Happy Monday and welcome back to Tangle. I’m Isaac Saul, our executive editor, and the man responsible for our first correction since October 13. Shame. As I sit here licking my wounds, the Tangle team is descending on our New Jersey studio to prepare for Election Day coverage.

Buckle up, because it’s already getting wild. Today, we’re diving into Democrat Haley Stevens’s surprise endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers and what it means for Abdul El-Sayed. It’s a juicy way to start the biggest week in American politics since November 2024. And it’s a 13-minute read.

Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Audrey Moorehead, Carina Pacheco, Russell Nystrom, Isaac Wood, and Bailey Saul edited or contributed to today’s newsletter.

Correction.

In Friday’s edition, we mistakenly wrote that Rep. Derek Tran (D) won his 2024 House race in Iowa; he actually won in California. We got some wires crossed while researching several different House and Senate races, and we’re feeling chastened that we let this one slip through our fact-checking process. We’ve updated the detail in our online edition. 

This is our 160th correction in Tangle’s 377-week history and our first correction since October 13. We track corrections and place them at the top of the newsletter in an effort to maximize transparency with readers.

Tomorrow is Election Day!

Tomorrow, we’ll publish a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the House and Senate races, key ballot initiatives, what to expect as results come in, and more. In the meantime, if you’re on the fence about casting a ballot, check out Executive Editor Isaac Saul’s best arguments for voting. The edition is free for all to read.

Then, after the day is done, head over to our YouTube channel for our Election Day livestream, as Isaac, Ari, and Kmele will be joined by some special guests starting at 7:00PM ET to report and interpret the results as they come in. Thank you to our sponsor Incogni, who can help you make sure your private information remains private.

Live election coverage sponsored by Incogni

Join Isaac, Ari, Kmele and special guests on November 3, starting at 7:00PM ET. Follow here to get an update when we go live.

Quick hits.

1. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) was hospitalized after experiencing a stroke. His office said he is “awake and alert” and responding to treatment. (The latest)
2. A federal judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to halt certification of Alaska’s Senate race if voter confusion over two candidates named Dan Sullivan is suspected of impacting the result. (The ruling)
3. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis published its advance estimate that real gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.4% in the third quarter of 2026. (The numbers)
4. Protests and riots took place across Germany, with organizers of the protests highlighting cost-of-living concerns and opposition to a proposal for mandatory military service. (The protests)
5. An aircraft en route to the Bahamas crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, killing all nine people on board. (The crash)

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Today’s topic.

Haley Stevens, Mike Rogers, and Abdul El-Sayed. On Sunday, former Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) endorsed Republican candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate race. Stevens issued her endorsement after she appeared at a church service alongside Rogers and days after a public feud with Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed; she had previously supported El-Sayed at the conclusion of the party’s primary in August. 

Back up: El-Sayed defeated Stevens 48.5%–47.5% in the Senate primary, while Rogers ran uncontested for the GOP nomination. Afterward, Stevens acknowledged ongoing disagreements with El-Sayed over U.S. policy toward Israel but backed his general election campaign. 

Tensions between the two resurfaced in the past week in response to an advertisement posted by the left-wing Rebellion PAC that linked higher U.S. grocery prices to support for Israel and the war in Gaza. El-Sayed’s campaign said the ad was not affiliated with his candidacy, and the candidate later said, “I do not agree with the contents of that ad.” However, Stevens called on El-Sayed to personally disavow the ad, which she said was antisemitic, and to take down a separate ad (posted by his campaign) featuring Tucker Carlson. On Wednesday, Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, told The Detroit News that he was supporting Rogers over rhetoric from El-Sayed that he claimed was antisemitic. Following Turkish’s comments, Stevens maintained that she still backed El-Sayed, saying, “Like a lot of households across America, we’re a house divided.”

On Friday, El-Sayed said Stevens “seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago,” and his campaign reportedly asked Stevens not to appear at its events in the days before the election. Furthermore, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) said she disinvited Stevens from a planned church event with El-Sayed and other Democrats on Sunday. 

In her endorsement, Stevens said she is still “a very proud Democrat” but felt unwelcome in El-Sayed’s campaign, alluding to the influence of left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and concerns about downplaying antisemitism. Rogers said he was “honored to earn Congresswoman Stevens’ endorsement.”

