CNN Reporter Says ‘Off the Record’ Dem Leaders Are ‘Terrified’ In Michigan

Michigan voters who backed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in her bruising primary loss to Abdul El-Sayed may back his opponent in November, CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere warned after speaking to voters on the ground in the state.

Dovere traveled Michigan during the battle between Stevens and El-Sayed and said neither side seemed willing to heal the divisions created by the contest, which drew record spending.

El-Sayed will face off against Republican Mike Rogers in November.

“While the microphones are on, political leaders talk confidently about how they know the party can come together behind El-Sayed against Mike Rogers, the former Republican congressman who came close to winning Michigan’s other Senate seat in 2024. Then they often ask to go off the record to say how terrified they are that the wounds are too deep and festering to heal,” Dovere reported on CNN.com of the current state of the Democratic Party in Michigan.

But Democrats have a lot of work to do before then, Dovere found, further discussing his reporting on air:

Yeah, I’ve had a lot of those conversations over the course of the last couple of days in Michigan. I got back yesterday, and it’s not just the elected leaders who feel that way.

We’ve been talking to voters who were at Haley Stevens events, leading into the primary or at various polling places, I was in Dearborn, in Detroit, in Birmingham where Haley Stevens is from, and all over the place people who were voting for Stevens were saying they do not know that they can vote for El-Sayed.

They were saying that they might take a look at him. They might vote for Mike Rogers.

Now, it’s important because this was such a divided primary, to note that a lot of El-Sayed voters were saying the other side of that, which is that if Stevens had won, they didn’t know if they would vote, a lot of them were saying they would stay home. But this is, this race got very deep, very personal between the two of them.

And it also is about a lot of issues that people got very upset about, particularly the issue of Israel and Gaza and Palestine, where El-Sayed has been very far out there.

He posted a video of a live stream on Sunday where he said he wanted to have a T-shirt printed saying he’s the most dangerous candidate for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Obviously there was a lot of AIPAC spending against him which motivated a lot of people in both directions.

This is going really to be a big thing going into November.

Watch above via CNN.

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