Israel Comes to Michigan Senate Candidate “In Her Dreams”
By: Sam Massey
In a resurfaced clip of Michigan Senate candidate Haley Stevens, she is seen declaring “I will continue to fight for Israel’s existence. Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel’s future. And I know that Israel will continue to exist for the Jewish people” has been circulating widely online, and the reaction has been about what you would expect. While it does not inherently matter, Stevens is not Jewish. She is a congressional representative from Michigan running for a Senate seat in a state with one of the largest Arab American constituencies in the country. This community has made foreign policy toward Gaza a central voting issue across multiple election cycles now. The clip is not from a private fundraiser or a closed-door AIPAC event. She said this out loud, on the record, apparently without a second thought about how it would land in Dearborn.
The statement did not emerge from nowhere. Stevens has taken millions of dollars from AIPAC and aligned pro-Israel lobbying organizations over the course of her congressional career, making her one of the most heavily funded recipients of that money in the House. AIPAC’s super PAC spent $4.2 million to help her defeat Andy Levin in the 2022 primary, a race in which Levin’s support for a two-state solution was treated as disqualifying by the same network now financing Stevens’ Senate bid. She has voted consistently to arm Israel throughout the Gaza conflict, deflected every direct question about her donor relationships, and positioned herself as the reliable institutional choice in a race where that framing has become a liability rather than an asset. The clip, in that context, is not an aberration. Her stance is no different than that of a Republican like Rick Scott or Marco Rubio. It is a fairly accurate window into who she actually is and who she is actually accountable to.
Though, her stance is not likely to matter much in terms of the final outcome. Stevens is polling at 13 percent in a three-way primary where her two opponents are tied at 24 percent each, and over a third of likely voters remain undecided in a field that is clearly moving away from her. Abdul El-Sayed and Mallory McMorrow have both refused corporate PAC money, have drawn genuine grassroots energy, and have the endorsements of Sanders and Warren respectively. Stevens has Debbie Stabenow, Chuck Schumer, and a clip of herself telling an audience that Israel visits her in her dreams. The structural math of this primary was already bad before the resurfacing. It has not gotten better.
Check out Gambit Forecaster’s most recent election forecast, and Michigan’s State Watch page.