Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a Michigan Senate candidate seeking to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), has become a go-to political punching bag of the 2026 midterm cycle.
The establishment favorite is the subject of constant online trolling, much of it instigated by the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, in her quest to win the Democratic nomination and take on Trump-backed Republican Mike Rogers.
Since Stevens’ entry into the race last April, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has used a Pablo Escobar meme to highlight her lack of endorsements from Senate Democrats, created a tongue-in-cheek mixtape using campaign footage, and coined her the nickname “Poochie” after a childhood friend’s dog that Stevens once referenced, among other mocking posts.
Republicans are accentuating what they consider to be the lawmaker’s awkward nature, using content from Stevens herself, giving way to a steady stream of conservative and liberal rivals poking fun at the Senate hopeful as she dukes it out in the primary against more progressive challengers and electability concerns mount in the establishment wing.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel with anything. We’re really just pushing out things that she’s already posted herself,” said a source familiar with the NRSC’s social media strategy, who was given anonymity to speak candidly. “Honestly, it’s like the most bipartisan Twitter trend of the cycle so far.”
“It writes itself,” another GOP operative said. “She makes it pretty easy for us.”
But while Stevens may be the butt of the jokes, recent polling shows she would present the greatest threat to Rogers’s ability to flip the battleground seat that Republicans are eyeing to expand their 53-47 majority.
Stevens is in a hotly contested three-way primary against state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, both of whom are running to her left. But critics on both sides of Stevens have used her as a political punching bag by promoting posts by the NRSC and others.
“This seems to be the one issue that is creating bipartisanship here in our state,” said Jamie Roe, a Michigan-based Republican political consultant who’s advised Rogers.
The Stevens campaign characterized the social media tactics as an attempt by Republicans to distract from Rogers, who is making a second attempt at a Michigan Senate seat after losing in 2024 to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI).
“The NRSC knows what poll after poll has shown: Haley is the strongest Democrat to take on Mike Rogers and beat him,” Stevens campaign spokesman Arik Wolk said. “They apparently can’t come up with anything good to say about Mike Rogers, so they’ve resorted to whatever this is.”
In a statement, NRSC spokeswoman Sarah Gallagher said that Stevens’ “horse girl energy is on full display, and Democrats are cringing as they flock to Abdul El-Sayed.”
Both Stevens and members of her team have taken notice of the online trolling, in some instances offering direct rebuttals.
Last month, Stevens responded to the tongue-in-cheek mixtape with an Emerson College poll showing her besting Rogers by 6 points in a general election. The same survey showed her trailing McMorrow in the primary.
Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic campaign veteran whom Stevens tapped to help with communications, is the candidate’s most vocal online defender. She urged the anonymous co-founder of political media organization VoteHub, who’s known online simply as “umichvoter,” to “get a hobby or some friends” after they referred to Stevens as “a walking meme.”
“You can do all the online bullying you want,” Legacki said in a recent response to Chris Gustafson, the communications director for the Senate GOP’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund. “We’ll focus on talking to actual voters and winning.”
The political left has also taken notice.
Mason Pressler, a public school board member and Young Democrats of Michigan committeeman, shared a clip posted by Stevens from a recent United Auto Workers candidate forum that included El-Sayed and McMorrow, saying: “Believe it or not, she actually sounds like this and posted this video herself.”
BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF DEMOCRATS SEEN THROUGH PRISM OF BITTER SENATE PRIMARIES
In recent posts shared to Facebook and Instagram, El-Sayed and McMorrow got in on the trend to mock Stevens for not attending this month’s Michigan Black Summit.
“Missed you at the Michigan Black Summit,” El-Sayed captioned a selfie with him and McMorrow that Stevens was tagged in, accompanied by an emoji of two hands forming a heart.