El-Sayed responded on Sunday, “I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens… I’m just less interested in the politics of it all than I am in the policy of it all.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called Stevens’s decision “a despicable betrayal,” and the Michigan Democratic Party’s leadership said the Michigan representative has “show[n] that she has abandoned everything she claims to care about.” Separately, Stevens’s long-time chief of staff, Justin German, resigned and said he was “shocked and heartbroken” by her decision. 

Today, we’ll share views from the right, left and Michigan writers on Stevens’s endorsement, followed by Executive Editor Isaac Saul’s take.

The New York Post editorial board praised “Stevens’ act of bravery.”

“Stevens had begged for El-Sayed to stop blaming the Jewish state for everything wrong in this world, and El-Sayed refused. So Stevens did the only sensible thing: She is backing Rogers on the eve of Tuesday’s election, warning Michigan and the nation of the dangers posed by Abdul El-Sayed,” the board wrote. “The progressives are already screaming, declaring her a ‘traitor.’ But this is not a betrayal. It is a singular act of courage.

“Stevens has nothing to gain here. The Democratic machine, which prioritizes winning over morals, will disown her. She’s not looking for a future as a Republican. There is no money, no glory in this. There is only principle,” the board said. “She’s tried cautioning the Democrats. She’s tried convincing them. In the end, she came to the realization that so many Jewish-Americans have, to their sadness: The party has abandoned them.”

In Reason, Robby Soave wrote about “Democrats… bluntly denouncing Stevens as a traitor.”

“Yes, it matters a great deal which party controls the Senate… But everyone slamming Stevens as some kind of traitor should know this: Unshakeable, ironclad loyalty to one’s own political party is not really a virtue,” Soave said. “I would much prefer to live under a system in which Republicans and Democrats were more likely to buck their own parties and say that supporting such and such a person is outside the bounds of what can reasonably be expected.”

“Stevens appears to be doing this largely for reasons of personal spite rather than some ideological opposition to his economic agenda… But the tendency to lash out at political figures who exercise a degree of independence and brand them as traitors is melodramatic at best,” Soave wrote. “As for El-Sayed: He is running well behind the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nominee, Jocelyn Benson, which suggests that Stevens is not the only Michigan Democrat feeling uncomfortable about him.”

In New York Magazine, Daniel Strauss wrote about “Haley Stevens’s sabotage mission.”

“While Stevens framed her decision to back the Republican candidate as a rejection of ‘hate’ on the left, the abrupt nature of the move appears motivated more by personal pique than principle,” Strauss said. “Stevens and her fiancé, Jason Turkish, have fixated on a digital ad created by an outside group, Rebellion PAC, which suggested higher grocery prices are the result of U.S. support of Israel… El-Sayed’s campaign made clear nearly a week ago that it was ‘not affiliated in any way’ with the ad.”

“If El-Sayed wins, as most polls indicate he will, Stevens will be remembered by many as a sore loser whose last-ditch attempt at sabotage failed,” Strauss wrote. “If El-Sayed loses, all the criticism he has gotten for tactical mistakes throughout the campaign, and questions about whether his progressive agenda could win statewide, will be eclipsed by raw fury. Stevens will be seen as responsible for the loss, especially if it’s a small margin of victory.”

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait argued “Stevens is sending the wrong message.”

“Stevens seems… to be following through on a principled objection to El-Sayed’s rhetoric and associations that threaten the state’s Jewish population. The trouble is that her application of those principles is misguided, undermining the values she claims to uphold,” Chait said. “During the same period of time that El-Sayed has been winking at a political movement inflected with anti-Semitism, he has been targeted by a political message that is not merely inflected with racism but saturated with it… Rogers has not repudiated any of this rhetoric.”

“Stevens is not a Republican or a Trump supporter. And she has thrown herself behind Rogers without making any demands of him,” Chait wrote. “Tolerance cannot be the ethical rationale for doing so. It’s impossible to construct any standard of behavior toward religious minorities that El-Sayed fails but Rogers passes. And so, whatever message Stevens imagines she is conveying, it is not what is coming across.”

In The Detroit News, Nolan Finley said “Haley Stevens knocks Abdul El-Sayed off message.”

“Instead of pounding Medicare-for-all, corporate excesses and money-out-of-politics, [El-Sayed is] stuck dealing with the issue that has haunted his campaign from the start: His inability to convincingly separate himself from the antisemites in his orbit,” Finley wrote. “It should have been an easy ask [to condemn the Israel–grocery prices ad]. The grocery store ad was so over the top that declaring it inappropriate would align El-Sayed with a majority of Michigan voters.

