Arpan LoboDetroit Free Press
PORTAGE, Mich. — Vice President Kamala Harris returned to Michigan on Wednesday amid heightened security concerns following the shooting of former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail, holding a panel discussion on abortion access as Democrats strive to mobilize voters ahead of the presidential election.
Harris spoke to acrowd of over 400 people at an aerospace museum outside Kalamazoo. The vice president, who has been embraced by some as a potential replacement for President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket after a shaky debate performance by Biden in late June, told the crowd of Democrats the stakes of this year’s presidential election are too great to not rally around the Democratic incumbent.
“In these moments, we should not become dispirited,” Harris said. “This is not the time to throw up our hands, this is the time to roll up our sleeves.”
Before the panel discussion, Harris addressed the Saturday shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot in the ear as he gave remarks in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally. One person, 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, was killed in the shooting and two others were wounded.
Harris called Comperatore, who Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said died protecting his family from gunfire, a hero. She also said political violence has no place in the U.S.
“There must be unity around the idea that while our nation’s history has been scarred by political violence, violence is never acceptable,” she said.
The panel itself was a 25-minute panel discussion with Olivia Troye, a national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, and Amanda Stratton, a west Michigan mother who said her own experiences with reproductive health care have shaped her support for Biden.
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The Biden campaign has made abortion access a central theme of its campaign, and Harris has been among the most prominent messengers on the issue. Wednesday marked her second visit to Michigan to speak about abortion since the start of the year, after she held a roundtable discussion with elected officials and local organizers in Grand Rapids in February.
It’s also been a winning issue for Democratic campaigns in Michigan, most notably in 2022, when voters passed a ballot measure that enshrined access to reproductive health care in the state’s constitution. Alongside the ballot measure, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer cruised to reelection after making protecting abortion access one of the most prevalent topics on the campaign trail.
With Trump holding a slight lead over Biden in various polls, Harris’ trip Wednesday appeared to be aimed at rallying enthusiasm among Democratic voters.
National public opinion polls currently show Trump holding small leads over Biden in several battleground states, including Michigan. The polling average on election website FiveThirtyEight shows Trump leading Biden by 0.6 percentage points for polls conducted in Michigan. The national opinion polling average compiled by the Cook Political Report shows Trump leading Biden by around 2 percentage points nationally. Trump, in his visits to Michigan, has primarily focused on Biden’s record on immigration and the economy.
Democrats are quick to note that three of the six U.S. Supreme Court Justices who ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, the ruling that previously protected abortion access at the federal level for nearly 50 years, were appointed in Trump’s first term in the White House.
“All of our freedoms, not just our reproductive freedoms, who we love, who we are, all of our freedoms, how we vote, are on the line,” said U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing. “I would argue our entire way of life is on the line right now.”
At the event, Democrats seemed roused to support Biden’s reelection campaign.
Deborah Wild, a former special education administrator who lives in nearby Van Buren County, said gun policy, abortion access and support for public education are central to her backing of Biden and the Democratic Party in general. She said despite the calls from some within the party for Biden to step aside for another presidential candidate this fall, local Democrats are optimistic and willing to work to drum up support for Biden’s reelection campaign.
“I am so energized, I tell people we are in a fight for our lives,” Wild told the Free Press before the event began. “We really think we can do this. We have to get out the vote, we have to talk to people and we have to convince them that this is important. Biden is our candidate, we are behind him 100% because you cannot compare a criminal to a man who has done an amazing job for three-and-a-half years.”
Wild was referencing Trump being convicted by a federal jury in May on 34 counts in a historic hush money trial in New York.
Harris’ visit to Portage comes as Democrats attempt to shore up support in several swing states, Michigan among them. The state was key to Biden’s electoral victory over Trump in 2020, when Biden won Michigan by around 154,000 votes. The Harris visit on Wednesday comes less than a week after Biden rallied in Detroit, telling a reveled crowd at Renaissance High School he had no plans to withdraw from the race. Harris most recently visited Michigan in May, also stopping in Detroit.
But Trump and his campaign certainly see Michigan as attainable once again, and will aim for a repeat of Trump’s upset win of Michigan in 2016, when he defeated then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to claim the state's electoral votes on the way to the White House.
Trump, alongside newly selected running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, is slated to hold a rally Saturday at an arena in downtown Grand Rapids. Trump has frequented Michigan, having made several stops in the state since the start of the year. Saturday's visit will be right on the heels of the Republican National Convention, where Michigan Republicans have largely coalesced around Trump.
His campaign blasted the Harris visit, saying she is an “out of touch California elite.”
“Her visit will highlight all the reasons why the Biden-Harris agenda is wrong for Michigan — open borders, skyrocketing inflation, and the destruction of our auto jobs,” Victoria LaCivita, Trump’s Michigan campaign communications director, said in a statement released before the event.
Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com
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