Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to roughly five thousand enthusiastic supporters in Flint Friday evening.
During her 25-minute speech, the Democratic Party presidential nominee pledged to increase federal investment in small business and housing.
Harris also pledged to help the auto industry.
“We will ensure that the next generation of breakthroughs, from advanced batteries to electric vehicles, are not only invented but built right here in America by American union workers,” Harris told the largely union crowd.
The vice president also invoked the memory of the Flint water crisis during a campaign rally in the city Friday night. The city’s drinking water source was switched in 2014. But because of mistakes in the treatment process, Flint’s drinking water carried lead and other contaminants into the homes of city residents.
The Democratic Party presidential nominee spoke of the need to provide clean drinking water.
“As president, I will continue to work with communities like Flint to insure you not only have clean water, but the opportunity to recover economically and thrive,” said Harris.
Harris’ mid-Michigan campaign stop came just a day after former president Donald Trump held a campaign rally near Saginaw. The Republican Party presidential nominee held a campaign event last month in the same Flint sports arena where Harris rallied her supporters this week.
Presidential campaigns spend a lot of time in Michigan.
Whichever candidate gets the most statewide votes wins all of Michigan’s 15 coveted electoral votes. Kamala Harris (D) and Donald Trump (R) are nearly tied in most polls of the state’s voters.
The map below shows where we know candidates (and some surrogates) have publicly appeared in Michigan since July 15, 2024.
The height of each county on the map represents the number of voters in the 2020 presidential election.
The colors of each county show which party had the lead in votes and how big the lead was. Dark red means Republicans had a big lead and dark blue means the same for Democrats. Counties that look almost white had both parties nearly tied.
Sources: CQ Press Voting and Elections Collection, Geocodio, Candidate visit information from campaign communications and reports from Michigan Public and other news organizations. • Data visualization and analysis by Adam Yahya Rayes and Zoe Clark | Michigan Public. • Visit marker locations are not exact. • Last update: Oct. 4, 2024.
There’s roughly a month before the November election.
Michigan is seen as a key swing state in the presidential election, which Trump narrowly won in 2016, and lost by a slightly wider margin in 2020.
Both Harris and Trump are encouraging their voters to take advantage of Michigan’s absentee ballot and early voting options.
According to the Michigan Secretary of State’s office, more than 150,000 absentee ballots have already been returned as of October 4th.
