Chris Hayes: Haley Stevens’ ‘shocking’ endorsement switch could ‘weirdly’ unite Democrats

MS NOW’s Chris Hayes said Rep. Haley Stevens’ “shocking” endorsement switch in the Michigan Senate race could end up “weirdly” unifying Democrats ahead of Tuesday’s midterms. According to Hayes, the swift and furious reaction from many local and national Democrats to Stevens’ support of Republican Sen. Mike Rogers shows that “people do understand the stakes” of the upcoming election.

The “All In with Chris Hayes” host characterized Stevens’ decision to rescind her endorsement of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday as “aberrant.” “People have their beliefs and they have their politics, and they’re allowed to leave parties and endorse whoever because of principled disagreements — and that is what it is. We live in a free society; it’s a democracy,” he said. “But the way that she personally went about this was just downright bizarre.”

Stevens endorsed El-Sayed shortly after he defeated her in the Democratic primary earlier this year. But their relationship appeared to sour in recent days amid a dispute over an outside group’s ad that Stevens said she believed was antisemitic. She also criticized El-Sayed over his association with streamer Hasan Piker.

Hayes noted that Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers drew criticism even from people who had supported her or had been highly critical of El-Sayed, including Atlantic writer Jonathan Chait and Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden.

Hayes also highlighted the reaction from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who backed Stevens in the primary. Pelosi said the congresswoman had “chosen to dangerously betray Michigan families’ healthcare, freedoms and future with her horrific endorsement of Mike Rogers.” She added that El-Sayed “must win — because Michigan and our country deserve better.”

Hayes suggested that kind of reaction showed that “in the face of this very shocking, bizarre and aberrant thing,” Democrats were “unifying weirdly and counterintuitively in the wake of it” because “people do understand the stakes.”

The MS NOW host said the party’s ability to rally behind El-Sayed, even bringing along Democrats with deep disagreements, showed the value of a broad coalition. “There are real, genuine, good-faith battles inside the Democratic Party, and part of the price of building a bigger-tent coalition is you get more of them,” he explained. “If the Democrats have the best night of my lifetime on Tuesday and walk in with 55 senators, that is going to be a real pain to manage.”

But Hayes argued that Democrats would welcome the challenge of managing such disagreements. A larger coalition, he said, would bring sharper internal debates, both from the party’s left (as with El-Sayed and Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson) and its right (as with Kansas Senate candidate Adam Hamilton and Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turek). “That’s the best possible problem to have as a party,” he said.