Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Sunday, a major shakeup in the final stages of a top battleground race that could determine which party controls the Senate.

“Hey, Michigan, as you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul, said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said in a video.

“And he’s right, and that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today,” she said. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign.”

The congresswoman’s announcement marks a whirlwind turnabout from just days ago, when she said she would support her party’s ticket and planned to attend a campaign event on Sunday to support Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

But leading up to the rally, Stevens and El-Sayed released dueling critical public statements, prompting concerns from Democrats that the spat was a distraction from what is widely seen as one of the most competitive Senate races.

Stevens had said that she expected El-Sayed to condemn an ad from an outside group that she said was antisemitic. El-Sayed responded, accusing Stevens of being “intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.”

NBC News reported Saturday that El-Sayed’s campaign had asked Stevens to no longer attend campaign events following the dueling statements.

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[–] 7 points 2 hours ago*

That isn't transphobia. He totally would do that and he's a piece of shit, but it's a flat misreading of the ad to call it transphobic. If I had to assign a position to it, I'd say it's more plausible to call it defensive of trans people as far as repurposing the rhetoric of an actually transphobic ad based on othering trans people and essentially saying "there is a real 'other' that some politicians have a wrongful fealty to, but it's Israel [not some cabal of trans people]".

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