Democrat endorses Republican candidate in key Michigan Senate race as party spat erupts

In downtown Detroit, several Democrats the BBC spoke to said they were disappointed by Stevens' endorsement of Rogers.

"I just genuinely don't understand it," she said. "I do think it's a betrayal of the party because the things she stands for are not the same things that he stands for as a Republican."

"Maybe she had frustrations with the party," Matthew Barera, another Michigan voter, said.

Others, including Republicans who support Rogers, said they doubted it would make a difference to the race.

"People can see right through her actions, you know? She's just angry," Marissa Lee, a Rogers supporter, told the BBC. "She is not going to make anybody change their mind."

Over the weekend, as Stevens' criticism of El-Sayed escalated, a number of Democratic politicians in Michigan publicly encouraged her to end the feud and back the party's candidates more directly.

After a bruising and sometimes bitter campaign earlier this year, El-Sayed, a left-wing outsider, defeated Stevens, the establishment-backed congresswoman, to win the party's nomination for the US Senate race.

The primary, and the pair's subsequent feud, has underlined divisions over the party's direction ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

Former public health official El-Sayed, who is the son of Egyptian immigrants, has channelled grassroots frustration with Washington politics as well as US ties to Israel.

Stevens is a more centrist Democrat - and had the support of party figures such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer during the primary race.

The party is hoping to regain control of the Senate in Tuesday's elections, but will need a net gain of four seats to do so. A loss in Michigan - which they currently hold - would represent a major blow and leave them needing to flip five seats.