In Michigan, Harris Makes Blue-Collar Pitch and Needles Trump as ‘Exhausted’

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump converged on Michigan on Friday as they fought for the small pool of undecided voters who could decide a battleground state that has shot toward the top of the priority list for both campaigns.

In Grand Rapids, Harris made explicit and extended overtures to blue-collar Americans as she campaigned in a state that has historically been the heart of the nation’s labor movement, and as polls show her struggling with working-class voters.

“Donald Trump is no friend of labor; let’s be really clear about that, no matter what the noise is out there,” Harris said.

She promised to “work with unions to create good-paying jobs, including jobs that do not require a college degree.”

“Because here’s where I come from: I know a college degree is not the only measure of the skills and experience of a qualified worker,” Harris said.

Throughout her speech in Grand Rapids, in Kent County, Michigan — a place Trump won in 2016 and President Joe Biden flipped in 2020 — Harris was by turns forceful in laying out the grave stakes of the election and almost gleeful in her efforts to cast Trump as unfit for office.

Appearing to refer to Politico’s reporting that Trump was dodging media appearances because of exhaustion, she jabbed, “If you are exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world. Come on. Come on.”

After stepping off his plane in Detroit, Trump called Harris a “loser” and insisted to reporters, “I’m not even tired. I’m really exhilarated.”

The former president and his allies have been trying to capitalize on anger in Michigan from Arab American and Muslim voters toward the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war in the Gaza Strip. Large numbers of these voters, as well as some progressives, say they may not vote for Harris because of her stance toward the conflict.

On Friday, Trump stopped by his campaign’s office in Hamtramck, Michigan, a city with a significant Muslim and Arab American population whose Democratic mayor endorsed him last month.

Trump was greeted by the mayor, Amer Ghalib, and dozens of supporters, many of whom were Muslim or Arab American men. “We had a history of disconnect and miscommunication with the Republican Party,” Ghalib said. “Now we are here to end that disconnect.”

Trump told his supporters that he wanted to urgently achieve peace in the Middle East. But earlier, he still offered praise for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, saying that he was “doing a good job.”

He then took part in what was billed as an economic roundtable in Auburn Hills, Michigan, in Oakland County outside Detroit. The participants spoke more about policing, education and concerns over fluoride in the water than about inflation.

Oakland County is a suburban area that was once solidly Republican but, like many suburbs, has become gradually more blue as many educated and upscale voters who live there recoiled from Trump.

Democrats are hoping to run up large margins in Oakland County and places like it in battleground states across the country. Harris was also set to make a stop in Oakland County on Friday evening, underscoring its importance as a place to reach potential swing voters.

Trump, for his part, planned to hold a rally Friday evening in downtown Detroit at Huntington Place. The venue, a convention center, was a vote-counting site that pro-Trump protesters stormed in 2020 to interfere with ballot processing.

The Trump campaign has been hammering Harris over the economy in Michigan, with Trump repeatedly making promises in the metro Detroit area that he will revitalize the auto industry and bring manufacturing back — claims he also made in 2016 but struggled to fulfill in office. His campaign has been focused on appeals to blue-collar workers and the middle class, arguing that the Biden administration has done little to curb inflation and address pocketbook concerns.

In recent days, Harris has reverted to Biden’s original campaign strategy of amplifying Trump — particularly highlighting his remarks about reproductive rights and his effort to overturn the 2020 election. On Monday in Pennsylvania and again Thursday in Wisconsin, Harris paused her rally remarks to play a video montage of Trump.

The shift is notable because until recently, her approach focused more on mocking and diminishing Trump. Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, was chosen after a media blitz in which he called the former president “weird,” language Democrats adopted to make Trump look small.

But now Harris is calling attention to Trump as she warns of the “serious consequences” should he win the election.

On Friday, she sought to do a bit of both.

“I do believe that Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she said. “And the consequences of him ever getting back into the White House are brutally serious. Brutally serious.”

Later, during an early evening visit to a United Auto Workers union hall in Lansing, she repeated her assertion that she is the underdog in the race but professed that “make no mistake — we will win.”

Michigan is among the states Harris must almost certainly win, alongside Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to defeat Trump. The candidates are essentially tied, with the race tightening in recent weeks after Harris had opened a slight advantage, according to a New York Times polling average.

In interviews, Democrats say Michigan is as close as they have seen. Their efforts to capture the state, which Trump won in 2016 and lost in 2020, have been complicated by the war in Gaza. They have also been stung by the decisions of some national unions, like the Teamsters and the International Association of Firefighters, not to make an endorsement for president, after both groups backed Biden in 2020.

“I’m not used to it being this tight,” said Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan. “It’s close. It’s close.”

Harris’ campaign is open about its intent to peel away suburban voters from Trump. In a memo first reported by CBS News, the campaign said it planned to capitalize on the former president’s “unprecedented weakness in the suburbs” to win Michigan. Harris leads Trump by 5 percentage points among suburban likely voters, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of Michigan. Exit polls from 2020 showed Trump winning that group.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said the party had built a powerful campaign infrastructure, unlike Hillary Clinton’s operation, which many Democrats believe took the state for granted.

“It’s not like 2016,” Dingell said of the Clinton campaign. “They thought it was done. Now they know it’s not done.”

Trump’s campaign has also been working to ensure turnout in less populated areas in Central Michigan where advisers believe he has a stronger base of support. Echoing Republicans’ strategy in other battleground states, his campaign is making a push to nudge less frequent voters who are likely to back Trump to turn out on Election Day.

Separately, the former president and some of his surrogates have also been trying to seize on disillusionment with Democrats among groups that have traditionally favored them, including Black voters unsatisfied with the economy. There is some evidence that the strategy is making an impact, as Harris’ support from Black men in particular appears low for a Democrat.

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a prominent Black Democrat, said on CNN this week that he had been worried after a recent campaign trip to Michigan, especially by voters saying they did not know what Harris stood for.

“I got to see and feel what I’m reading about in news reports,” Clyburn said. “Yes, Black men — like everybody else — want to know exactly what I can expect from a Harris administration.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .