Election 2024: Harris demonstrates across Michigan and promises 'a new path forward'

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Two days before Election Day, Kamala Harris sped through four stops across battleground Michigan on Sunday without mentioning Donald Trump's name, while urging voters not to be dissuaded by the GOP's disparagement of the electoral system -To deceive candidates, false allegations are made against him.

The vice president said she has confidence in the upcoming vote and urged voters, “especially those who haven't voted yet, not to fall for this tactic, which I think includes suggesting to people that their vote doesn't matter.” plays when they go to vote.”

At a rally at Michigan State University, Harris got a rousing response when she asked who had already voted, then gave the students another job — encouraging their friends to cast ballots in a state that allows voter registration on Election Day.

And instead of her usual speeches about Trump being unstable, unhinged and seeking unchecked power, Harris sought to contrast her optimistic tone with the darker message of the Republican opponent, whom she did not name.

This was all in an attempt to bolster their standing in one of the Midwest's “blue wall” Democratic states, which was seen as their smoothest potential path to an Electoral College majority.

“We have the opportunity in this election to finally put behind us a decade of politics characterized by fear and division,” she said, in an indirect reference to Trump. “We’re done with that. This leaves us exhausted. America is ready for a new beginning, ready for a new path forward in which we see our fellow Americans not as enemies but as neighbors.”

Harris also avoided directly mentioning Trump during her 11-minute morning address at the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ. Still, her comments served as a clear contrast to the Republican candidate.

“There are those who want to deepen division, sow hate, spread fear and cause chaos,” she said. She spoke at the same time Trump was in Pennsylvania, where he declared the US a “failed nation” and said he “should not have left” the White House after the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden “.

When Trump called Harris' party “demonic,” Harris quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah and told her friendly audience that she was ready to “chart a new path forward.”

Harris addressed a mostly student crowd in East Lansing and pledged to seek consensus.

“I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said. “In fact, I give them a seat at the table because that’s what strong leaders do.”

That was enough for Alexis Plonka, a junior from Michigan State who will be running in her first presidential election. Plonka, who said she has family members who support Trump, praised the vice president for not directly referring to the former president.

“I think one of the things that turns people off of Trump is the fact that he's so anti-people who don't agree with him and he's unwilling to work with them,” she said.

The approach reflects the wide net Harris has cast since he took over as chairman of the Democratic Party in July after 81-year-old President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid. She called Trump unpredictable and unfit for office and has won supporters ranging from progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York to former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Still, Harris is trying to capitalize on core Democratic constituencies — including young voters like the ones she appealed to in the state of Michigan — by emphasizing, among other things, her support for abortion rights and Trump's role in eliminating a woman's right to have an abortion. One of the loudest cheers she received in East Lansing Sunday night came when she declared that the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies.

Speaking to reporters Sunday afternoon, Harris dismissed Trump's characterization of the U.S. election, which the former president is accused of increased again when he was campaigning in Pennsylvania. Harris said his recent comments were intended to “distract from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country.” Those “good systems” were in place in 2020, Harris said, and “he lost.”

Harris used her final swing in Michigan to acknowledge progressives and members of the state's significant population of Arab Americans who are angry at the Biden administration for continuing the U.S. alliance with Israel while the Netanyahu administration continues its war on the Hamas advances in Gaza.

“I have made it very clear that the number of deaths of innocent Palestinians is unreasonable,” Harris told reporters.

In East Lansing, she addressed the issue shortly after beginning her speech: “As president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring the hostages home, to end the suffering in Gaza, to ensure “To ensure that Israel is safe and secure.” The Palestinian people can realize their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination.”

Some students in East Lansing voiced their opposition Sunday with vocal calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. At least one participant was escorted out after these ceasefire calls.

After attending church in Detroit, Harris greeted customers and picked up lunch at Kuzzo's Chicken and Waffles, where she ate kale at the Detroit restaurant of former Detroit Lions player Ron Bartell, a Detroit native. Harris later visited Elam Barber Shop, a Black-owned business in Pontiac, where she participated in a moderated conversation with local leaders and Black men.

Returning to Detroit at the end of the day, Harris hopped on a Zoom call from the airport tarmac with Win With Black Women, the group that campaigned for her the night she first entered the race became. Harris thanked women for their organizing work and urged them to make a final push to “mobilize our Facebook groups, our family group chats and everyone we know” to vote.

Michigan joins Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as crucial to Harris' fate. Barack Obama dominated the region in 2008 and 2012. But Trump swept Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2016, drawing significant criticism from Democrats who said candidate Hillary Clinton was taking the states for granted. Biden returned the three to the Democratic column in 2020.

Losing any of the three would put pressure on Harris to pick up victories among the four battleground states of the Sun Belt: North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

___

Barrow reported from Washington.