilson has the full story:
Jason Wilson
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has declared his firm stance in support of Abdul El-Sayed in response to Stevens’ endorsement of Republican candidate Mike Rogers.
Schumer also harshly castigated Stevens for the move, referring to it as a “despicable betrayal” in a post to social media.
“Senate Democrats are united in our support for Abdul El Sayed because we know he will fight for the economic interests of working families in Michigan,” Schumer said in a statement released today. “Unlike Mike Rogers, who is a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors. We Democrats equally united in our total revulsion at the racist, Islamophobic, and over-the-top false attacks on Abdul by Republicans.”
“These attacks are evidence of the total bankruptcy of the Republican Party today, who resort to ugly and un-American fearmongering because they have nothing to offer on the problems that concern people today.”
Schumer had initially endorsed Stevens for the Democratic senate seat in Michigan, though he began to support El-Sayed following Stevens’ loss in the primary election.
Staff for Haley Stevens quit following her Mike Rogers endorsement
Some of the people who worked for Stevens’ senate campaign have quit following her Rogers endorsement. Her long-time chief of staff, Justin German, and her communications director, Logan Basch, were among those who left, according to CNN correspondent Manu Raju.
German later released a full statement on behalf of the campaign team endorsing El-Sayed:
“As Haley Stevens’ Chief of Staff for eight years, I speak on behalf of our team in wholeheartedly supporting Abdul El-Sayed for Senate. This election is too important to sow division or stand on the sidelines. We are shocked and heartbroken by Congresswoman Stevens’ decision to support Mike Rogers.
Those of us who are Michigan voters are supporting Democrats up and down the ballot, and have been working all season to elect strong Democratic majorities to the House and Senate – we will continue to do so.
As of this morning, many members of our team have resigned, including myself. We encourage everyone to exercise their civic duty, vote for Abdul and Democrats up and down the ballot, and stand up for the America we all believe in.”
Despite El-Sayed’s request to not speak about Stevens, reporters immediately questioned him about her recent actions anyway, in which he responded: “At the end of the day, I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” adding, “I’m just less interested in the politics of it all than I am in the policy of it all.”
“If you are somebody who believes that we should stand up to hate, and you have watched this last campaign, I think we probably would not want to support Mike Rogers and Donald Trump and JD Vance,” he continued.
“If you’re somebody who believes that we need more health care, not less, then you probably don’t want to vote for the guy who voted to raise prescription drug prices… and takes money from big pharma and big insurance,” he continued.
“If you’re somebody who believes that you should have a right to a union, you probably don’t want to support the guy who busts unions. So I’m just saying that the principles that we believe in as Democrats are really quite clear,” he added. “I stand for all of them.”
In his first public comments since Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers, Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed told reporters at a press conference outside of a rally he held today, the very same rally that Stevens was disinvited from attending, that he was not interested in speaking about “somebody who’s not here right now.”
“I have a sense that you all are here today because of the decisions of somebody who’s not here right now. I’m just going to tell you, this is a state of 10 million people who deserve a lot better from their government,” he said. “I’m a lot more focused on the 9,999,998 that are not the ones you guys are talking about.”
“I’m not in the business of driving clicks for you. I’m in the business of trying to solve problems for the people of my state.”
Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Mike Rogers was met with immediate pushback from Democrats, who condemned Stevens for her “betrayal”.
Neera Tanden, the former senior advisor to president Joe Biden, wrote on X: “Standing with Mike Rogers is a betrayal of everything Haley Stevens has fought for her entire career. It’s also a betrayal of all of her supporters that believed in her. I hope Abdul El-Sayed has a strong victory on Tuesday and that all Democrats and like-minded independents support vote for him.”
Chris Murphy, Democratic Senator from Connecticut, hospitalized following a stroke
Chris Murphy, a Democratic Senator from Connecticut, has been hospitalized following a stroke, according to his staff.
“Yesterday afternoon, Senator Murphy started experiencing numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game,” a statement from Murphy’s office said. “He was taken to a local hospital, where it was discovered he had experienced a stroke. He was transferred to Johns Hopkins for further monitoring and is responding well to treatment. The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery.”
My colleauge Roque Planas has the full story:
Judge throws out Trump administration lawsuit over Alaska Senate race
A federal judge in Alaska on Sunday rejected a Trump administration lawsuit to block certification of the state’s Senate race if a candidate with the same name as the Republican incumbent garners enough votes to shift the outcome, Reuters reported.
The case, filed in October, centered around two identically named candidates in the closely watched Alaska Senate race: Dan S. Sullivan, the incumbent Republican senator seeking reelection, and Dan J. Sullivan, his challenger.
The story of the two Dan Sullivans – up until now a strange sideshow in the Alaska Senate contest – has become a flashpoint in the final days of the race, following revelations that staff for Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee, may have recruited the second Sullivan to join the race.
Peltola has denied personal knowledge of such a scheme, and it’s not clear that the tactic, widely used in politics, would be illegal. But Donald Trump has since called for her disqualification from the ballot and criminal prosecution, and the Republican governor of Alaska has announced a probe into the matter.
Haley Stevens officially endorses Mike Rogers in Michigan Senate race
Haley Stevens, the erstwhile primary challenger of Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, has officially broken with her party and endorsed El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in the pivotal race.
Stevens, who made a surprise appearance this afternoon alongside Rogers at a Detroit church, posted a video to social media making the endorsement.
“You may have seen our Democratic nominee for US Senate, Abdul, said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and I should stay away,” Stevens said, appearing to speak directly into a phone camera while seated inside a vehicle. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today. I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign.”
Just days ago, Stevens and El-Sayed, bitter foes during the Michigan Senate primary, had planned to participate in a joint event at a different Detroit church from where she ultimately appeared with Rogers. Top Democrats had brokered her appearance as a way to mend ties and demonstrate party solidarity in the final days of a closely-run Senate contest.
But those plans disintegrated after Stevens demanded El-Sayed condemn in explicit terms a third-party ad related to one of the issues that most fiercely divided them during their primary: US support for Israel.
El-Sayed, a progressive, has been an outspoken critic of Israel and its war in Gaza and supports cutting off military aid to the country. Stevens, on the other hand, is moderate and fiercely pro-Israel.
In response to the demand that he condemn the ad, El-Sayed accused Stevens of reopening a settled primary election, and his campaign disinvited her from his remaining campaign events. (The ad in question linked US support for Israel to rising living costs in the US, a claim Stevens labeled offensive.)
This afternoon, Stevens appeared to have retaliated with her surprise appearance alongside Rogers, dropping her endorsement video soon after.
In the video, Stevens said that she was still “a very proud Democrat” but that she did not feel El-Sayed’s campaign represents the ideals she believes Michigan should stand for in the Senate.
“Who we are as Michiganders is not hate, and is not what we are getting out from our Democratic nominee right now,” Stevens said.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/nov/01/trump-midterm-rallies-iowa-kansas
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