DETROIT (AP) — Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will campaign Sunday in Detroit alongside former primary rival Rep. Haley Stevens, marking their first public appearance together in months after a week in which lingering divisions spilled into public view.

The two will be joined by South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, one of the country’s most prominent Black politicians, at a get-out-the-vote event at a Detroit church, according to two people familiar with the plans who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. The event was first reported by The Associated Press.

The joint appearance — their first since a Democratic unity breakfast days after the Aug. 4 primary — follows weeks of Democrats struggling to unite behind El-Sayed following his razor-thin victory over Stevens. She received significant support from the Jewish and Black communities, leading to concerns about turnout in the general election.

Tensions again spilled into public view Wednesday when Stevens’ fiancé, Jason Turkish, told The Detroit News that he would vote for Republican Mike Rogers.

Hours later, Stevens appeared on CNN to reaffirm that she would be voting for El-Sayed, but urged his campaign to “shut out the hate and call it out.” She said El-Sayed needs to reach out to people who were part of her coalition and “make them feel comfortable about coming to the polls.”

Asked Thursday evening about the upcoming event with Stevens, El-Sayed said “we’re always trying to unify the party” and it hadn’t happened sooner because of their busy schedules. El-Sayed then criticized the reporter for the question, saying “nobody cares” about internal party dynamics when the cost of living is so high.

While significant, the joint appearance comes just days before the election

El-Sayed and Stevens last appeared together on Aug. 6, two days after the primary. Stevens pledged to support El-Sayed, telling CBS News she would do “whatever he wants me to do” on the campaign trail.

But divisions from the contentious primary have persisted. Nearly $60 million was spent on advertising attacking El-Sayed, including $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Stevens is a staunch supporter of Israel who represents a district with a large Jewish community in Detroit’s suburbs.

The church visit on Sunday is intended to further that elusive unity, although its impact is uncertain, given that it comes just two days before the election. Michigan early voting started Oct. 24.

“We’ve got a Black and Jewish coalition that came out and voted for me in droves. And I want them to come out and vote for Democrats,” Stevens said to CNN on Wednesday.

El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel, past remarks and his association with controversial streamer Hasan Piker have long drawn concern from some in Michigan’s large Jewish community. Turkish and others have said El-Sayed hasn’t done enough to address concerns ahead of the general election.

The latest controversy centered on an ad by Rebellion PAC, an independent left-wing group, that linked U.S. support for Israel to high grocery prices.

“That has nothing to do with our campaign,” El-Sayed said of the ad. “It’s certainly not what I want to be talking about right now.”

Stevens and other Democrats urged him to go further to denounce the content of the advertisement rather than merely distancing himself from it.

Trump’s rhetoric and actions create challenges for Republicans.

Republicans face political challenges of their own, particularly voter dissatisfaction with Trump, the Iran war and high costs. Rogers has remained closely aligned with the president on most issues, appearing alongside him at a Michigan rally Sunday where he credited Trump with bringing manufacturing jobs back to the state.

The rally took place in Port Huron, just across the river from Canada, a country with deep economic ties to Michigan that Trump has targeted with tariffs.

El-Sayed has held campaign events in heavily Republican areas, including Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. His team also released an ad featuring clips of prominent conservative figures praising him, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has faced accusations of antisemitism that he denies.

But the ad created another source of friction with some Jewish voters.

Rabbi Aaron Starr of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield criticized both the Rebellion PAC ad and El-Sayed’s campaign ad during a call with reporters.

“We are one week away from the election, and it feels like the temperature has turned way up,” Starr said. “Instead of things getting better over the last seven weeks, they’ve actually gotten worse.”

Rogers, meanwhile, appeared Wednesday with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at an event hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition in Birmingham, Michigan. Cruz called antisemitism “a poison that is ripping the country apart” and accused Democrats of being taken over by “self-proclaimed communists and Islamists.”

Trump has repeatedly attacked El-Sayed’s Muslim faith, calling him a “jihadist” and saying Sunday that he was “on the side of terrorists.”

