Kamala Harris pledged to “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza” in her final rally in Michigan on Sunday, as she attempted to appeal to the state’s large Arab American and Muslim American population two days out from the election.
Michigan is home to about 240,000 registered Muslim voters, a majority of whom voted for Biden in 2020, helping him to a narrow victory over Donald Trump. But Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the state have expressed dissatisfaction over the vice-president’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza, and polling suggests that these voters are gravitating towards Jill Stein, the Green party candidate.
With Harris and the former president essentially tied in Michigan, a drop in voting numbers for either could be critical, and Harris made a clear appeal at the beginning of her speech.
“We are joined today by leaders of the Arab American community, which has deep and proud roots here in Michigan, and I want to say this year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon,” Harris said.
“It is devastating, and as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure and ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, security and self-determination.”
Speaking at the Michigan State University campus, Harris repeated her campaign promise to “turn the page on a decade of politics driven by fear and division”. Harris did not mention Trump by name in East Lansing, as she gave an address that struck a hopeful tone for the future.
“America is ready for a fresh start, ready for a new way forward, where we see our fellow American not as an enemy, but as a neighbor,” she said.
“We are ready for a president who knows that the true measure of a leader is not based on who you beat down, it is based on who you lift up.”
Harris was making her fourth stop of the day in Michigan, having earlier spoken at a church in Detroit and stopped by a barber shop in Pontiac. The state is key to her chances of success, but the result is likely to be close. Trump won Michigan by about 10,000 votes in 2016 as he demolished Democrats’ “blue wall”, and Biden also carried the state by a narrow margin in 2020. Trump is holding his final rally of the campaign in Michigan on Monday night, but Harris was defiant.
“We need to finish strong. So for the next two days we still have a lot of work to do but here’s the thing: we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work is joyful work,” she said.
“And make no mistake, we will win.”
It was a raucous atmosphere at the rally, Harris’s final stop in Michigan before Tuesday’s vote. She repeatedly had to pause for loud chants of “Kamala, Kamala” from a diverse crowd who seemed enthusiastic about voting for her
“I feel more energized and more excited in this election than I have in a while,” said Latonya Demps, 40, a small business owner and a Michigan State alumna.
“I’m very excited to vote for Harris. As a woman she speaks for my rights and the rights of women that we have fought for for a very, very long time: the right to choose, the right to have equity and access, also freedom for all of us in terms of climate change, in terms of our economy, the type of neighbors we want to have, the families that we want to raise, I think she represents the values that are really important to me.”
This week Democrats have fought to counter the gains made by Stein among Arab American and Muslim American voters in Michigan, with the Democratic National Committee launching a series of ads on Instagram and YouTube aiming to discourage people from voting for Stein and Cornel West, who is running as an independent and is also a critic of Israel.
The ads highlight recent comments by Trump that he likes Stein “very much”, because: “She takes 100% from [Democrats].” The pro-Democrat organization MoveOn has also been running a “seven-figure” ad campaign this week, which it said was designed to appeal to people who are yet to decide on a candidate and “third-party curious voters”.
Polling on the issue has yielded inconsistent results. Last week a national survey of Arab Americans, conducted by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit, found 43% supporting Trump compared with 41% for Harris, and 4% backing Stein, while a survey of Muslim Americans, by the Council on American-Islamic Relations of American Muslims, found that 42.3% plan to vote for Stein, 41% for Harris and 9.8% for Trump.
Despite that uncertainty, Harris supporters left buoyant on Sunday night.
“She’s going to be the first Black woman president that we’ve had. She’s actually going to fight for our rights. She’s fighting for women’s reproductive rights, she’s also fighting for the middle class, for entrepreneurs, and business owners like myself,” said Zay Worthey, 19.
Worthey said he was “100%” confident that Harris will win the White House on Tuesday.
“Because she has something that Donald Trump doesn’t: community,” Worthey said.
“She’s really working and fighting for the people of America, and Donald Trump is just only working for the people of the rich.”