“But Stevens had to know she was putting El-Sayed in an impossible position. Refuting the ad would make a lie of much of what he’s said on the campaign trail about Israel. She also must have recognized that the arrogance and ego of her former foe would not allow him to acquiesce to her demands,” Finley said. “Weekend coverage of El-Sayed’s campaign focused almost exclusively on the ads and his spat with Stevens. It has fully revived the concerns many voters have about El-Sayed's associations and his own leanings.”

In the Detroit Free Press, Nancy Kaffer suggested Stevens’ moves “are not the calibrations of a savvy political operative.”

“Someone may be playing chess in Michigan's U.S. Senate campaign, but it's not Haley Stevens,” Kaffer wrote. “None of this makes sense. As political handshakes go, this one is lopsided. What upside there is goes to Rogers, eager for voters to focus on anything but his ties to deeply unpopular Donald Trump and his own out-of-step record, although thanks to the president’s outsized transgressions, Rogers’ past positions mostly escaped scrutiny.

“In backing Rogers' candidacy, Stevens has lent her name to a candidate whose record contradicts virtually everything she has claimed to stand for, and whose campaign traffics in just the sort of racist rhetoric she says she's objecting to,” Kaffer said. “What does Stevens get out of this endorsement? I honestly can’t tell you. I can tell you what Rogers gets: A useful closing narrative, at least for the few voters still up for grabs.”

My take. Isaac Saul Executive Editor

I’ve been wary of El-Sayed’s campaign, but I don’t see Stevens’s decision as principled or admirable. Stevens’s rationale is hard to follow; it reads more as acting on a grudge.  I think this saga could end up benefiting El-Sayed.

Reminder: This is where we share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, leave a comment or reply to this email.

Two questions are at the core of this story: Why did Stevens do what she did? And will it matter?

I’ll set the table by conceding my own biases up front: I am a political moderate who prefers complicated candidates with a mix of views. I would have been glad if a more moderate, centrist Democrat like Haley Stevens or Mallory McMorrow had won the primary in Michigan. I am also a practicing Jew worriedly sensing the rise in antisemitism in our country. The path from anti-Zionism to antisemitism is well worn, and as Jonathan Chait wrote (under “What the left is saying”), El-Sayed has “elevated anti-Zionism into the centerpiece of his primary campaign, treating the Israel lobby as the singular force lying behind every economic and political problem afflicting America.” It’s hard to deny that fixating on Israel that way opens the door to anti-Jew sentiment becoming more accepted.

Which is just to say: I have a lot of reasons to be wary of El-Sayed’s campaign and to be more welcoming towards his former primary opponent. 

And yet, I don’t see Haley Stevens’s reversal as a principled turn. It does not strike me as choosing “country over party” or drawing a line in the sand against rising antisemitism or hatred — and it very obviously isn’t a principled stance on the basis of policy issues. To me, it looks like somebody getting payback for a personal snub. It reads as petty, not brave. As small, not selfless. 

You really just can’t coherently explain this turn of events absent that framework. 

Stevens has now repeatedly described her decision in two ways: a stand against hate and a response to feeling unwelcome in El-Sayed’s campaign. She also endorsed Rogers’s economic plans for black voters in Michigan, a particularly sharp jab given widespread fears within the Democratic Party that El-Sayed may be underperforming with black Michiganders.

But if you are in Stevens’s shoes, how do you oppose El-Sayed campaigning with Hasan Piker but brush aside comments Trump made while campaigning for Rogers, calling El-Sayed a “jihadist” and suggesting he should go through a metal detector to enter Congress? The president has said El-Sayed wants to bring “Sharia law” to Michigan and has taken to calling him “Mohammed.” It is rank Islamophobia toward a born-and-raised American Muslim who has not professed adherence to religious extremism. Why is that less offensive to Stevens than any antisemitism she perceives from El-Sayed or his allies? Is Muslim hatred less important than Jew hatred? This is to say nothing of the extremist Christians Rogers has welcomed into his camp. 

Similarly, Stevens has spent the last year hammering Rogers on the economy. She called him a rubber stamp for Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran, which she claimed are driving up prices for Michiganders. She called his agenda “repulsive.” She insisted he was an out-of-touch millionaire. That was the crux of her campaign: Send me to the Senate to fix the affordability crisis being caused by Republicans like Mike Rogers.

