Stevens didn’t switch parties, but she joined world of disaffected Democrats Trump saw on horizon

On Sunday, a sitting Democratic congresswoman in Michigan stood in a Detroit church and threw her support behind the Republican candidate running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. And in doing so, she put a new face on a realignment that has been building for a decade: In the Trump era, the party switch, for a considerable number of Democrats, appears more an act of political self-preservation than a betrayal.The congresswoman, Haley Stevens, endorsed Republican Mike Rogers over Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive who in August beat her in the state Democratic Party’s primary, after a feud over Israel, antisemitism and El-Sayed’s campaign appearances with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker.
Stevens insists she remains “a very proud Democrat,” but her break reflects a frustration many moderates now voice openly: a party once anchored by union halls and suburban pragmatists increasingly takes its cues from democratic socialists and activist influencers. 
President Donald Trump, who backs Rogers, called her decision an act of “bravery,” and her endorsement puts her on a notable list of Democrats who appear to have concluded that their party left them before they said no to it.
How the crossover began
The recent migration didn’t start, or continue, with Stevens. But Democrats who abandoned at least their party’s journey can arguably be traced back to Trump’s first winning campaign, in 2016, when he began courting voters Republicans had long written off: disaffected union workers in the Rust Belt, Hispanic families in South Texas, Black men in Milwaukee and Atlanta, and Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and Florida.
By 2024, the results were measurable. Pew Research Center’s study of validated voters found Trump’s Hispanic support jumped from 36% in 2020 to 48% in 2024, while his share of Black voters nearly doubled, from 8% to 15%, and his share of Asian-American voters rose from 30% to 40%. 
AP VoteCast found that about 3 in 10 Black men under age 45 backed Trump, roughly double his 2020 showing. Among Jewish voters, the AP/Fox News Voter Analysis put Trump at 32%, the highest for a Republican nominee since 1988, according to the Republican Jewish Coalition.
The biggest and most recent transition prior to the Trump era was arguably when so-called “Reagan Democrats, disaffected by their party’s agenda and more conservative than liberals on such issues as national security and immigration, voted for GOP presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Trump’s welcome extended to the top of the administration. Scott Bessent became the highest-ranking openly gay official in American history when he was confirmed as Treasury secretary, following Richard Grenell’s turn as acting director of National Intelligence in Trump’s first term. 
Gay voters as a bloc have not followed; exit polls showed Trump winning just 12% of LGBT voters in 2024. But the message of the MAGA coalition was unmistakable: the Republican tent was open to anyone who agreed on the economy, the border and public safety.
The policies driving moderates away
For defectors, the breaking point is less about Trump than about where their own party is heading. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office vowing to govern as a democratic socialist, on pledges to make buses free, freeze rents for 2 million rent-stabilized tenants and provide universal childcare, along with a network of city-owned grocery stores. 
In Washington, Rep. Robert Garcia, of California, again declared just days before midterm Election Day on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished. In Michigan, the final straw for Stevens appeared to be an ad from a progressive outside group that linked U.S. military aid to Israel with rising grocery prices. 
Moderate Democrats such as Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman argue that such positions, once fringe, now define the party’s energy, leaving centrists to choose between staying silent and walking out.
The Democrats who crossed before her
Stevens joins a lengthening roster. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, once a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, left the party in 2022 and announced she was joining the GOP at a Trump rally in North Carolina in October 2024. She went on to serve as Trump’s director of national intelligence. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scion of Democratic royalty, endorsed Trump that same year and now runs the Department of Health and Human Services.
Fetterman has stopped short of switching political parties, but he sided with Trump and Republicans on 26% of Senate votes in 2025, the highest rate of any Senate Democrat. In September, he appeared by video at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas to introduce GOP Sen. Dave McCormick, warning against “socialism” while insisting he remains a Democrat.
The Michigan fracture extends past Stevens herself. Her fiancé, Jewish civil rights attorney Jason Turkish, and her former campaign chairman, David Kramer, each said they would vote for Rogers, and her chief of staff resigned the day she made the endorsement.
Traffic in the other direction
The crossing has not been entirely one-way. Former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger campaigned for 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who broke with Trump over the 2020 election, formally became a Democrat in 2025 and ran for governor.
Democratic voters, however, appear to have shown little appetite for the converts, considering Duncan finished a distant fourth in May’s primary with 7% of the vote. And former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, another ex-Republican, lost a Pennsylvania House primary by 20 points. 
Amanda Head is White House Correspondent for Just the News. You can follow her here.

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