LANSING, Mich. — Vice President Kamala Harris is back in the crucial Great Lakes battleground state of Michigan.
“It’s the 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 Friday. “Michigan, today I ask you…..are you ready to make your voices heard?”
And she emphasized to the crowd that “we’ve got to energize and organize and mobilize and remind our neighbors and our friends that their vote is their voice.”
However, the Democratic presidential nominee didn’t have Michigan to herself on Friday with under three weeks to go until Election Day.
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Mich., Friday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Former President Trump, the Republican standard-bearer, is also in Michigan.
Trump’s first stop: a campaign office in Hamtramck, the only Muslim-majority city in the U.S.
Hamtramck Democratic Mayor Amer Ghalib, the first Arab American and first Muslim to lead the city, attended the event. Ghalib made headlines a month ago by endorsing Trump, even though three city council members in the same city have endorsed Harris.
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“Frankly, it’s an honor,” Trump said if the mayor’s endorsement, as he took questions from reporters upon arrival in Michigan.
Both Trump and Harris are courting the state’s consequential Arab American voters, who make up over two percent of Michigan’s population, the highest percentage of any state in the nation.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks as Hamtranck Mayor Amer Ghalib listens at a campaign office, Friday, in Hamtranck, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The Trump campaign this year has seen an opening among Arab Americans, over their anger at the current administration’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
“I don’t think they’re going to be voting for her [Harris],” Trump argued.
And pointing to the latest polls in the state, he touted “I hear we’re leading in Michigan.”
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Many of the latest public opinion surveys in the swing state do indicate Trump with a very slight edge over Harris in a margin-of-error race.
Matt Grossman, a Michigan State University political science professor, spotlighted the state’s “unique dynamics” as he pointed to Harris’ perceived “weakness” with Arab American voters as well as the state’s sizable Black electorate.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks as he visits a campaign office, Friday, in Hamtranck, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Michigan is one of seven crucial swing states whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump. And all seven states are likely to determine if Harris or Trump wins November’s 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 carried all three states by razor-thin margins to put them back in the Democrats’ column and defeated Trump.
Harris, who in July replaced Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket, and Trump — as well as their running mates — have made numerous stops in the Blue Wall states this summer and autumn, and both campaigns and allied groups have built up get-out-the Rust Belt battlegrounds.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a UAW union hall, in Lansing, Mich., Friday. (Fox News/Paul Steinhauser)
And on Friday evening, both Harris and Trump were scheduled to be campaigning 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 discussion in Auburn Hills before headlining a rally in downtown Detroit.
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With Michigan a must win state for Harris, she is spending the night and holding a get-out-the-vote event on 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.