Senate hopeful Haley Stevens wrongly claims endorsement by Berrien County official

Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News on Sep 2, 2025

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U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, a candidate for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat, incorrectly claimed in a social media post Monday that she had won the endorsement of Berrien County Commissioner Chokwe Pitchford.

The post was later deleted from online by the campaign. But Pitchford said he felt the need to publicly disassociate himself from Stevens' campaign, posting a message on the website X to clarify that he'd never communicated with Stevens' team about even the possibility of an endorsement.

"I've never insinuated I would endorse her. I didn't give them a headshot, a quote, nothing," Pitchford told The Detroit News. "It is the most strange thing that has ever happened to me in politics. Because I take my endorsements very seriously. And this just came out of left field completely."

"I have not endorsed a candidate in the U.S. Senate race, and I am not endorsing Haley Stevens," he added.

"It's crazy. My jaw hit the floor. In politics, endorsements are those things ― you court them."

Stevens' campaign spokeswoman, Reeves Oyster, said simply: "There was a miscommunication."

Stevens of Birmingham is vying for the Democratic nomination for Senate to fill the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, in contention with other prominent Democrats including state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official from Ann Arbor.

Pitchford, 26, of Benton Charter Township was first elected to the Berrien County Commission in 2022 at age 24. In 2020, he ran unsuccessfully for the old state House District 79. He started a nonprofit, Berrien Forward, that a does community engagement and development work and issues candidate endorsements, he said.

Pitchford and Stevens were at the same Benton Harbor Juneteenth celebration over the summer where statewide candidates had gathered, but they never spoke one on one, he said. "I don't think she knows who I am," he said.

Pitchford said he has been in active communication with McMorrow and El-Sayed's teams, both of whom have been seeking his support. But Pitchford is "torn between the two of them," he said.

"Haley was never even a person I was considering supporting," he said, calling her acceptance of donations from corporate political action committees a "non-starter for me."

"I think Haley Stevens thinks that she is going to just get the Black vote in Michigan and get (the support of) Black elected officials from across the state without having to do any of the actual work and have any policies. That team just assumed that I was going to be backing her, and that was the wrong assumption."

Stevens's endorsements in the Senate race include former Senate candidate and state Rep. Joe Tate of Detroit, U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, R-Grand Rapids, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

"Our campaign is proud to have the endorsements of Michiganders across the state ― including from Former Speaker Joe Tate, Congresswoman Hillary Scholten, 40 clergy members from across Detroit, the Mayors of Lansing and Grand Rapids, 11 mayors across Metro Detroit, former MI Governor Jim Blanchard, and UNITE Here Local 24," Reeves said in a statement.

On the Republican side, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of White Lake Township has gotten the backing of President Donald Trump, Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who chairs the Senate Republicans' campaign arm.

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