Both campaigns make a final push for Black voters

Both candidates are trying to win over Black voters, particularly in Detroit’s Wayne County, where Stevens defeated El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.

El-Sayed’s event with Stevens and Clyburn is part of an effort to shore up support among Black voters. Much of El-Sayed’s final campaign stretch has included appearances in Detroit.

Rogers has also sought to make inroads with Black voters. He visited a reading remediation program at a Detroit high school and discussed housing costs with residents in Pontiac, north of the city. Earlier this month, his wife handed out $10 gift cards at a gas station.

The gesture drew criticism from Ruby Farmer, a 68-year-old Detroit retiree.

“You’re giving out gas cards in the inner city; you never would come for any other reason,” Farmer said.

While Farmer has a bit of difficulty pronouncing El-Sayed’s name, she cast her ballot for him three weeks ago anyways. El-Sayed has come out in opposition to policies by Trump — policies Farmer says directly impact her family.

“I have a special-needs son,” said Farmer. “He depends on Medicaid. Medicaid has been cut, and for home care workers in Michigan, all the benefits are on hold.”

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Federal prosecutors in California have issued grand jury subpoenas to state and local election officials Thursday, according to a person with knowledge of the effort and a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office, which administers elections in the county. The person was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive investigative steps.

MS NOW has obtained three subpoenas issued last week to employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office. Each subpoena demands the recipient testify on Nov. 4, the morning after Election Day, and produce documents, including any records or communications reflecting the county’s efforts to screen for noncitizen voters or prevent the counting of any noncitizens’ votes.

The move expands the Department of Justice’s controversial probe into suspected noncitizens who are registered to vote in California. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice sued California to demand officials there set aside mail ballots cast by any of the roughly 20,000 registered voters it identified as “likely noncitizens,” according to a database compiled by the Department of Homeland Security.

A district court denied the Justice Department’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have forced California to segregate any mail ballots cast by alleged noncitizens and refrain from counting or tabulating them unless and until California could verify their citizenship. The DOJ has already appealed that order, and Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, has said that he expects the case will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta described the DOJ’s grand jury subpoenas as an attack.

“The Trump Administration’s escalating attacks on our hardworking elections officials in California are unacceptable,” Bonta said in a statement shared on X. “As Judge Carter said in his opinion yesterday,‘these threats must stop.’”

California and L.A. County officials have criticized the DOJ for claiming, without evidence, that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote, especially after the county said it reviewed a sample of registered voters on DHS’s list and found information indicating that many were born in the U.S.

The subpoenas, which were first reported by Bloomberg, are signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Michael Wheat, a veteran federal prosecutor who first joined the Justice Department in the 1980s. Wheat has brought criminal charges in recent weeks against alleged noncitizens for election-related crimes.

Wheat has also been tied to the investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar, who, according to a search warrant issued earlier this month, is being scrutinized for potential immigration fraud.

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President Donald Trump has canceled two rallies in the final days of the critical 2026 midterm elections, and instead, is now spending the weekend holding a flurry of tele-rallies – shorter virtual events – as polls show Republicans facing growing political headwinds.

The president was originally set to campaign in Salina, Kansas, on Saturday and Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday, but the Republican National Committee, which has been organizing his final campaign blitz, suddenly announced on Thursday that those rallies will no longer take place.

Over the last several weeks, the president has traveled across the country with near-daily rallies, often campaigning in Republican strongholds in an effort to turn out his base. Some Republican candidates, however appear to have distanced themselves from the president in the midst of his all-time high disapproval rating, as well as voter concerns over rising costs and the ongoing war in Iran. His rallies have occassionally been interrupted by protestors whom the president has claimed are being paid.

A Republican operative familiar with the cancellations told MS NOW that the last-minute change of schedule for the president is due to a “high demand” for him in numerous tight races in the final stretch of the election, claiming tele-rallies allow him to reach a wider pool of voters in more districts.

“Voters across the country want to hear from President Trump before Election Day, and this 72-hour sprint will be a huge boost in the closing days,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters wrote in a statement announcing the cancellation.

