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
Edward Helmore
Fallout over Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers continued Sunday, with figures from the progressive left stepping up to back Abdul El-Sayed.
Hasan Piker, the left wing social commentator who has been a focus of Republican efforts to undermine El-Sayed’s campaign, posted on X that “Stevens is not the spokesperson for democrats, she’s not the spox for Jewish people or black people”.
He continued:
She’s a self interested striver who’s weirdly obsessed with Israel and has been paid handsomely for this strange obsession. This race is about solving the affordability crisis, defending democracy, fighting back against the racialized violence all communities have faced since trump came into power and serving Michigan. Haley and mike rogers serve trump, and trump serves the Epstein class.
Bernie Sanders also joined the controversy, attacking Stevens for what Democrats view as an extraordinary betrayal and Stevens accepted El-Sayed’s narrow victory over her in Michagan’s Democrat senate primaries.
“Rep. Haley Stevens’ staff is right to resign in disgust,” Sanders posted on X.
They understand that the election in Michigan is far more important than Haley’s fragile ego and that all of us must stand together to elect Abdul, defeat Rogers and end the Republican rubber-stamp control of the Senate.
Having devoted an unusual amount of time on the campaign trail to praising the body of one Republican senator, Jon Husted, on Sunday in Iowa, Donald Trump turned his former beauty pageant owner’s eye to the body of Republican Senate nominee Ashley Hinson.
Speaking in Iowa, the president drew the attention of voters in a crucial Senate election to the fact that Hinson, a congresswoman, has lost weight since 2024. “I knew Ashley for a long time and she was a little bit heavier, okay? She was. And she put herself- she knew what she was doing, she knew the weight that was on her, really literally the weight, and she knew the importance of what she was doing,” he said. The congresswoman last weight, he added, “the old-fashioned way, too, not you know, give me a shot.”
Stacey Abrams, the former representative from Georgia and current voting rights activist, condemned Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Mike Rogers in an interview with MSNOW.
“She used Black people as a prop,” Abrams said. “She held a press conference and went to a Black church and stood next to a man who has tried to strip women of their bodily autonomy — and I live in a state where Black women have a body count from the anti-abortion laws that Mike Rogers supports.”
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.”
