Michael LaRosa, who served as First Lady Jill Biden's press secretary, has publicly backed Republican Mike Rogers over Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, the second prominent Democratic operative in days to cross party lines in the race.
LaRosa posted his endorsement on X on Friday morning, sharing a quote from Julian Epstein, the former chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee, who had published his own endorsement of Rogers in a New York Post op-ed the day before. The back-to-back defections landed within 48 hours of Michigan Democrats nominating Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, a former state health official aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, as their Senate candidate.
The message LaRosa shared on X belonged to Epstein and left little room for ambiguity:
"After decades of giving my all for Democratic House and Senate candidates, this fall I will support, and contribute to, Mike Rogers, Michigan's GOP Senate nominee, instead. And I'll do everything I can to make sure other Democrats follow."
That two career Democrats, one from the Biden White House, the other a veteran of House Democratic leadership, would publicly endorse a Republican Senate candidate is unusual enough. That they did so within a day of each other, and both pointed to the same nominee as the reason, tells a sharper story about where Michigan Democrats have landed ideologically.
Epstein's op-ed, headlined "I'm a longtime Democrat, fighting for GOP's Mike Rogers, and my party's soul, in Michigan," framed El-Sayed's nomination as a point of no return. He reached back more than six decades for his metaphor, quoting President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address:
"In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside."
Epstein called it a warning to those who tolerate the rise of authoritarian movements, and said the warning now applied to his own party.
"Michigan Democrats, in nominating Abdul El-Sayed for Senate on Tuesday, seem to be riding the back of that tiger. But not me. I'm climbing off the beast."
He did not stop at the nominee. Epstein turned on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, calling him "timid" and "weak." Schumer's response to the nomination, saying "we are a big-tent party", amounted to "abdicating" his "moral and political responsibilities," Epstein wrote.
That kind of language from a former chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee carries weight. Epstein spent decades working for Democratic members of Congress. His decision to endorse a Republican and publicly rebuke the Senate majority leader is not a casual act of dissent. It is a calculated break.
The defections center on El-Sayed's policy positions and political associations. As first reported by Politics & Poll Tracker, El-Sayed has called for the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, labeled Israel's actions in Gaza genocide, and called for defunding the police in the wake of the George Floyd incident in 2020.
He has also campaigned with Hasan Piker, the online influencer whom the S1 article describes as someone who spouts DSA rhetoric along with anti-American and antisemitic views. The association with Piker is not incidental, it reflects a deliberate alignment with the activist left that has alarmed figures well beyond the Republican Party.
The controversy around Piker's influence in Democratic politics has already drawn fire from within the party's own ranks. Sen. John Fetterman has confronted fellow Democrats over the streamer's growing role, and the tension has only escalated since.
El-Sayed has said he is not a card-carrying member of the DSA. But his critics point to his policy positions as functionally indistinguishable from the organization's platform, which calls for the elimination of policing, prisons, borders, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court, and democratic free markets.
Whether El-Sayed carries a DSA membership card matters less than whether his agenda matches theirs. On abolishing ICE, defunding police, and embracing figures like Piker, the overlap is difficult to deny.
Rogers, the former Republican congressman, now finds himself in the unusual position of collecting endorsements from Democratic operatives who spent their careers working against candidates like him. The Michigan Senate race has become a test case for whether the Democratic Party's leftward drift will cost it support from its own professional class.
The pattern is not limited to Michigan. Across the country, veteran Democrats have broken with their party on issues ranging from Senate procedure to basic questions of law enforcement and border security. Fetterman reversed course on the filibuster, admitting Democrats were wrong to push for its elimination, a position that put him at odds with the progressive wing that once championed him.
Epstein's op-ed explicitly called on other Democrats to follow his lead. That is not a man hedging. He is trying to start a movement within his own party, or, failing that, to build a coalition outside it.
The question for Schumer and the national Democratic apparatus is whether these defections remain isolated or become a trend. Epstein's characterization of Schumer as someone who abdicated responsibility by retreating behind "big-tent" rhetoric suggests the Senate leader's approach, ignore the ideological extremes, hold the coalition together with platitudes, is losing credibility with the party's own veterans.
Veteran strategist James Carville has threatened to quit the party if figures like Piker continue to gain influence in Democratic politics. When operatives who built their careers electing Democrats start endorsing Republicans, the problem is no longer a messaging failure. It is a structural one.
Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has refused to rule out a 2028 presidential bid, pitching herself as working class rather than far left, a rebranding effort that suggests even progressive leaders sense the electoral danger of the DSA label. The fact that Ocasio-Cortez feels the need to distance herself from the "far left" tag while El-Sayed embraces the politics behind it tells you where the fault line runs.
For Rogers, every Democratic defection is a campaign gift. LaRosa and Epstein are not anonymous donors or low-level precinct captains. One served in the Biden White House. The other advised House Democrats at the highest level of legal counsel. Their endorsements carry institutional credibility that no Republican surrogate could replicate.
El-Sayed won his primary. He earned the Democratic nomination fair and square. But winning a primary and winning a general election in a competitive state are different challenges, and the early signs suggest his nomination has handed Rogers a powerful argument: even Democrats don't trust this candidate.
The Wall Street Journal has profiled El-Sayed's background as the race draws national attention. Michigan, a state that swings between parties and decides presidential elections, is not a safe harbor for a nominee whose positions track with an organization that wants to abolish the Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court.
Epstein borrowed Kennedy's tiger metaphor for a reason. The Democratic Party nominated a candidate whose positions place him well outside the mainstream, and now its own veterans are warning that the party will be consumed by the choice.
When your own team starts recruiting for the other side, the problem isn't the recruiters. It's the product.
