Harris barnstorms battleground Michigan

Vice President Harris is barnstorming the battleground of Michigan on Friday with three campaign stops in a “blue wall” state that is critical to victory on Election Day and in a place where polls show the race on a razor’s edge.

“Eighteen days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime,” Harris told a crowd in Grand Rapids on Friday afternoon, before planned visits to Lansing and Oakland County later in the day.

The swing through Michigan, which boasts 15 electoral votes, comes as aggregate polling from Decision Desk HQ and The Hill show former President Trump with a 0.7-point lead in the Great Lakes State. Early voting starts in Michigan next Saturday, and Harris urged her audience on Friday that “the election is here right now.” 

Meanwhile, Trump was also campaigning Friday with a rally in Detroit after he bashed the Motor City last week as a “mess.”

Harris in Grand Rapids took a swing at Trump, seizing on a report by Politico about an adviser describing the Republican nominee as “exhausted and refusing [some] interviews” in the home stretch of the campaign.

“He is ducking debates and canceling interviews,” Harris said. “His own campaign team recently said it is because of exhaustion. Well, if you are exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world.” 

The rival candidates have repeatedly questioned each other’s fitness to serve as they battle in the tight race for the White House. That comes on the heels of questions mounting about President Biden’s age and cognitive abilities that dogged his campaign before his historic exit from the contest.

Harris also sounded alarms about Project 2025 and Trump’s stance on abortion, and hammered Trump as “no friend of labor” as she works to gain traction with unionized blue-collar workers in key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

The vice president later delivered remarks to United Auto Workers in Lansing, where she blasted the former president as “an existential threat to America’s labor movement.”

During her speech, she rolled clips of Trump disparaging union workers.

“Listen to his words,” Harris told the crowd. “He thinks that the value of your work is essentially meaningless. That’s what he’s saying, to compare it to child’s work. When we here know the work you do is complex.” 

She has support from major labor groups like the United Auto Workers and the AFL-CIO, but the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is notably sitting out an endorsement this cycle after backing Biden four years ago. 

The vice president steered clear of talks about international politics as she courted Michiganders in Grand Rapids and Lansing, but she opened up her Oakland County rally, the final Friday stop, with brief remarks on the war in Gaza.

“Our Arab American community has deep and proud roots in the Detroit metro area,” she said, touting support from local Arab American leaders. “I know this year has been very difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza, and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon. It is devastating.” 

She referenced the recent killing of Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas and the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, and said his death “can and must be a turning point” in the conflict, echoing her initial response to the development during a campaign stop in Wisconsin on Thursday. 

“Everyone must seize this opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza, bring the hostages home and end the suffering once and for all,” Harris said.

Michigan was seen as the starting point of protest votes against Biden in the primaries earlier this year over the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

Harris also blitzed this week through Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two other blue wall battlegrounds where the race is similarly close. The vice president has a 0.3-point lead over Trump in Pennsylvania, and Trump has a 0.5-point edge in Wisconsin. 

The states are seen as essential for either candidate to reach the 270 electoral votes they need to win the Oval Office this fall, even as Harris looks to build a path through other swing states like Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. 

Nationally, Harris has a 2.2-point lead over Trump, according to the DDHQ averages. Multiple surveys this week have found an even smaller margin, giving Harris just a 1-point edge.

Updated at 8:56 p.m. EDT