Stevens Endorses Rogers in Michigan; Jet Crashes Near Palm Beach

Sam Two days before the midterms, a story out of one Senate race has people talking, and it involves a politician breaking with her own party in a very public way. I want to understand what happened and why it landed so hard. Maya, what actually took place on Sunday?

Maya On Sunday, November 1, Representative Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat, endorsed the Republican nominee, former Representative Mike Rogers, for the Senate. She had lost her party's primary in August to Abdul El-Sayed. She appeared with Rogers that morning at Perfecting Church in Detroit, then posted a video saying El-Sayed had told her she was no longer welcome in his campaign. In it she said, "And he's right, and that's why I am endorsing Mike Rogers."

Sam That's a striking thing to do against the person who beat you, and with only days left. I'm guessing the bad blood didn't start that morning. What led up to it? Was there some specific fight that pushed her over the line?

Maya The feud was already public. Axios reported it escalated after Stevens's fiancé, Jason Turkish, said he would vote for Rogers. Stevens demanded that El-Sayed condemn an outside group's ad linking U.S. support for Israel to higher grocery prices, which she called antisemitic, and that he drop material featuring Tucker Carlson. On Friday night, after El-Sayed's campaign said she wouldn't be welcome at his events, Rogers called her. On Saturday El-Sayed rejected the ad's contents. Sunday morning she called Rogers back.

Sam So she'd been shut out on Friday, and then the endorsement came Sunday. That's a quick turn. Her being a Democrat who then backs a Republican seems like a contradiction to me. Did she say anything about where she still stands with her party?

Maya She told reporters she was still a Democrat, and she told Rogers the same, adding that she still expected her party to win a Senate majority. She also said she doesn't stand with the left-wing streamer Hasan Piker. And she had been scheduled that day to appear with El-Sayed and Representative Jim Clyburn at a different Detroit church. Representative Debbie Dingell, who helped organize it, told CNN she had asked Stevens not to come because the dispute had become a distraction.

Sam I'm trying to see why one House member's choice matters so much. It sounds like a lot rides on this particular seat. What's the bigger picture for the Senate?

Maya Republicans hold 53 seats and Democrats hold 47, counting independents who caucus with them. Vice President JD Vance breaks a 50–50 tie, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats to reach 51. Michigan is an open seat because Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat, is retiring. Trump carried the state by 1.4 points in 2024. The polls favor El-Sayed. The RealClearPolitics average has him at 50.1 percent to Rogers's 44.8, though it still rates the race a toss-up.

Sam A five-point lead sounds comfortable, but a toss-up label sounds like the opposite. Are the individual polls all saying the same thing, or is there a spread I should know about?

Maya There's a spread. The New York Times/Siena survey of 1,011 likely voters had El-Sayed at 53 to Rogers's 42, with a margin of error of 3.6 points. YouGov had him up 51–47, and Detroit News/Glengariff had him up 51–45. InsiderAdvantage had it at 47–46. And Nate Silver's model gave him about an 81 percent chance as of October 29.

Sam Then the August primary must have been bruising, which could explain the anger. Was it a blowout for El-Sayed, or did Stevens come close?

Maya It was close. The Associated Press called it on August 5 with El-Sayed ahead by 14,893 votes, just under one percentage point, out of more than 1.5 million ballots. Polls had shown him with a much larger lead, so the result was tighter than those surveys. Stevens conceded that morning and endorsed him. The Detroit News reported that outside spending on the primary hit a record $60 million, mostly benefiting Stevens.

Sam Trump had a reaction to the endorsement on Sunday, and I'm curious how he squared it with how he'd talked about her before. Did he say anything about Stevens, given that she'd just crossed the aisle in a way that helps a Republican?

Maya He praised her. Back in August, during the primary count, he had called her a "Radical Left Socialist." On Sunday, Axios reported a Truth Social post calling the endorsement "BIG" and praising her "bravery," and claiming she has a large following among Michigan's Black and Jewish voters. Later at a rally in Iowa, he said he would love her to join the Republican Party and thought that could happen.

Sam That's quite a swing in about three months, from one label to an invitation. I'd guess Stevens had some reply to the invitation, or at least to the idea that she's now on his side of things.

Maya Her comment to Politico was about El-Sayed, not Trump. She said he had run a magnificent campaign, that the race was close, and that he very well could win. Then she said she was voting for the other guy.

Sam Whether he wins or not, the argument seems to sit on top of something bigger. Is the national mood helping either side, or is Michigan just a local brawl?

Maya The national numbers are unusually bad for a president's party this close to a midterm, and they come from more than one pollster. A New York Times/Siena poll of likely voters, taken October 12 to 19 among about 3,494 people, had Trump at 36 percent approve and 59 percent disapprove, the lowest that survey had recorded for him. Likely voters preferred Democratic House candidates by 11 points.

Sam Thirty-six percent sounds dismal, but approval is a vague thing. I'd want to know what people are actually unhappy about, because that decides whether Michigan's drama even registers with them.

Maya The same poll asked about specific issues. Sixty-nine percent disapproved of his handling of the cost of living, and 65 percent disapproved of his handling of the war in Iran. Nearly three-quarters disapproved on gas prices, which the Times described as above $4 a gallon.

Sam Those leads are clear, but a number floating alone doesn't tell me much. I need something from past elections to know whether 9 to 11 points is the kind of gap that turns into actual seats.

