Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers called a ‘disgrace’ at Detroit unity roundtable

Organizers with the Abdul El-Sayed campaign hosted a conversation with Black, Arab and Muslim Americans in Detroit on Sunday afternoon in an effort to unify Democrats in the final stretch before the election. 

Former U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, state Senate candidate Abbas Alawieh, Michigan United organizer Elder Leslie Matthews and Uncommitted co-founder Layla Elabed were among the speakers on Sunday afternoon. 

The invite-only roundtable, moderated by the Women for Abdul coalition and Reproductive Freedom for All Michigan, drew about two dozen people to Haraz Coffee House, a Yemeni cafe in Detroit. It began shortly after U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham) withdrew her support for El-Sayed and endorsed Republican nominee Mike Rogers in an 11th-hour announcement that drew widespread condemnation from Democratic Party leaders. 

Bowman, who represented New York’s 16th Congressional District until last year, called Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers a “disgrace” and said she “represents white supremacy.”

“This is a reckoning of American democracy. Haley Stevens showed you who she was,” he said. “We can never let white supremacy win. When there is division or hate, it’s rooted in that.”

Bowman added that voters can never forget what Stevens did.

“The more they keep us believing that we are separate, that we are different, the more they create the economic and social conditions that we are crabs in a barrel fighting to get over each other in lieu of the other, and if we internalize those beliefs, that is the thing that makes us weak,” Bowman said.

In the August primary, Stevens performed strongly among Black voters, including in Detroit, where she defeated El-Sayed by 28 percentage points. Her campaign and its supporters, including AIPAC’s super PAC, ran ads tailored to Black voters. The ads had criticized El-Sayed’s support for the Uncommitted movement in the 2024 presidential primary, which was a protest movement over the Biden administration’s handling of Gaza. El-Sayed later endorsed Kamala Harris for president the day after she announced her campaign. 

Since then, El-Sayed has sought to win over Black voters in Detroit and across the state, as polls suggest a tight race on Tuesday. El-Sayed will likely need strong turnout among Black Michiganders, a reliably Democratic voting bloc, to defeat Rogers.

Word of Stevens’ defection has drawn widespread condemnation from all wings of the Democratic Party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), who back Stevens during the primary, called her decision a “despicable betrayal,” while Democratic National Committee Black Caucus Chair Virgie Rollins said Stevens had “revealed herself to be a sellout who used Black Michiganders for a political stunt.”

This is a despicable betrayal from Rep. Stevens.

Senate Democrats are united in our support for Abdul El-Sayed, because we know he will fight for the economic interests of working families in Michigan, unlike Mike Rogers, who is a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors.

— Chuck Schumer (@chuckschumer) November 1, 2026

Alawieh, who cross-endorsed El-Sayed, said at the event on Sunday that he has benefited from “a world where my parents had their full rights, where they had access to economic opportunity,” which he said would not have been possible without the generational sacrifices of Black Americans. He called out anti-Black racism among Arab Americans, including stereotypes he heard as a child that “Black neighborhoods are somehow inherently dangerous.”

“There is pain between our communities from where we come from,” he said. “If we’re honest about where the hurt has been, then we can take that next step forward and that next one after that,” Alawieh said. 

Alawieh also said he’s supporting El-Sayed not “because he looks like me,” but because of the Senate nominee’s policies.

“What our communities know more than anyone, and many Black women have taught us this more than anyone, is you don’t need to vote for someone who looks exactly like you in order for your interests to be represented,” Alawieh said. “If the interests of women would be represented best by only a woman candidate, then we would not be living in a world where Haley Stevens so quickly sells out the right to choose, sells out voting rights, sells out health care, just so she can go support a genocide-enabling Mike Rogers.” 

Elder Leslie Matthews, an organizer with Michigan United, said at the event that she had built relationships with Arab American and Palestinian women in the last three years in her anti-war advocacy for Gaza. Matthews said she was attending the discussion in her personal capacity.

“It’s not even about being Black and Arab, but it’s really about being human,” Matthews said. 

Matthews spoke about the frustration and pain she felt in 2024 over the presidential election, when some Arab Americans, Muslims, and pro-Palestinian supporters declined to back former Vice President Kamala Harris for president over Gaza.

“One of the reasons why we lost that election was because we didn’t come together, because I felt that you couldn’t feel my pain, you felt that I couldn’t feel your pain,” Matthews said. 

Now, Matthews said she hopes to unify Black and brown communities behind a united agenda, and said El-Sayed is “one of the things that we can all fight for.”

Layla Elabed, who co-founded the 2024 Uncommitted movement to protest the Biden administration’s handling of Gaza, said Black and brown women are often celebrated as the backbone of democracy “while keeping us out of the places where decisions are made.”

“There is a history of Black communities being told that they cannot govern themselves. We experienced this firsthand in Detroit under emergency management,” she said. “These experiences, the lessons I learned, especially as somebody born and raised in Detroit, sometimes the very people who tell you how important your voice is becomes uncomfortable the moment you decide to use it.”