() – Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump met this Friday in Michigan, both touring the state as they fight a close battle for its potentially decisive 15 Electoral College votes.
The two converged in vote-rich Oakland County, northwest of Detroit, where an increasingly educated and diverse population and the suburban revolt against Trump have shifted the political landscape in favor of Democrats in recent years.
Harris told a crowd in Waterford Township that Trump was “full of big promises, but always fails to deliver” and called him “one of the biggest contributors to manufacturing job losses in American history.”
She touted her support for unions and said she would pressure the federal government and private companies to hire more workers without college degrees.
It was a speech aimed at the working class that Harris also made this Friday in Grand Rapids, a city in western Michigan in Kent County, which went from Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020, and in Lansing, where she criticized the record of Trump in manufacturing and told union members that the former president “is not a friend of workers.”
Before closing out his night with a rally in Detroit, Trump also stopped in Oakland County for a roundtable in Auburn Hills. He said he would boost American auto manufacturing by imposing heavy tariffs on imported vehicles.
“I think it’s more beautiful than love, the word tariff,” Trump said.
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin make up the “blue wall,” three Great Lakes battlegrounds that swung the 2016 election toward Trump and turned around to hand Biden the White House four years later.
Although Michigan went to Biden by about 154,000 votes, it also gave Trump a historic victory in 2016, when he defeated Hillary Clinton by fewer than 11,000 votes, breaking a streak of Democratic victories there dating back to 1992.
More than 944,000 early votes have already been cast in Michigan, 13% of the state’s active registered voters, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Both campaigns target specific groups of potential voters in Michigan, such as union workers, Black voters, suburban moderates and Arab Americans dissatisfied with the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
This Friday, Trump visited a campaign office in Hamtramck, which has a large Muslim and Arab-American population. He was alongside the city’s mayor, Amer Ghalib, who recently supported the former president.
Trump, who has promised to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants if he is re-elected, was at one point asked by the mayor:
“One thing the Democrats keep sending to our community to scare them is that you will come and deport them, even though some of them are second and third generation immigrants. So I want you to respond to these accusations and listen to them being brought to our community. What would I say to them?”
“Fake news,” the former president responded.
Earlier, Trump had told reporters that he planned to speak soon with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he said is doing a “good job.” He said Biden is “trying to slow it down, and he probably should be doing the opposite.”
Harris, hours later in Waterford Township, acknowledged a “very difficult” year for members of the Arab-American community.
He praised the support of “Arab American leaders” and named Wayne County Deputy Chief Executive Assad Turfe, and said he recognized that Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon have worried members of the important Arab American communities. and Muslims, who, she says, have “deep and proud roots in the Detroit metropolitan area.”
Harris also reiterated his belief that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar could create an opportunity to resume negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas.
“Sinwar’s death can and should be a turning point. “Everyone must take this opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza, bring the hostages home and end the suffering once and for all,” he said. “And I continue to believe that diplomacy is the answer to bringing lasting stability
across the border between Israel and Lebanon.”
Earlier in the day, the vice president spoke to union members in Lansing, where she played footage of Trump disparaging the work of auto workers, attacking United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, and saying he “hated paying overtime” when He supervised his companies before entering politics.
Trump has courted Michigan auto workers with a promise to impose steep tariffs on vehicles imported from Mexico and China.
He has also proposed making auto loan interest tax deductible.
The Harris campaign’s decision to highlight Trump’s own words comes as Democrats try to bridge the gap between union leaders, who largely support Harris and closely align with their party on labor policies, and their members, who in some cases align more with the Republicans on cultural issues.
“Listen to his words,” Harris said after the 35-second video was played for the public. “You’re saying that autoworkers are essentially doing child’s play, that kids can do it.”
“He has his club, and I’m going to tell you that unionized workers are not part of his club. Let it be clear. Whatever he does at his rallies,” he added.
“Compare it to a child’s work? When here we know that the work they do is complex. They do it very carefully. They work hard. They are very qualified. “They are highly trained, and they are the best automobile workers in the world.”
Trump’s visit to Detroit was his first since he insulted her at an Economic Club event last week. In those remarks, Trump compared Detroit, the state’s largest city, to a “developing nation,” and warned that if Harris wins on Nov. 5, “the whole country will end up being like Detroit.”
Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Fight Like Hell PAC launched a radio ad on Friday highlighting Trump’s disdain for Detroit.
“Donald Trump recently came to Detroit and spoke badly about our city. He called Detroit a failure and a disaster. We know you are wrong. Detroiters are not giving up on each other or their city, something Donald Trump will never understand,” Whitmer says in the 30-second ad.
Upon his return to the city this Friday, Trump told the crowd that Election Day “will be the day of liberation in America.”
Trump said he thought Detroit “has great potential” but that Democrats have “been wreaking havoc on this place” and undermining his long-promised return.
“I proclaim to the people of this state that by the end of my term, the entire world will be talking about the miracle of Michigan and the impressive rebirth of Detroit,” he said.
‘s Ali Main and Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.
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