LANSING, Michigan – Vice President Kamala Harris is back in Michigan, the crucial Great Lakes battleground state.
“It’s time to make a plan to vote. Make a plan,” Harris urged supporters at a rally in Grand Rapids, the first of her three stops here on Friday. “Michigan, today I ask you… are you ready to make your voice heard?”
And he emphasized to the crowd that “we have to energize, organize, mobilize and remind our neighbors and friends that their vote is their voice.”
However, the Democratic presidential candidate didn’t have Michigan to herself on Friday, with less than three weeks until Election Day.
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Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic presidential candidate, speaks during a campaign event at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Former President Trump, the Republican standard-bearer, is also in Michigan.
Trump’s first stop was a campaign office in Hamtramck, the only Muslim-majority city in the US.
The event was attended by Hamtramck’s Democratic Mayor Amer Ghalib, the first Arab American and first Muslim to lead the city. Ghalib made headlines a month ago by endorsing Trump, even though three council members from the same city backed Harris.
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“Frankly, it’s an honor,” Trump said of the mayor’s endorsement while taking questions from reporters upon his arrival in Michigan.
Trump and Harris are courting the state’s important Arab American voters, who make up more than 2% of Michigan’s population, the highest percentage of any state in the nation.
Former President Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, speaks as Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib listens at a campaign office on Friday in Hamtramck, Michigan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Trump’s campaign this year has seen an opening among Arab Americans over their anger over the current administration’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
“I don’t think they’re going to vote for her. [Harris]”Trump argued.
Pointing to the latest polls in the state, he said, “I’ve heard we’re ahead in Michigan.”
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Many of the latest public opinion polls in the swing state indicate that Trump has a slight lead over Harris in a race with a margin of error.
Matt Grossman, a political science professor at Michigan State University, highlighted the state’s “unique dynamic” and noted Harris’ perceived “weakness” among Arab American voters, as well as with the state’s sizable Black electorate.
Former President Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, speaks while visiting a campaign office Friday in Hamtramck, Michigan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Michigan is one of seven crucial swing states whose narrow margins decided President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump. And the seven states are likely to determine whether Harris or Trump wins the November election to succeed Biden in the White House.
Michigan, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are the three Rust Belt states that make up the Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall.”
The party reliably won all three states for a quarter-century before Trump narrowly captured them in the 2016 election to win the White House.
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Four years later, in 2020, Biden won all three states by very narrow margins to put them back in the Democratic column and defeated Trump.
Harris, who in July replaced Biden atop the 2024 Democratic ticket, and Trump and his running mates have made numerous stops in Blue Wall states this summer and fall.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democratic presidential candidate, speaks at a UAW union hall in Lansing, Michigan, on Friday. (Fox News/Paul Steinhauser)
On Friday night, both Harris and Trump were scheduled to campaign in and around Detroit.
The vice president was holding a rally in suburban Oakland County, while the former president was also in the county for a roundtable in Auburn Hills before leading a rally in downtown Detroit.
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Since Michigan is a must-win state for Harris, she will spend the night and hold a get-out-the-vote event Saturday in Detroit with Lizzo, a popular singer and rapper who was born in the Motor City.
Lizzo revealed this week that she had voted early for Harris.
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