Haley Stevens advised to stay away from Abdul El-Sayed campaign events to limit ‘distractions’

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s tightly fought US Senate race, wants Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens to stay away from his campaign events.

“I don’t want any distractions,” El-Sayed told reporters after a campaign rally, according to the New York Times. “It seems as though other folks are more interested in making this race about things that it’s not about.”

The two had planned to appear together on Sunday at a church service in Detroit, but Representative Debbie Dingell later told CNN she had spoken to Stevens and told her “This isn’t working.” Dingell added that the tensions between the two were a distraction and that “there’s nothing to be gained by the two of them being in the same place.”

The public rupture between the progressive El-Sayed and the more moderate Stevens, whom he defeated in a bitter primary, has cast Democratic tensions into the spotlight in one of the most consequential elections in the party’s campaign to retake control of the Senate.

Stevens endorsed El-Sayed shortly after he won the primary election in August, and planned to campaign with him on Sunday.

But Stevens had until now avoided appearing publicly with her former opponent, whom she has criticized publicly for weeks. Her fiance, Jason Turkish, has campaigned on behalf of Republican candidate Mike Rogers.

And just two days before they were scheduled to campaign together this weekend, Stevens demanded that El-Sayed denounce an outside group’s political ad that blamed higher prices on US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

“Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago,” El-Sayed shot back in a statement, which noted that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent heavily to defeat him in the primary.

“Let’s all focus on the task at hand: that’s beating Mike Rogers, holding Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All,” the statement said.

The open feuding worries many Democrats, who see the tight race as a must-win for the party to win back the Senate.