Vice President Kamala Harris will need to prevail in swing states like Michigan in order to clear a path to the White House in November. Grassroots progressive organizations like Michigan Liberation Action Fund, whose goal is to end mass incarceration, are knocking on doors to win over votes in the final push. In past elections, the group was quick to support Democratic candidates for president, but Harris initially proved a tough sell to its members.
Out of the gate, Harris’ campaign portrayed her as a tough prosecutor able to take on former President Donald Trump, a convicted felon. That framing made some members of the group uncomfortable. “We don’t want this to come about to where it’s the prosecutor against a convicted felon. Because I’m a convicted felon,” Demetrius Knuckles, 51, a Michigan Liberation member and podcaster, said back in August. Days earlier, at the Democratic National Convention, several prominent party members — including Sen. Elizabeth Warren — echoed this characterization of the race.
And there are others in the state who might bristle at such language. There are more than 400,000 eligible Michigan voters with felony-level criminal records, according to Ryan Larson, an assistant professor of criminology at Hamline University who studies the disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions. By this estimate, those with felony records make up just over 5% of the swing state’s voting population. Michigan, like the rest of the United States, has a disproportionate number of Black people incarcerated in its state prisons and local jails.
“The number of system impacted people who are eligible to vote in many of the battleground states are much larger than the margin of error of those states,” said Katrina Gamble, founder and CEO of social impact consulting firm Sojourn Strategies. “It’s a bloc of voters most people are not accounting for that could have a major impact on electoral outcomes in November.”
Michigan Liberation endorsed the vice president in September after its leadership spoke with its 150 members and a majority agreed to support Harris. Many of their members have been personally affected by the criminal justice system, either through their own incarceration or the experience of friends and family. “People weren’t feeling her as a prosecutor,” said Marjon Parham, the director of communications for the organization. “But they’re really not feeling Trump and Project 2025.”
Trump has attempted to use his felony convictions to make inroads with Black Americans, arguing he too has faced systemic injustices.
Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation plan for the next Republican administration, calls for an end to U.S. Department of Justice probes of local police departments and the prosecution of district attorneys who decline to pursue charges against individuals. Trump has alternatively embraced and denied affiliation with the initiative. At least 140 people who previously worked for him were involved in creating the report. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation previously told Capital & Main, “Project 2025 does not speak for President Trump or his campaign.”
Capital & Main also reached out to the Harris campaign for comment and received no response.
Trump has attempted to use his felony convictions to make inroads with Black Americans, arguing he too has faced systemic injustices. “I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump said at a February event for Black conservatives. “And a lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. It’s been pretty amazing but possibly, maybe, there’s something there.”
That message did not sit well with some of those whom canvassers encountered while knocking on doors. “People are telling me either they’ve been incarcerated or their friends or family have been incarcerated and they can’t rent an apartment. They can’t get a job,” said Lizmary Fernandez, a 24-year-old canvasser. “I think people are getting really mad about Trump being able to run when they can’t do their daily life things.”
Fernandez was one of eight members and canvassers who gathered in the organization’s office just days after the Democratic convention. The bulletin board that lined the walls was a vibrant patchwork of Post-Its laying out Michigan Liberation’s plans for the coming months.
Fernandez said her interest in politics began in high school, following the killing of teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in August of 2014. She began organizing for racial equity, and became even more motivated during Trump’s 2016 campaign, when he routinely denigrated immigrants. Fernandez’s parents immigrated to Michigan from the Dominican Republic, and she still has family there.
“That’s the problem with the justice system. If you don’t have any money, nobody’s gonna help you.”~ Lizmary Fernandez, 24-year-old canvasser
Fernandez’s top issues this election cycle are immigration, student loans, the environment, “human dignity and how we treat each other.” Unlike some members of Michigan Liberation, she is excited about Harris as a candidate, and believes she is far more qualified than Trump to be president.
For the past few months, Fernandez has been knocking on doors in Macomb County, a majority white community with a population just shy of 1 million with its Black residents significantly overrepresented in the county’s jail system.
Fernandez said the people she’s spoken to while door-knocking — mostly low-income voters — are more excited to vote for Harris than they were for Biden. The top issues she has heard about are the economy and criminal justice reform. She recently spoke to a single mother who said she was incarcerated after running a red light and lamented the disparate treatment afforded poor and rich people navigating criminal charges.
“That’s the problem with the justice system,” Fernandez said. “If you don’t have any money, nobody’s gonna help you. If you have a lot of money, you have the right friends, you have the right people, you have the right influence. That’s not a just system.”
Michigan Liberation has endorsed prosecutors locally in the past, and this year is supporting Christina Hines, a former prosecutor in both Wayne County, home to Detroit, and Washtenaw County to the west. She is challenging Republican Pete Lucido, a former state senator. Michigan Liberation and its local partners Michigan United Action and Community Change Action, also progressive nonprofits, said in a press release that they had collectively knocked on 240,351 doors and made 660,856 phone calls as of Oct. 16.
“Our focus is ending mass incarceration. We’re endorsing Christina Hines this election because she believes in second chances,” said Fernandez. “She’s a prosecutor. She’s going to put people in jail. That is the job. But she aligns with our values. So we support her. And by having that, we can hold her accountable, too.”
Fernandez will be enthusiastically casting her vote for Harris as well. “She’s going to stand up for us,” she said.
