‘He would wind her up’: Democratic anger at Haley Stevens’ fiancé boils over after her endorsement reversal

By Eric Bradner, Patrick Svitek, Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — Late last fall, Haley Stevens decided to get off social media.

The Michigan congresswoman told staffers working on her Democratic Senate campaign to send her important news — but she didn’t need to be distracted by mean-spirited comments about her appearance or mannerisms.

But Jason Turkish, a lawyer and donor who staffers at the time thought was an overly involved friend, didn’t get the message.

According to three people who worked on her campaign, Turkish — who became Stevens’ fiancé this spring — frequently sent Stevens comments about her that he’d found on social media. Posts mocking her looks, her speaking cadence, her positions on issues, including her support for Israel — all of it ended up in Stevens’ text messages, those people said.

“He would wind her up, and then we’d have to wind her down,” one top campaign aide said.

It was one of a number of examples of Turkish’s influence in Stevens’ run for the Senate — a race that ended with her losing the Democratic primary in August by less than a percentage point to progressive Abdul El-Sayed.

Tensions often emerge over political strategy between a candidate’s staff and family members. Those who worked on Stevens’ campaign and in her congressional office largely kept their frustrations with Turkish private.

But Stevens’ decision Sunday to drop her post-primary endorsement of El-Sayed and endorse Republican nominee Mike Rogers — after appearing at a Detroit church with Rogers and Turkish — uncorked simmering Democratic anger at her fiancé, who told reporters he was voting for Rogers days before Stevens did so.

“Jason is vaporizing Haley’s future so that he can be a main character in this moment and it is sad to watch her participate in that,” said Caitlin Legacki, a former Stevens adviser, in a post on X.

Stevens insists that Turkish had nothing to do with her decision to endorse Rogers. On Monday night, she posted a lengthy statement on X that criticized what she called “sexism dressed up as political analysis.”

“My fiancé has his own views. I have mine,” she wrote. “I made this decision, and I am proud of it. Do not question my independence simply because you disagree with my conclusion.”

Turkish on Monday night told CNN that he and Stevens, over the course of two years, “spent thousands of hours together and ultimately fell in love.”

“And I observed a lot of things about the campaign, and I didn’t feel the desire to run to the press about any of them after the primary was over,” he said. “I also don’t want to get into arguments with unnamed sources because I think it devalues the work of the candidate, who I’m particularly fond of, and the vast, vast majority of her incredibly hardworking and dedicated team.”

Speaking to The Free Press after Stevens switched her endorsement, in a joint interview with Stevens at his home, Turkish said anyone suggesting he was controlling her had “obviously never met Haley.”

Still, he noted in a Michigan radio interview last week, before Stevens endorsed Rogers, that he “didn’t hide from her my feelings” about the race.

Stevens accepts that her political career may be over, telling The Free Press, “I’m exiting stage left.” For now, she has been effectively banished from the Michigan Democratic Party, her name erased from its website, and fellow lawmakers in Washington are discussing whether she should be booted from the House Democratic caucus for her final months in office.

Two politically aligned Democrats

Turkish, who is legally blind, is a disability rights lawyer who is president and managing parter at the firm Nyman Turkish, which has an office in Michigan. One of the most notable cases he worked on resulted in the logic games section being removed from the Law School Admission Test in 2024. A legally blind test-taker had argued the section disadvantaged them.

Turkish has been a prolific political donor, making over $200,000 in federal contributions this election cycle. Many of those donations have gone to Michigan Democrats, but he’s also given to Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat who is a staunch Israel ally, as well as Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, another Israel supporter.

In the radio interview, Turkish described himself as a “lifelong Democrat.”

“Democratic politics is how I met the love of my life,” Turkish said. “I’m just not on board this one time.”

Stevens and Turkish became engaged during the Senate primary — over a FaceTime call because she was busy campaigning while traveling back and forth to Washington.

“Haley said to me, ‘You know, I just want to be clear: If we’re getting together, we’re getting married,’” Turkish recalled. “And I said, ‘OK, Haley, will you marry me?’ And she said yes. So that was our very abbreviated engagement story in the midst of a really large United States Senate campaign.”

Stevens’ office announced her engagement to Turkish on August 26, about three weeks after her primary loss to El-Sayed.

An ‘Aaron Sorkin-style soliloquy’

A half-dozen sources who worked on Stevens’ Senate campaign and in her congressional office said in interviews that Turkish had poor political instincts and little understanding of how campaigns operate.

