ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. — Mike Rogers closed out his Senate campaign Monday night by calling on Michigan voters to reject socialism while praising Rep. Haley Stevens for putting country over party with her surprise endorsement.
Mr. Rogers argued that Ms. Stevens’ endorsement was evidence that voters across the political spectrum were rejecting the “hate and divisiveness” he said Democratic rival Abdul El-Sayed had brought into the race.
“We are going to surprise some people, I think,” he said.
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Mr. Rogers said Ms. Stevens has the courage to put principle ahead of party despite fierce blowback from fellow Democrats.
“She probably didn’t agree with me much on policy. But what we both knew, what we both believed, was that we love America, and we loved America more than we loved our parties,” he said.
Mr. Rogers said Ms. Stevens’ decision reflected growing frustration with the tone of Mr. El-Sayed’s campaign.
“You can’t diminish courage when you see it. You know courage when you see it,” he said. “She did it because young Jewish women have to hide their Star of David because of the language and the hate and the divisiveness coming from my opponent.”
Mr. El-Sayed, meanwhile, spent the final day of the campaign leading a get-out-the-vote tour across Detroit, including a rally featuring Grammy and Academy Award-winning artist and actor Common.
At the first of four stops, Mr. El-Sayed offered a simple answer for Democrats unnerved by Ms. Stevens’ party-switching endorsement.
“If we’re nervous about where we’re going to go from here, go vote,” he said. “There’s only one thing we can do to control the outcome.”
Mr. Rogers, meanwhile, framed the election as a battle over the country’s future rather than just another Senate race.
“It’s really about the heart and soul of the country, and who we want to be, and what country we want to give to our kids,” he said. “Faith, family and freedom are on the ballot.”
The RealClearPolitics polling average showed Mr. El-Sayed holding a 5-percentage-point lead heading into Election Day, though Republicans spent the campaign’s final stretch insisting the surveys were underestimating their support.
At the Rogers rally, members of a “Democrats for Rogers” coalition took the stage to praise Ms. Stevens and voice concerns about Mr. El-Sayed’s positions on Israel.
“I want to take a moment to thank Haley Stevens,” Chelsea Rebeck, a Jewish mother, told the crowd, drawing chants of “Haley! Haley! Haley!”
“This isn’t about being a Democrat or a Republican,” she said. “It’s about our kids. It’s about our families. It’s about our values.”
Ms. Stevens stunned Michigan politics a day earlier when she crossed party lines to endorse Mr. Rogers, handing Republicans an unexpected boost in the campaign’s closing hours and triggering a backlash from fellow Democrats.
The break stemmed from a long-simmering feud between Ms. Stevens and Mr. El-Sayed, whose disagreements over Israel and antisemitism had lingered since the Democratic primary.
The dispute burst back into public view during the race’s final week when Ms. Stevens demanded that Mr. El-Sayed disavow an outside group’s ad, which blamed aid to Israel for high gas prices, that she called antisemitic.
Mr. El-Sayed said he had no involvement with the ad and disagreed with its message.
But tensions escalated further when his campaign made clear it did not want Ms. Stevens appearing alongside him at a Souls to the Polls event at a Detroit church as part of Democrats’ get-out-the-vote effort.
She then endorsed Mr. Rogers.
The endorsement capped a remarkable deterioration in the relationship between the two Democrats.
Although Mr. El-Sayed prevailed in the primary, the margin was much narrower than late polling had suggested, and the political and personal tensions between the camps never fully subsided.
Not everyone at Mr. Rogers’ rally was convinced the late endorsement would prove decisive.
Chandler Malhota, an attendee, said the move gave Republicans a jolt of energy but questioned whether it came too late because early voting has been going on for weeks.
“It gives a little energy,” the 80-year-old said. “It is just a little late.”
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