Haley Stevens launches Senate campaign focused on auto jobs, Trump tariffs
The moderate Democrat has been criticized for her staunch support of Israel
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U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, a fourth-term moderate Democrat who represents portions of Oakland County and is a staunch supporter of Israel, announced her campaign for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday.
Her campaign message centered on protecting the state’s auto industry from what she called “chaotic” trade policies under President Donald Trump.
Stevens is hoping to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Gary Peters.
In a launch video filmed in a lot full of pickup trucks and SUVs, Stevens warns that Trump’s “chaos and reckless tariffs are putting thousands of Michigan jobs at risk.”
Stevens, who served on the U.S. Treasury’s auto task force during the 2008 bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, is positioning herself as the candidate best equipped to defend Michigan’s manufacturing economy.
“I always knew I wanted to spend my life fighting for Michigan,” Stevens said. “And when the Great Recession hit and the American car industry faced extinction, I wanted to step up and do something for my state. As chief of staff to President Obama’s Auto Rescue, we helped save over 200,000 Michigan jobs and stabilized our economy.”
She joins state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and former gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary. On the Republican side, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers is attempting a comeback after narrowly losing a Senate seat to Democrat Elissa Slotkin in 2024.
Stevens has been a vocal critic of Trump’s trade policies, especially tariffs on Canadian imports, which she says are destabilizing Michigan companies.
“Donald Trump says he ‘couldn’t care less’ if auto prices rise,” Stevens said. “Well, as someone who spent my time in Congress fighting for Michigan jobs, Michigan families, and Michigan workers, I couldn’t care more.”
Stevens has faced scrutiny over her staunch pro-Israel stance. Since 2022, she has received more than $785,000 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a hawkish pro-Israel group that has supported more than 100 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election. She also benefited from more than $4 million in outside ad spending by the group’s affiliated PAC. She was one of just a dozen House Democrats to join Republicans in passing a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel, funded by Internal Revenue Service cuts that the Congressional Budget Office said would increase the deficit.
In April, Stevens called on Columbia University to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests and claimed she feared college campuses would “erupt” after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
“We are, throughout this country, tragically and alarmingly at a boiling point as it pertains to antisemitism on college campuses,” Stevens said from the House floor.
Critics say she has gone too far in trying to silence dissent. In March, Stevens’s office called police on a Hazel Park man who said he would protest outside her district office after a heated phone exchange. The man, Ray Hollifield, said he was stunned to get a call from a Farmington Hills detective afterward.
Regardless, Stevens remains a formidable contender in a key swing state. After flipping a Republican seat in 2018, she narrowly held on in 2020 and then cruised to re-election in her newly drawn district in 2022 and 2024.
The election is set for 2026.
