How Harris and Trump are trying to reach voters in the battleground state of Michigan

Saturday is the first day of statewide early voting in Michigan, and both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are in the state trying to energize their supporters. Chad Livengood, politics editor and columnist at The Detroit News, joins John Yang to discuss the neck-and-neck race for Michigan’s 15 electoral votes.

Read the Full Transcript

John Yang : Today is the first day of statewide early voting in Michigan. And both presidential candidates are in the state trying to energize their supporters.

Former President Donald Trump’s in Novi, which is a suburb of Detroit.

Donald Trump, U.S. Republican Presidential Nominee : Year after year, globalist politicians like Kamala Harris sold you out and let other countries loot and pillage and plunder your wealth.

John Yang : Vice President Kamala Harris is on the other side of the state, pressing her message that reproductive rights are at stake in the election.

Kamala Harris, U.S. Democratic Presidential Nominee : We are seeing the impact of these laws, causing clinics, health care clinics to shut down. The physicians that I’ve been talking with are concerned about this myriad of issues that have highlighted the fact that because of Trump and what he did with the Supreme Court, we are looking at a health care crisis in America.

John Yang : Tonight, she’ll be in Kalamazoo with former First Lady Michelle Obama. Earlier, I asked Chad Livengood, the Detroit News politics editor and columnist, to tell us about the race for Michigan’s 15 electoral votes.

Chad Livengood, The Detroit News : This race is neck and neck, and there is, there is no clear front runner in Michigan right now. Kamala Harris is spending Saturday with first — former First Lady Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo, a university town Western Michigan University. She needs to do really well in these university towns in in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and Mount Pleasant and, of course, East Lansing as well, because this is where she’s going to need to run the score up to counter some of Trump’s advantages in working class cities in the state.

John Yang : Former President Trump is today is in Oakland County, which is Detroit suburb. What does that tell us about who he’s trying to motivate?

Chad Livengood : Yeah, he’s trying to get the core Republican base of Oakland County that to get them out and get them to vote early. This is, you know, his strategy has definitely turned towards trying to mirror the Democrat strategy in previous elections, to try to bank as many early votes, between absentee votes by mail and also early in person voting.

John Yang : Michigan economy, of course, still built around the auto industry, the auto industry, internal combustion engines, this shift to electric vehicles. How is each campaign dealing with that issue?

Chad Livengood : Well, Donald Trump has honed in on this subject various with very tight specific issues going after EVs, essentially saying to people, your big three automakers should not be trying to compete with China. I mean, he went into Flint vehicle city that had the birthplace of General Motors, and made this message about a month ago. He’s continued to talk about it and really rail against electric vehicles and Kamala Harris is trying to basically counter and say, hey, look, we want to compete with China. And if we want to compete with China, on in the automotive industry, we have to make electric vehicles.

John Yang : Another distinctive feature about Michigan politics is the large Arab American population, uh, sort of concentrated around Detroit. Early on, when President Biden was still in the race, there was a lot of unhappiness among that community about his staunch support for Israel in the war in Gaza.

Now that Harris is in the race, how has that community approached her? What are they thinking about Harris?

Chad Livengood : That unhappiness has not eased, and it has maybe even grown more frustrated, as the war has in Gaza has dragged on, and now Israel has been bombing in Lebanon, and there’s a large Lebanese population, particularly in Wayne County, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck, that are furious, and so this is the real big jump ball, I think, for Democrats and maybe even the crisis, they don’t really quite know how big it will be.

There are some leaders in the community, like the mayors of Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights, who have endorsed Trump. And just yesterday, the mayor of Dearborn came out and said he can’t vote for either one of them.

John Yang : I mean, could that also affect the Senate race? You’ve got the Democrats trying to hold on to the seat that Debbie Stabenow is stepping down from. You have a current house member, Democratic House member, Alyssa Slotkin, running against a former Republican House member, Mike Rogers. Could that affect that race as well?

Chad Livengood : Oh, absolutely. They are both pretty hawkish, pretty pro-Israel. They are on paper, from a national security perspective, the exact same candidate in there. He used to be an FBI agent. She used to be a CIA agent. She worked in the Obama Defense Department. Now, whether she gets penalized by the Arab and Muslim voters of the state for it is kind of what is sort of the big unknown right now.

John Yang : Democrats in Michigan are also trying to hold on to two open house seats, including the one that Slotkin is giving up, and both those races are toss ups are rated as toss ups. Tell us about those races.

Chad Livengood : This is a C race between Tom Barrett, the Republican who lost to Slotkin by three or 4.2 years ago, and Curtis Hertel Jr., who is a Democrat and long-time politician in Michigan. And this is a racist neck and neck. It’s another race where the electric vehicle transition is definitely on the ballot.

Lansing is an auto town has two GM plants, and the future of boilers plants is pretty much in doubt right now. Democrats are trying to use this as an issue to say, hey, look, if you elect to Tom Barrett or Donald Trump, this plant is — this Cadillac plan is in serious danger of closing.

And then over to the east of there is the eighth congressional district, and that’s the seat long held by Dan Kildee. This is a seat where there’s — they’ve got a Democratic State Senator, Kristen McDonald Rivet running against a Republican entrepreneur, Paul Junge. This is also see this neck and neck, and they’re also out there battling over the EV transition.

And the messaging that you’re seeing from Trump to Junge on down is, if we continue to transition to EVs, all these little plants that make components for gas engines and transmissions are going to go by the wayside, and so this, it’s going to be a real big test about that messaging really motivates voters to go pull the lever for the Republicans.

John Yang : A lot of reasons to watch in Michigan on election night, Chad Livengood of the Detroit News. Thank you very much.

Chad Livengood : Hey, thanks for having me, John.