DETROIT — Rep. Haley Stevens, the Michigan Democrat who narrowly lost her party’s Senate primary in August, not only attended church services Sunday morning with Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers — she endorsed him, too.

It was a highly unusual move for a sitting Democrat in the waning days of a marquee race for a seat her party is fighting to hold.

Stevens and Rogers were seen separately entering Perfecting Church, a prominent Black church in the city.

The endorsement and joint appearance was the latest dramatic twist in a Senate race whose closing stretch has been dominated by tensions between Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated her for the Democratic nomination.

Stevens and El-Sayed had been scheduled to campaign together Sunday at a get-out-the-vote event at another Detroit church with Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. — what would have been their first joint public appearance in months. Stevens endorsed El-Sayed days after the primary in August, and they appeared together at a unity breakfast that month, but have not campaigned together since.

That plan for that event collapsed after Stevens issued a statement Friday calling on El-Sayed to publicly condemn an ad from Rebellion PAC — an outside group not affiliated with his campaign — that linked high grocery prices to U.S. aid to Israel. She also knocked El-Sayed for his own past comments about Israel, writing that the ad “did not invent its argument,” but instead reflected El-Sayed’s rhetoric on the campaign trail. He could begin his effort to remove money from politics, she said, “by getting Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan cannot afford.”

El-Sayed responded in a statement of his own, writing that Stevens “seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.”

Following the back-and-forth, El-Sayed’s campaign asked Stevens to stay away from its events for the rest of the race, a Democratic source familiar with the matter told MS NOW, granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

After a rally Saturday in Sterling Heights, El-Sayed pushed back when MS NOW asked whether he condemned Rebellion PAC’s ad.

“You guys love to play the ‘condemn’ game,” he said. “I’ve already been clear that that ad was not made by me, and I do not agree with the contents of that ad.”

Stevens responded in a statement that did not mention El-Sayed by name.

“I was glad to see our senate nominee say he does not agree with the content of the vile Rebellion PAC ad which claimed Israel and Jews were to blame for the high costs of groceries,” she wrote.

“Whenever anyone tries to set us against each other, we have an obligation to stand up and fight back. This is what our constituents deserve from those of us in elected leadership,” she continued. “Go vote!”

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From MS Now.