Haley Stevens Is Sending the Wrong Message

Jonathan Chait: “Haley Stevens nearly won the Democratic nomination for Senate in Michigan in August, then immediately endorsed the winner, Abdul El-Sayed. She has spent the months since then vacillating, expressing doubts about his campaign while maintaining her support. But last week, her fiancé said that he intends to vote for El-Sayed’s opponent, Mike Rogers, and now she has followed, endorsing the Republican just two days before the election.”

“Stevens’s dramatic reversal met with immediate cries of opportunism or political stupidity. But Stevens seems instead to be following through on a principled objection to El-Sayed’s rhetoric and associations that threaten the state’s Jewish population. The trouble is that her application of those principles is misguided, undermining the values she claims to uphold. Before this weekend, Stevens could credibly accuse El-Sayed of overlooking the bigotry of his allies out of political expedience. Now she, too, is guilty of that very sin.”