A White House official echoed that sentiment, emphasizing the tele-rallies still allow Trump to reach Americans ahead of Election Day.

“President Trump will continue connecting directly with Americans nationwide through more than 20 tele-rallies before Election Day,” the official said. “These events give him the opportunity to highlight his accomplishments and expand his reach across the country.”

Trump is now expected to spend the weekend leading up to the election participating in tele-rallies for at least 19 states, including Kansas and Iowa, according to Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. States not on the list as of now include Maine and New Hampshire, where even allies of Trump have acknowledged that voters less enthusiastic about the president could decide the results of competitive Senate races.

While returning from Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Thursday evening after speaking at a rally to boost Sen. Darline Graham, Trump lashed out at a reporter who asked whether he canceled Saturday’s rally in Kansas because he was “sick of traveling.”

“You’re sick to ask that question. You are sick,” the president replied, berating the reporter.

“I’m not doing Kansas because he’s doing very well,” Trump said, referring to GOP incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall, and later added, “I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas.” According to the latest polling average from MS NOW/Fifty Plus One, Democrat Adam Hamilton holds a two point edge over Marshall.

Since kicking off his final midterm campaign blitz in Durant, Oklahoma, 29 days ago, the president has campaigned at 25 rallies, including his latest rally in South Carolina on Thursday. He often returns to the White House after his back-to-back rallies late at night or in the early morning hours.

MS NOW was previously told by a senior White House official that the president would be holding a final campaign rally in Michigan on Monday, but now the same senior official says those plans have not been finalized.

As of now, the only remaining rally that’s been officially announced is one in Trump’s home state of Florida, in Daytona Beach, on Friday. It’s unclear whether additional rallies will be added before the election.

On Election Day, the president is expected to remain at the White House, the senior White House official said.

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The Justice Department confirmed in a court filing late Wednesday that FBI and ICE agents will not be deployed as election monitors at polling places on Election Day, but that employees from other federal law enforcement agencies will serve as monitors.

“There will be no Federal Bureau of Investigation or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, much less agents, serving as monitors,” the Justice Department said in a declaration filed with the court. It added that one Customs and Border Protection employee will serve as a monitor on behalf of the Civil Rights Division “pursuant to detail and not as a representative” of the Department of Homeland Security.

The court filing came in response to a lawsuit against the Trump administration filed, in part by the NAACP, to block the Justice Department from deploying federal agents to polling places during the midterm elections.

The Justice Department also said that employees from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Prisons “will serve as monitors.” The declaration was filed by Eric Neff, acting chief of the DOJ’s Voting Section, who has previously promoted false claims about the 2020 election.

“It’s not normal for those types of federal officials to serve as monitors,” Justin Levitt, a former DOJ attorney who helped oversee the election monitor program during the Obama administration, told MS NOW. “But they’re still just there only to observe, and can (and will) still be tossed out of the polls if they disrupt or disturb or intimidate.”

The Justice Department’s decision to pull employees from those agencies to act as monitors comes after the department announced in August it would deploy 1,000 federal monitors for the 2026 midterms. The announcement drew concern from Democratic lawmakers in Congress, and voting rights advocates over the scope of the operation and its potential for voter intimidation.

State election officials have told MS NOW that the federal election monitors are not their top concern when it comes to federal interference from the Trump administration. Monitors can be removed from polling sites if they are disruptive, and states determine the level of access federal poll monitors have to observe voting.

Levitt said the Justice Department is likely struggling to get to the 1,000 election monitors promised by Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Civil Rights Division, and is tapping ATF and DEA employees “as an attempt to get warm bodies.”

“Someone promised the boss 1,000 people, and then couldn’t come up with 1,000 people,” he said.

DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels previously told MS NOW that no other federal officials or federal law enforcement agents would accompany the DOJ monitors in their deployment at polling places. The election monitors will be DOJ attorneys and criminal prosecutors, the Justice Department told MS NOW.

Dispatching prosecutors as monitors is unusual, as typically only civil attorneys serve in that role.

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