US elections: Harris to shore up Arab American, union voters in Michigan

Winning over skeptical parts of the coalition that helped propel her and President Joe Biden to the White House four years ago will be crucial for Harris, who polls show holding a razor-thin advantage in Blue Wall states including Michigan that could decide the election.

At her first stop in Detroit, the vice president criticized her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, for attempting “to cut funding for our first responders,” including Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grants that provide money directly to fire departments.

“Donald Trump’s track record is a disaster for working people, and he’s trying to gaslight people all over our country, but we know the facts and we know the truth,” Harris said. “He is an existential threat to America’s labor movement.”

A campaign official said the event was intended to show Harris’ strong support with firefighters the day after the IAFF declined to offer an endorsement. 

The board of the 350,000-member organisation, which was the first union to back Biden after he began his campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination, had narrowly voted against an endorsement, saying in a statement it was “the best way to preserve and strengthen our unity.” The union’s leadership has sided with Democrats because of their support for pro-labor policies, even as the group’s members lean Republican. 

The IAFF’s endorsement of Biden was helped along in 2019 by his decades-long relationship with its then-leaders. But in 2015, as Hillary Clinton ran for the president, the union chose to withhold its expected support from her, also citing concerns that backing her would be divisive.

Harris has also struggled to retain Biden’s levels of support among White male union workers, surveys show, and in Detroit painted Trump as anti-union.

“We fight for a future where we protect the fundamental freedom to organise,” she said. “We fight for a future where workers, all workers, are treated with dignity and respect.”

Harris seized on Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance after he sidestepped questions about whether he supported continuing to fund a $500 million grant for a General Motors Co. electric vehicle plant in Michigan. The funding was part of the White House’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, which Republicans have criticized for incentivizing EVs over gas-powered automobiles. 

“Michigan, we together fought hard for those jobs and you deserve a president who won’t put them at risk,” Harris said at the Flint rally.

During that rally, she received an endorsement from Earvin “Magic“ Johnson, the basketball legend and Detroit native, who told the audience to tell other voters — especially Black men who may be waffling — that “Kamala’s opponent promises a lot of things to the Black community that he did not deliver on.” 

Harris faces headwinds with Michigan’s sizable population of Arab American voters, a group that has traditionally favored Democrats, over the Biden administration’s continued military support for Israel as its war against Hamas kills Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. 

More than 100,000 voters in Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary — and several hundred thousand more in other states — voted to send “uncommitted” delegates to the party’s nominating convention to protest the administration’s handling of the conflict. The movement unsuccessfully lobbied for a pro-Palestinian speaker to be added to the gathering’s televised prime-time agenda.

Trump led Harris 42 per cent to 41 per cent in a national poll of 500 Arab-American registered voters conducted in September for the Arab American Institute. Eight in 10 said the situation in Gaza was very or somewhat important in determining their vote. 

Harris’ visit is a continuation of the listening tour her White House team has taken in recent months. Her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, met virtually with Muslim-, Arab- and Palestinian-American leaders from across the country on Wednesday to stress her “commitment to continue to engage” with their communities, her office said in a statement. 

The administration is pushing for a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement in Gaza, as well as the de-escalation of tensions between Israel and Lebanon.

Michigan’s 16 electoral college votes are key to Democrats’ most plausible paths to victory, along with the delegates from the other two “Blue Wall” states, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The scenarios for her to reach 270 electoral votes without even one of those three states are much more challenging, requiring wins in multiple Sun Belt or Western battlegrounds where recent polls have been less favorable.

A reliably Democratic state for two decades until it narrowly backed Trump in 2016, Michigan has appeared more winnable for Harris than some other key states. Biden won it four years ago by a 2.8 percentage-point margin. Harris led Trump 50 per cent to 47 per cent among likely voters in a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll released last week. Polling averages have also shown Harris to have a small lead.

Her success in Michigan depends on running up vote totals in its major cities and immediate suburbs, especially in and around Detroit. Biden won Wayne County, which includes the city, by 38 percentage points in 2020, and Flint’s Genesee County by more than nine points. Both counties have significant populations of Black voters, who have been energized by Harris’ move to the top of the Democratic ticket. She last visited the state two weeks ago, for a livestreamed town hall moderated by Oprah Winfrey.

But there are also potential signs of trouble. The Democratic Senate candidate in the state, Representative Elissa Slotkin, recently told donors that her campaign’s internal polling showed Harris “underwater” there, according to Axios, which said it obtained a video clip of the congresswoman’s comments. 

“I’m not feeling my best right now about where we are on Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan,” she said. 

First Published: Oct 05 2024 | 9:00 AM IST