Now, on the eve of the election, she is endorsing Mike Rogers’s economic plans? She’s suddenly in his camp, insisting those plans are going to help the people of Michigan? What changed? Certainly not the state of the economy, nor Rogers’s economic policy, nor El-Sayed’s.

None of this is coherent. Unless, of course, this is not about hate, antisemitism, or policy but is instead about settling a personal score. 

While interviewing Stevens on CNN, Anderson Cooper zeroed in on this point, which left Stevens squirming or incomprehensible or at times simply silent. Again, while those embracing her pivot pretend it was about principles, Stevens herself overtly says that she is upset about El-Sayed not welcoming her. She has brought it up in every single interview she’s given over the weekend as the core answer when she’s asked “what changed?”

For the record… some peculiar details about Stevens’s personal life coincide with this decision. In just the three months since losing her primary, she announced her engagement to Jason Turkish, a prominent Michigan lawyer. Former Gov. Jim Blanchard (D), a longtime Stevens ally, recounted how Turkish chastised Stevens about not backing Rogers at a dinner on Friday, repeatedly telling her everyone was disappointed in her. Several Michigan politicians and organizers close to Stevens have publicly implied they fear her fiancé is pressuring or manipulating her. I normally leave personal intrigue out of my analysis, but the possible relevance in this case is hard to dismiss. 

As others have pointed out, Stevens tried to make her support of El-Sayed conditional; she demanded he publicly condemn an advertisement that went up in Michigan blaming affordability issues on Israel. Stevens also made several more precise demands about other condemnations he must make. After El-Sayed distanced himself from the ad, insisting he had nothing to do with it and saying he did not condone it, Stevens seemed satisfied.

However, things seemed to pivot on the El-Sayed campaign deciding not to include Stevens down the home stretch. Here, El-Sayed seems to have said something to the effect of, ‘Thanks, but you don’t tell me what to do, and don’t bother showing up for me if this is how you’re going to play ball.’ Which — hey — he took a risk. From the outside looking in, it certainly looks like he mishandled a key relationship down the home stretch, but it isn’t hard to understand this kind of position, either. He’s spent a lot of time being told to condemn antisemitism despite repeatedly condemning antisemitism. He’s focused on his platform and his opponent with 48 hours to go, and he’s getting attacked by a Democrat he beat several months ago who had repeatedly said she supported him. Maybe a shrewder candidate would have navigated Stevens more deftly, but I can’t say I’m certain I’d have handled it better. Even so, I don’t think El-Sayed giving Stevens the cold shoulder justifies her endorsing Rogers without setting any conditions on him.

In order to criticize Stevens’s actions, though, you should be able to articulate an alternative. So let me offer some: If Stevens had, say, never endorsed El-Sayed after losing the primary, that would read like a principled stance. If she hadn’t repeated her support for him (and her opposition to Rogers) over and over, for several months, that might feel like a principled stance. If everything had been the exact same until now, but she instead pledged to vote for an independent, or write herself or another candidate in, or simply rescinded her endorsement without endorsing Rogers — I would have even bought that.

But she didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she emphasized the differences over Israel between her and the Democrat who snubbed her, while accepting all the differences between her and a candidate with whom she shares almost no values, policy preferences, or goals for the country. She burned her staff and all the members of the party who worked to keep Michigan blue. You can read that as a brave, knowing detonation of one’s own career to stand for something — but I see it as someone making their own personal grievances more important than the very principles they claim to stand for.

So: Will any of this matter? Nate Silver noted last night that political endorsements rarely make a difference unless they are surprising. This one certainly qualifies. Roughly 728,000 Michiganders voted for Stevens in the primary (compared to 743,000 for El-Sayed). Trump won Michigan by just 10,000 votes in 2016. There’s no doubt Stevens’s announcement could tip a tight race in Rogers’s favor, and I suspect that’s a picture anyone could paint with exit polling and late-breaking deciders if the election does end up being a tight Rogers win.

