Kamala Harris focuses on abortion access during campaign visit to Michigan
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PORTAGE, Michigan – 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 try to mobilize voters ahead of the presidential election.
Harris spoke to several hundred people at an aviation museum outside Kalamazoo. The vice president, who has been tipped by some as a potential successor to President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket after Biden’s shaky debate performance in late June, told the Democratic crowd that there is too much at stake in this year’s presidential election not to throw her weight behind the Democratic incumbent.
“In these moments, we should not be discouraged,” Harris said. “This is not the time to sit back and do nothing, it is the time to roll up our sleeves.”
Before the panel, Harris spoke about Saturday’s shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot in the ear as he made assassination remarks during a campaign rally. One person, 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, was killed in the shooting and two others were injured.
Harris called Comperatore, who Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said died protecting his family from gunfire, a hero. She also said political violence has no place in the United States.
“There must be agreement that while our country’s history is marked by political violence, violence is never acceptable,” she said.
The panel itself was a 25-minute panel discussion featuring Olivia Troye, a national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, and Amanda Stratton, a mother from western Michigan who said her own experiences with reproductive health care shaped her support for Biden.
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The Biden team has made abortion access a central issue, and Harris is one of the most prominent advocates on the issue. On Wednesday, she was in Michigan to speak about abortion for the second time since the beginning of the year. In February, she held a roundtable discussion with elected officials and local organizers in Grand Rapids.
The issue has also been a success for Democratic campaigns in Michigan, especially in 2022, when voters passed a ballot proposition enshrining access to reproductive health care in the state constitution. In addition to the ballot proposition, Governor Gretchen Whitmer easily secured re-election after making protecting access to abortion a dominant issue in the campaign.
With Trump holding a narrow lead over Biden in several polls, Harris’ trip on Wednesday seemed designed to galvanize the enthusiasm of Democratic voters.
National polls currently show Trump with a small lead over Biden in several swing states, including Michigan. The polling average on polling website FiveThirtyEight shows Trump ahead of Biden by 0.6 percentage points in polls conducted in Michigan. The national polling average, compiled by the Cook Political Report, shows Trump ahead of Biden by about two percentage points nationwide. Trump has focused primarily on Biden’s record on immigration and the economy during his visits to Michigan.
Democrats specifically point out that three of the six U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, which protected access to abortion at the federal level for nearly 50 years, were appointed during 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 at stake,” said U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing). “I would say our entire way of life is at stake right now.”
At the event, Democrats seemed motivated to support Biden’s re-election campaign.
Deborah Wild, a former special education principal who lives in nearby Van Buren County, said gun policy, abortion access and support for public education are central reasons for her support of Biden and the Democratic Party in general. She said despite calls from some within the party that Biden should step aside in favor of another presidential candidate in the fall, local Democrats are optimistic and ready to rally support for Biden’s re-election campaign.
“I’m so energized that I tell people we’re fighting for our lives,” Wild told the Free Press before the event began. “We really believe we can do this. We need to get people to the polls, we need to talk to them and convince them that this is important. Biden is our candidate, we are behind him 100% because you can’t compare a criminal with a man who has done a great job for three and a half years.”
Wild was referring to Trump’s conviction 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 try to gain support in several swing states, including Michigan. The state was crucial to Biden’s election victory over Trump in 2020, when Biden won Michigan by about 154,000 votes. Harris’ visit on Wednesday comes less than a week after Biden held a rally in Detroit, telling an enthusiastic crowd at Rennaissance High School that he had no plans to drop out of the race. Harris last visited Michigan in May, including a stop in Detroit.
But Michigan is within reach for Trump and his campaign team. They are aiming to repeat Trump’s surprise victory in Michigan in 2016, when he defeated then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and claimed the state’s electoral votes on his way to the White House.
Trump is scheduled to hold a rally on Saturday at an arena in downtown Grand Rapids with his newly chosen running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio. Trump has been in Michigan frequently since the beginning of the year, making several stops there. Saturday’s visit comes immediately after the Republican National Convention, where Republicans in Michigan have largely rallied around Trump.
His campaign team sharply criticized Harris’ visit and described them as “unworldly members of the Californian elite.”
“Their 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,” said Victoria LaCivita, communications director for Trump’s Michigan campaign, in a statement released ahead of the event.
— Contact Arpan Lobo: [email protected]
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