Four people involved in her Senate run said Turkish told her staff in the spring that he wanted to take over management of her online fundraising platform. That was motivated, the sources said, by Turkish receiving a fundraising solicitation, which he interpreted as evidence that the campaign was targeting the wrong people since he’d already donated to Stevens.

What Turkish didn’t understand, those sources said, was that campaigns routinely solicit contributions from those who have already given.

Campaign finance records show that by mid-2025, Turkish had already donated up to the federal limit to Stevens’ campaign and could not legally have donated more.

Another example of Turkish attempting to influence Stevens’ approach to the campaign, those same sources said, came before a debate with El-Sayed. Turkish, who is Jewish, urged Stevens to open the debate with what one source described as an “Aaron Sorkin-style soliloquy” defending Israel — a response to El-Sayed’s sharp criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent tens of millions of dollars seeking to bolster Stevens’ primary campaign.

Two sources said Turkish at times accompanied Stevens to Washington as she performed her official House duties, and while there, sometimes sat in on her fundraising calls.

All of the sources involved in her campaign and congressional office told CNN that Turkish would at times berate and belittle staff members. At one point, after Stevens told staffers that she and Turkish were engaged in the spring, the congresswoman and multiple staffers told Turkish that he needed to limit his direct communications to Stevens’ campaign manager and her chief of staff.

He did not do so, those sources said.

One former staffer said he was “extremely overbearing, controlling, arrogant — a misogynistic personality.”

Another said he was an “overbearing presence” in the final stretch of the Senate campaign and has the “worst political instincts on Earth.”

In response to those comments, Turkish provided CNN with emails showing that lower-level staffers included him when planning some campaign and fundraising meetings and late in the primary race.

He also pointed to Meta spending reports that show Stevens’ campaign spent a small fraction of what the campaigns of El-Sayed and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out a month before the primary, spent on the social media giant, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

In the wake of Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers, some people who know her well have raised issues with Turkish and his influence over her.

“If this is because of her new relationship … all I can say is that any woman who abandons her friends when a new guy comes along is no friend at all,” former Rep. Susan Wild, a Pennsylvania Democrat, wrote on X.

Jordan Acker, a University of Michigan regent, also took to social media to air his concerns about Turkish, saying he has become “deeply troubled” by Turkish’s behavior around Stevens’ staff and friends.

Former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, a Democrat and friend of Stevens, told Gongwer News Service that Stevens told her she intended to stick with her endorsement of El-Sayed on Friday night at a dinner that included Turkish and Stevens’ mother, retired advertising executive Maria Marcotte.

Blanchard told the Michigan-based news outlet that at the dinner, Turkish was “working her over.”

“The way he was saying it was, ‘Everyone is disappointed in you, they did everything they could to help you and then immediately after you lose the primary, you endorsed him,’” Blanchard said.

He told the news outlet he responded by saying, “Yeah, because she’s a team player. You have to be gracious. Come on.”

Turkish, Blanchard said, responded, “I know, but they’re really disappointed in her.”

Speaking to CNN Monday night, Turkish said he had a different recollection of the dinner.

“I was invited to a dinner with the two-term former governor of the state of Michigan. I had only met him at in public gatherings previously. I was honored to celebrate our engagement with him. I didn’t realize he was using the dinner to obtain information for a media story,” he said.

Turkish has offered backhanded praise for El-Sayed, a fellow 2007 graduate of the University of Michigan.

“He’s brilliant, he’s eloquent and he’s really good at explaining away a lot of things,” Turkish said. “He is also eloquent enough and linguistically talented enough to simply and unequivocally condemn really hateful things that have come into the discussion in this campaign.”

After announcing his support for Rogers last week, Turkish attended a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Michigan that featured Rogers and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Cruz spoke one-on-one with Turkish at the event and found him to be a “very impressive guy,” the senator later recalled on his podcast.

“He remains a passionate Democrat,” Cruz said. But, Cruz added, Turkish “doesn’t want to see his party corrupted and turn into an Islamist, Jew-hating party.”

Turkish has not been far from Stevens’ side in recent appearances. He joined her in the pew Sunday at a Detroit church where she first appeared with Rogers. And he was standing just offscreen last month when Stevens stopped by TMZ’s headquarters in Los Angeles.

“His name is Jason, ” Stevens said as the camera panned to Turkish, “and he loves me to pieces.”

This story has been updated after publication to add new comments from Jason Turkish.

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