Yet the immediate evidence suggests the opposite: El-Sayed had his best fundraising day ever on Sunday. The Democratic Party wholeheartedly rallied behind him, condemned Stevens, and essentially expelled her from Michigan politics in a matter of hours — the kind of unambiguous, unified support El-Sayed has struggled to get from the party until now. Mallory McMorrow, the aforementioned Michigan Democrat who lives in Stevens’s district and lost in the primary to her and El-Sayed, told CNN the Rogers endorsement has galvanized Democrats and even people who weren’t planning to vote into El-Sayed’s corner. 

I, too, find myself believing this will help El-Sayed more than hurt him. Michigan is a complex and politically independent state, but in this current environment, a full-throated endorsement of a Trump-backed Republican is not the kind of thing that will pull in any Democratic or independent voters who haven’t already made their decisions. It is the kind of thing that will motivate a partisan backlash — one that’s clearly underway. For all the talk about Stevens damaging El-Sayed, I think there’s a better chance she handed him a late-stage gift. 

Staff dissent. Carina Pacheco Associate Editor

I agree with Isaac that Stevens’s 11th-hour change of heart doesn’t scream clear-minded, principled opposition. I also agree that Stevens would have been better served had she simply said she wasn’t supporting either candidate, rather than endorsing Rogers. All that said, I don’t think that her break from El-Sayed is unreasonable, for three reasons.   First, Stevens will have a larger impact on the outcome of this race as the “villain” rather than simply the primary loser who falls in line. She lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed by one percentage point, and now El-Sayed is neck-and-neck with Rogers. That shows a very divided electorate. Her public withdrawal of support may not cost El-Sayed the election, but it sends a loud message that she isn’t done fighting — and that she’s not afraid to cross party lines to make a point.   Second, much of the criticism of Stevens feels steeped in misogyny. It took no time at all for her to be framed as “the traitorous, jealous, petty, vindictive, two-faced, conniving woman” who is going to cost Democrats control of the Senate. Her longtime allies are going on national television suggesting her fiancé is forcing her into this life-altering decision, as if she’s just a fickle, scared woman with little agency. The word choice from fellow Democrats — “despicable betrayal”, “sell out”, and “just a sad, desperate attempt to be relevant” — and then her official removal from the Democratic Party of Michigan (very Mean Girls-esque, if you ask me) land for me with a particularly gendered tone.   Lastly, and in that vein, I think the reaction to Stevens’s defection is misguided. El-Sayed’s campaign rejected the conditions she placed on her support, and her reaction doesn’t feel trivial or petty. Her concerns about El-Sayed’s proximity to antisemitism, especially following the grocery store ad, are shared by wide swaths of the electorate and did not appear in a vacuum. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to continue to ask El-Sayed to answer for antisemitism or anti-Israel ads until his response is satisfactory, or to pull support if his response is unsatisfying. El-Sayed made U.S. support for Israel a cornerstone of his campaign; his less-than-forceful condemnation of antisemitism or his alleged family ties to Muslim terrorist organizations have been consistent weaknesses. I understand that El-Sayed feels he’s already handled this problem, but as a politician, he’s going to have to answer repeat questions about the same issues over and over — fair or not, American politicians need to be realistic about the public sensitivity about perceived ties to Islamic terrorism and antisemitism instead of chastising the public for voicing it. He could have used Stevens’s widely shared concerns to build a larger coalition; instead, he banished her from the campaign.

Take the survey: Do you think the endorsement will affect the race? Let us know.

Disagree? That’s okay. Our opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we’ll consider publishing your feedback.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just published a rebuttal to Isaac’s essay on the state of the country.
• The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was the report on the Pentagon firing a top general. 
• Nothing to do with politics: Tips for adjusting to yesterday’s clock change. 
• Our last survey: 2,115 readers responded to our survey on Israel’s elections, with 41% saying they are somewhat pessimistic about the results. “Unless Netanyahu is defeated by the opposing coalitions, there will be no end to the violence and suffering in the Middle East,” one respondent said. “I don’t think as Americans we can really understand what it’s like to be an Israeli right now,” said another.

Have a nice day.

After Paul (a veterinarian) and Sarah Bookbinder took in two injured and abandoned raccoons, they quickly bonded with the animals and were heartbroken when they died from their injuries. The experience motivated them to buy a 53-acre property in central New York and build a raccoon rehabilitation center, which they opened in 2018. Since then, they’ve treated an estimated 800 raccoons. When the animals are ready to go back into the wild, they’re released into a state forest bordering the center. “It’s like your kid going off to college,” Sarah said, “except that you’re never going to see them again.” The Washington Post has the story.