Maya Two comparisons. In 2018, Democrats won the House popular vote by roughly 9 points and gained about 40 seats. In 2022, the Republican edge was about 3 points, and it produced only a narrow House majority. On approval, George W. Bush's net approval before the 2006 midterms was about minus 19, and Democrats then took both chambers. The Times has described Trump's pre-midterm approval as lower than any president's since Harry Truman in 1946.

Sam Then if the national picture looks like that, the Senate polls ought to be leaning one way across the board, and I'd expect the closer races to be the ones that decide it.

Maya Times/Siena state polls around November 1, as summarized by The Hill, had Democrats ahead in seven competitive Senate races. Michigan by 11, Texas by 7 with James Talarico over Ken Paxton, Maine by 6, Kansas and Ohio by 5, Alaska by 2, and Iowa by 1. The Hill said only Michigan and Texas were outside the full margin of error.

Sam Alaska at two points ahead still sounds like a lead to me. I'm not sure why anyone would call it a tie when one side is in front, even if only slightly.

Maya Because the sample there was 610 likely voters, with a margin of error of 4.8 points. That range is wide enough to swallow a 2-point lead, so the true figure could sit on either side. Earlier in October, Times/Siena polls had also shown Democrats competitive in states Trump won by double digits in 2024. Whether that map holds on Tuesday is unknown, and models that turn these polls into seat probabilities disagree with one another.

Sam Switching to the other story from today, the jet that came down in Greenacres, Florida. I keep seeing a place name in headlines that sounds like it belongs to something else entirely. Where exactly did the plane hit, and why do some of those headlines point toward a famous address?

Maya The jet hit on November 1 near the intersection of Military Trail and 10th Avenue North, in the Greenacres and Cresthaven area, between Greenacres and Palm Springs. That is a few miles south of the West Palm Beach airport recently renamed for Trump, and a few miles from Mar-a-Lago, which is why some headlines mentioned the resort. Nothing reported by Reuters, CNN or local officials connects the flight or the crash to Trump or to Mar-a-Lago.

Sam So the resort is only a geography detail. Then I'd like to know what the ground looked like. A jet falling into a neighborhood sounds like it should mean homes destroyed, and I haven't heard that.

Maya The jet hit beside the road, nearly missing homes, and left a crater at the entrance to a mobile home park. Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores told CNN that about 600 people needed shelter because the damage was blocking that entrance. Residents were being sent to two county shelters. The Palm Beach Post also reported about 600 residents evacuated, and Military Trail was closed in both directions.

Sam Six hundred people sounds like a whole city emptied out, and that's the picture I had in my head. I'm guessing it was a big share of the town, maybe a sizable fraction of Greenacres?

Maya Not by the numbers. The Boston Globe reported Greenacres has about 45,000 people, so 600 is a little over 1 percent of the city. County Administrator Joe Abruzzo said the county would ask the governor for an emergency declaration.

Sam Now the part I find hardest to picture is the last minute in the air. If the crew had time to talk to controllers, they must have described what was going wrong, and I'd like to hear what was said on the radio.

Maya Flightradar24, using LiveATC audio, said the crew reported icing, moderate turbulence and precipitation near Naples, asked for a better ride and requested a climb to 37,000 feet. CNN said the pilot then radioed, "Mayday, mayday. We're descending 10,000 feet per minute," and later reported an overspeed, meaning above maximum safe speed, and said, "We're going to crash into the ground." These come from news and tracking firms, not an NTSB transcript.

Sam Ten thousand, then twenty thousand, then a tracker saying more than thirty-two thousand. Those can't all be right, so one of those sources has to be off, and that's what I'd assume.

Maya They can all be right, at different seconds of one dive. A routine descent is roughly 1,500 to 2,500 feet per minute, and an emergency descent is often around 6,000. ADS-B Exchange, per CNN, showed 27,000 feet lost in one minute, and Flightradar24's last altitude was 8,750 feet.

Sam Icing was reported, so I'd assume that's the cause, and the pilot even said ice. It seems like the answer is sitting right there in the radio call, doesn't it?

Maya The cause is unknown. The radio call shows the crew reported ice and turbulence, and within about a minute they were in an overspeed dive. It does not show that ice caused it. A near-vertical dive produces overspeed whatever the trigger. The NTSB leads the investigation, with the FAA supporting, and a media briefing was set for Monday in West Palm Beach.

Sam For this whole episode I'd like one takeaway from each story, since they have nothing to do with each other. What should I keep from the Michigan endorsement, and then what from the crash?

Maya On Michigan, keep this: Stevens endorsed Rogers on November 1 while saying she is still a Democrat, and the polls favor El-Sayed even though the race is rated a toss-up. On the crash, all nine aboard died, the cause has not been stated, and the NTSB investigation typically takes months for a preliminary report.

Sam That's the show for today. A quick note: this program is AI-generated, the voices are synthetic, and the facts come from the reporting named in the closing note, whose authors are not affiliated with us. The next episode arrives tomorrow. Thanks for listening, and Maya, any parting words?

Maya Thank you for spending the time with us, and we hope you come back tomorrow, when we will be back with the next two stories that people are talking about around the world.

Sam Everything today came from reporting by Axios, Politico, CNN, Reuters, the Boston Globe, the Palm Beach Post, Flightradar24, Aviation International News, CBS12, and the Detroit News.