Walz covers Harris Michigan campaign with Detroit rally

On November 6, 2024By Littum

With a hoarse voice at the end of the final day before the 2024 presidential election, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz late Monday night delivered a final message focused on reproductive rights to Michigan voters at a rally in downtown Detroit as the campaign neared its completion. .

In 2022, about 57% of Michigan voters approved a ballot measure adding an explicit right to abortion to the state constitution after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Echoing a similar message he delivered Friday in Michigan, Walz once again told the men in the crowd to think about the women in their lives. “Their lives are on the line in this election,” said Walz, who as Minnesota’s governor signed an abortion rights bill into law. He talked about how Trump’s appointment of conservative judges paved the way for abortion bans in states across the country. But in the first presidential election after the U.S. Supreme Court stripped women of a national abortion right they had enjoyed for nearly half a century, Walz said women in this election would deliver a message to Trump. “Whether he likes it or not,” Walz said, riffing on Trump’s promise to protect women, “whether they don’t like it.”

“We’re in the fourth quarter. Two minutes left. The game is tied. But we’ve got the damn ball. And we’ve got the best quarterback on the field in Kamala Harris,” Walz said in a brief speech he gave. shortly after 10.30pm on Monday evening. “Michigan, take this thing home to America.”

Speaking just before him, Walz’s wife Gwen Walz invoked her teaching background to fire up voters, describing the election as a high-stakes group project. “And guess what? It’s due tomorrow and it’s pass-fail.”

Republican former President Donald Trump was scheduled to appear in Michigan Monday night at a rally in Grand Rapids, where he also wrapped up his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.

At Hart Plaza, where Walz spoke, trees were lit up in blue and red and iconic downtown Detroit buildings glowed in a downpour as the vice presidential candidate looked out on his supporters at the edge of the Detroit River. A short walk away from where Harris supporters gathered, Detroit election workers have spent the past several days processing and tabulating absentee ballots cast by the city’s voters. As of Monday morning, about 33% of Detroit voters had already turned out to vote either early or absent. Nationwide, around 44% of voters had already cast a ballot. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a statement Monday night that Michigan appears headed for another high-turnout election. In 2020, the state experienced the highest turnout in 60 years.

Several Michigan politicians took the stage before Walz spoke, including Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, US Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, who is vying for an open Michigan U.S. Senate seat in a race against GOP former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, and U.S. Sen. Gary Peters. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been criss-crossing Michigan to rally Democrats, delivered a final pitch to Harris supporters late Monday night.

“This is it, folks. The whole world is counting on us,” Whitmer said. “Michigan, we deserve leaders who know us and see us. Kamala Harris is that leader.”

Several musical acts took the stage at the Walz rally on election night in Michigan’s largest city, including the Detroit Youth Choir and a joint performance with Jon Bon Jovi, The War and Treaty and Michael Stipe of REM “I Have One Simple Question: Who Can We Trust to unite when we are most divided?” asked Bon Jovi. “Kamala” answered the crowd. After the waltz, the musicians returned to the stage and performed an acoustic rendition of “Livin’ on a Prayer”.

Throughout the convention, a DJ spun Motown and pop hits that got the audience and some security personnel singing and dancing along. In a presidential cycle that has at times been marked by dark and apocalyptic rhetoric, Harris supporters seemed determined to hold a party before the final day of voting on Election Day on Tuesday. They line-danced to “The Wobble” during a musical interlude while they waited to hear from Walz.

Amanda Marsh, 35, of Washington, DC, came to Michigan to work on a pre-election campaign and to visit her family from Grosse Pointe. She said she decided to delay her flight home so she could attend the Walz rally. Amid the joyous atmosphere, she noticed an underlying nervousness about the upcoming election. “I think Democrats are just naturally anxious after everything that happened with Hillary,” she said, referring to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Trump.

Trump’s campaign blasted the Walz rally Monday morning. “Free concerts and flashy performances aren’t going to change the fact that Michiganders have suffered under the weight of Kamalanomics and the failed policies of the Harris-Biden administration. Hardworking Michiganders are ready to elect President Trump to put more money in your pocket, secure our border, and make life livable again,” Team Trump Michigan communications director Victoria LaCivita said in a statement Monday morning.

Eight years ago, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Michigan by 10,704 votes, or a 0.3 percentage point margin — the slimmest of any state — delivering Michigan to a GOP presidential nominee for the first time since 1988. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by over 154,000 votes, or 2.78 percentage points. In this year’s election, Michigan is once again a critical battleground state.

Contact Clara Hendrickson at [email protected] or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, formerly called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

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This story was updated to add input from X.