But things went off-script for Stevens when she sat down with Jai Singletary, director of a local neighborhood improvement association \u2014 who revealed, midway through their conversation, that he had already cast his early voting primary ballot for her opponent, former county health director Abdul El-Sayed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, Singletary made it clear to Stevens that the candidates\u2019 respective stances on aid to Israel were the deciding factor for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGenocide isn\u2019t a Palestinian issue. We\u2019ve all got to care about this,\u201d Singletary told Stevens, a pro-Israel centrist who has received nearly $30 million in outside spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to date in her primary \u2014 the organization\u2019s largest-ever investment in a single race, according<\/a> to CBS News. He believes, he said, that \u201cour country is directly responsible for peace not being achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n The director of Woodbridge Neighborhood Development and local soccer coach added, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to have the money stay here. I don\u2019t think we should be giving any more aid to the State of Israel while they\u2019re committing the atrocities they\u2019re committing in widespread collective punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n The interaction spotlighted two of the biggest questions hanging over Michigan\u2019s closely watched and hard-fought Democratic Senate primary: To what degree are the state\u2019s voters factoring Israel into their decisions, and does the pro-Palestinian sentiment driving El-Sayed\u2019s campaign cross racial lines \u2014 including in the Black communities where Stevens has long maintained strong relationships?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Many of the Jews in Michigan who form a major base of support for Stevens have made clear their distrust of El-Sayed, who has questioned whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state. Meanwhile, the state has a large Arab and Muslim voting bloc, and voters here helped propel<\/a> a 2024 Democratic revolt over Israel\u2019s war in Gaza that helped lead to the party\u2019s current civil war. But the situation is less clear with voters from other groups.<\/p>\n Democratic U.S. Rep. and Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Haley Stevens (l) tries a cappuccino she made during a campaign stop at a cafe in Detroit, Michigan, July 27, 2026. (Andrew Lapin\/JTA)<\/p>\n El-Sayed and the insurgent progressive movement he represents have sought to make Israel central to the race and have tried to turn Stevens\u2019 AIPAC support into her biggest liability. But the Stevens campaign has made the calculation<\/a> that most of the state\u2019s voters \u2014 including Detroit\u2019s majority-Black population, with whom she has enjoyed good relations in the past \u2014 would rather talk about other things.<\/p>\n Not so, according to Singletary, who is Black. In his own Detroit community, he told JTA, Israel was an important issue.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s connected,\u201d he said, comparing the Israeli-Palestinian state of affairs to Apartheid-era South Africa, adding, \u201c$3.3 billion to the state of Israel, and that\u2019s money that could be helping out here. I think people are now seeing the links.\u201d He told reporters that, though he does not have Palestinian family himself, his own vote was \u201c100% exclusive\u201d based on Israel.<\/p>\n After the campaign left, Singletary told JTA that he had no affiliation with the El-Sayed campaign and had stopped by on an invitation from the store\u2019s owner. He said he would not vote for Rogers in the general election even if Stevens wins and came because he hoped to develop a connection with her in the event she became the nominee.\u00a0<\/p>\n The issue of whether backers of either candidate across the yawning policy divide would continue to vote for a Democrat in the general if their preferred choice loses has become an emerging question. Last week, Democratic U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan, a Stevens backer, refused to commit to voting for El-Sayed if he wins the primary. Scholten cited<\/a> the candidate\u2019s campaigning<\/a> with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly<\/a> said he would \u201cvote\u201d for Hamas over Israel. Her objection, she said, was to his comment that \u201cAmerica deserved 9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbdul El-Sayed is taking us in a direction we don\u2019t want to go as a party,\u201d Scholten told CNN host Jake Tapper.<\/p>\n Stevens\u2019 campaign is also touting her backing from a growing number of establishment Democrats, including, on Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. She and El-Sayed face off Monday evening in their final televised debate before the Aug. 4 primary.<\/p>\n Speaking to Singletary, Stevens smiled and nodded. She name-dropped a Palestinian supporter of hers, and mentioned legislation targeting China that she\u2019s worked on with \u201cmy colleague Ro Khanna\u201d \u2014 the staunchly pro-Palestinian Democratic congressman from California, who has endorsed El-Sayed. She added that she believes in a two-state solution and has been attacked \u201cby name\u201d by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n She also turned to her staff and excitedly indicated to Singletary: \u201cHe voted for Abdul in the primary, and he came here to talk to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Reporting the stories that define our era. When history unfolds in real-time, the Jewish world turns to JTA. Your support ensures we can document the complexities of war and the resilience of Jewish communities with integrity.<\/p>\n \n\t\tOne-time \tChoose an amount to donate<\/p>\n \n\t\t$72$180$360$500\t<\/p>\n \tSupport Us<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 Hours before a big debate showdown with her primary rival, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens began a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[22474,36075,37,8576],"class_list":["post-225321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-abdul-el-sayed","tag-haley-stevens","tag-israel","tag-michigan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116993973547919646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7-27-26-stevens-2-scaled.jpg\")
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