Trump competes with Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama in battleground Michigan
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were both fully engaged in the battle for Michigan on Saturday, with the candidates campaigning miles apart with the presidency on the line — and a popular former first lady joining the fray.
The long lines at early polling places in Kalamazoo were so long that voters had to turn away after an hour and a half.
Trump made the rare decision to give up his own bed and spend the night in Detroit after his Friday evening rally in Traverse City in northern Michigan started nearly three hours late following Trump’s wide-ranging podcast interview with Joe Rogan.
He rallied thousands of supporters at an indoor venue in Novi, a Detroit suburb, with polls showing a tight race in Michigan and all seven battleground states.
‘This campaign is on fire, you can feel it!’ said Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain, as she warmed up Trump’s crowd in the Detroit suburb of Novi.
Harris will hold a campaign rally with Michelle Obama at the Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo later Saturday — the first day of early voting in the state.
She is considered a favored campaign manager who rallied Democrats at the party’s convention in Chicago in August.
Trump will hold another rally later Saturday in State College, Pennsylvania
It is the 2024 campaign debut for the former first lady, one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party and a dream candidate to replace Joe Biden, 81.
Harris supporters lined up early on the crisp fall day for a chance to attend the Democratic presidential candidate’s rally.
The event places Harris about 100 miles away from Trump. There were already lines around the block.
She will be back in the state on Monday, her campaign just announced, with a rally that is also being billed as a concert with singer Maggie Rogers in Ann Arbor.
That event is a clear move to try to boost the score among young voters, who had drifted away from Democrats with Biden at the top of the ticket.
Now Harris is relying on young voters and women to overcome Trump’s gains among minority men, and a wild card of the roughly 200,000 Arab-American voters.
California Rep. Darrell Issa referred to the Arab-Israeli conflict “as an Arab American” in his remarks to the Novi crowd.
He said the peace process ‘is in ruins today’ [and] can only be restored by a return to the kind of engagement we saw during the four Trump years.” Issa’s father was the son of Lebanese immigrants.
Steven Miller, a former Trump adviser, pointed to the support Trump received in the election from Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan.
“He’s going to set all kinds of records,” Miller told the crowd in Novi. “That’s another reason why he’s going to win Michigan.”
More than 1.4 million people in Michigan have already cast ballots even before early in-person voting started Saturday, according to tracking by the University of Florida Election Lab.
A long line of Harris supporters waited to attend her rally with Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo, MI on Saturday
Even President Joe Biden is getting in on the action, flying to Pittsburgh even after making a rhetorical stumble at his last event, in surprisingly close New Hampshire. There he said “lock him up” when talking about Trump, then walked back to the comment to say “politics.”
Before boarding Air Force One, Biden was asked about Trump’s comments comparing the US to a “garbage bin.”
“Trump has no class,” Biden responded, keeping his response clean.
The race in Michigan couldn’t be much closer. The polls are almost even, with Trump only a few tenths of a percent ahead in the RealClearPolitics average.
After accusing Harris of taking it easy and spending time preparing for TV appearances, Trump plans to immediately fly to State College, Pennsylvania, where he will hold a major rally in another battleground state that is purely is a toss-up.
Trump is taking a page from John McCain’s playbook in his race against Barack Obama and trying to use Harris’ string of celebrities against her.
On Friday night, he accused his rival of “partying” as Israel attacked Iran amid continued fears of a spreading conflict in the Middle East.
She had accepted the endorsement of high-wattage singer Beyonce Knowles, who spoke but did not perform.
The vice president focused her speech on reproductive rights, and a series of speakers shared deeply personal stories of women impacted by Texas’ abortion ban.