Haley Stevens torpedoed her political career with disastrous support for MAGA at the 11th hour.
Rep. Haley Stevens withdrew from the post-midterm elections in Washington, D.C., amid intense criticism for betraying her own party by supporting a MAGA Republican in Michigan’s Senate race.
Stevens was originally scheduled to be part of the four-person panel at what would have been a celebratory event at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management on Thursday evening to analyze Democrats’ enormous success in regaining control of the House and Senate.
However, Stevens was unable to join his party’s celebrations after his 11th-hour endorsement of Trump-backed Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate race against Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated Stevens in the primary in August.
Haley Stevens was called a “traitor” while campaigning with Mike Rogers at a Detroit church days before the midterm elections.
Rebecca Cook/Rebecca Cook/Reuters
Democrats condemned Stevens for failing to support Michigan’s eventual Senate winner, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling his support for Rogers a “despicable betrayal” of the party. There were also calls to ban Stevens from the House Democratic caucus for the remaining two months of his term.
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin was named to replace Stevens after he withdrew from the event, which was moderated by CNN anchor Manu Raju.
In an email to attendees confirming the scheduling change, George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management simply stated that “Congresswoman Haley Stevens was no longer able to attend the event,” without providing further details.
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Speaking to the Washington Sun, Raskin mocked Stevens’ rapid fall from grace and suggested that she had been disastrously persuaded to support Rogers by her fiancé, Jason Turkish, who announced late last month that he would vote for the Republican and suggested that she would soon follow suit.
Haley Stevens feuded with Abdul El-Sayed days before supporting Mike Rogers.
“She clearly liked her fiancé, who was very involved in the Mike Rogers campaign, and the Republicans were very happy. But she ended up really liking us because it caused a huge boomerang and backfired on them,” Raskin said.
Raskin added that he “didn’t know the answer” when asked if Stevens would be kicked out of the Democratic caucus when the House returns next week. “I didn’t think about it.”
Former New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman previously suggested that leaving Stevens in the political wilderness while she finishes out her term in the House would be a more humiliating punishment.
“Staying in the caucus and being humiliated by all your colleagues might be better than being kicked out,” Bowman told NBC News.
Stevens’ mean-spirited support for the MAGA Republican didn’t hurt El-Sayed’s electoral hopes.
The progressive Democrat handily beat Rogers by 7 percentage points in the midterms, as the party won several crucial Senate elections, including seismic victories in Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Haley Stevens’ office for comment.
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