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    • In Ann Arbor, Kamala Harris is urging the younger generation to vote
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    In Ann Arbor, Kamala Harris is urging the younger generation to vote

    Kathleen William Posted on

    ANN ARBOR – Eight days before the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris urged a crowd that included scores of University of Michigan students and other young voters Monday night to help the nation move on from former Republican President Donald Trump said her generation is “rightly impatient for change.”

    Pointing to many of the issues that have shaped a younger generation, from growing up with the threat of climate change and active shooter drills in schools to a more recent nationwide rollback of abortion protections, Harris said: “The issues at stake are not theoretical in nature.” Problems for you. This is your lived experience… I see you and I see your strength.

    As early voting takes place statewide in Michigan, Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, vowed to fight on the issues that motivate younger voters, including working to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. At one point, when some of those present began to interrupt her, she said: “We all want this war to end as quickly as possible and the hostages to be released, and as president I will do everything in my power to achieve that.”

    Much of the 25-minute speech, for which she was introduced by her vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, revolved around Harris' plans to cut costs and help small businesses and first-time home buyers, as well as hers Arguments that Trump, who is running for re-election after his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020, would impose tariffs that amount to a national sales tax and implement other parts of an agenda that at least one research group in Washington says could accelerate cuts to Social Security benefits .

    Harris said that while she believes Trump is a “dubious person,” she added that “the consequences if he becomes president again are brutally severe.”

    “There is so much at stake in this election,” she said. “This is not 2016 or 2020. We can all see that Donald Trump is more unstable and moody and wants unchecked power now. This time there will be no one to stop him.”

    A few thousand people filled a large open space at Burns Park, a neighborhood park in Ann Arbor near downtown and UM, as a warm and sunny fall day turned into a cool evening as the sun set before Harris took the stage . Joining Harris in the Park was Maryland singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers, whose hits include “Alaska” and “Light On.”

    Harris drew loud cheers from the large crowd, many of whom waved maize and blue placards that read “Vote” and interrupted Harris with chants of “Kamala.”

    Harris and Trump were frequent visitors to Michigan and only had about a week of campaigning left. Monday was the 15th day Harris spent in Michigan this year, although she made four visits before launching her presidential campaign in August. Trump's rally in Michigan on Saturday marked his 15th day of campaigning in the state this year.

    It was the first Harris rally in Ann Arbor, long a Democratic stronghold in the key battleground state of Michigan. Polls show there is a near stalemate between Trump and Harris both in Michigan and across the US

    Responding to Harris' visit to Michigan on Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said Harris was trying to “light up” people about her “dangerously liberal agenda,” pointing out that most Michigan voters believe , Trump is “better suited to getting the economy under control.”

    Trump campaign spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita used the title of a song sung by Rogers, “Light On,” as she criticized Harris, saying that if she were elected, “Michigans won't be able to afford to keep the lights on.”

    Many of those in line to see Harris in Ann Arbor on Monday said they strongly supported the vice president's candidacy but were not confident she would win the election.

    Ann Arbor residents Mitchell Silverman, a retired software developer, and his wife Deborah Panush, a retired educator, admitted they are not confident about the outcome of the Nov. 5 election, but said they don't have that Feeling like Harris could have done that or she should have campaigned differently than she did.

    “Scared,” Silverman said when asked how confident he was that Harris would win, adding that he felt better about the outcome in the run-up to the 2020 election than he did this year.

    The January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is one of the main reasons Silverman said he feels different this time.

    “I don’t understand how January 6th happened and 47% of Americans think it’s still a good idea to do it again,” he said.

    Still, “I am hopeful because history has shown time and time again that there is the possibility of surprising,” Silverman said. “When you're of the right age, you realize that you never expected the Berlin Wall to come down, and it did, without a shot being fired.

    “I never expected to see a black president in my life, and that’s what I saw.”

    Panush, who has never seen Harris speak in person and was looking forward to doing so on Monday, said “hope is better than the alternative,” which she said was despair.

    Neither Silverman nor Panush thought Harris should have done more to show that she would represent a departure from President Joe Biden.

    As vice president, “her job is to be the loyal deputy,” so it wouldn't make sense for her to turn around and appear critical of Biden, Silverman said.

    Ann Arbor social worker Claudia Piper said her biggest concern is a Trump victory, followed by his death in office and the rise to the presidency of Trump's vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. She fears that if this happens, women could lose not only their reproductive rights but also the right to vote and that the United States could become what she called a Christian fascist state.

    Piper said that while volunteering on the UM campus in recent days, she met several young white men who cheerfully expressed support for Trump and mocked Harris' candidacy.

    “I've never seen this kind of anger and I've been doing political things since I was 12 years old,” Piper said.

    Ann Arbor resident Candace Bramson, a research physician at a pharmaceutical company, said she follows politics closely and followed the convention speech Harris gave, her debate with Trump and has followed many other public speeches she has given.

    “I think a lot of it will probably be the same, but I'm still looking forward to seeing them in person,” Bramson said.

    She said she was “pretty nervous” about the outcome of the election.

    “I’ve been watching the polls and they’re deadlocked,” she said. “I just hope it’s a voting error or that they didn’t take voter turnout into account.”

    She said everyone in her social circle was very involved in the election and many had already voted.

    Bramson said she didn't think Harris should do more to show she was moving away from Biden.

    “He’s done great things,” such as passing historic climate legislation with the Inflation Reduction Act, Bramson said. “I don’t know why people are so critical of Biden.”

    Earlier in the day, Harris stopped at a company outside Saginaw that makes materials for semiconductors and was awarded up to $325 million in funding last week to boost domestic supply chains through a Biden administration bill known as the CHIPS and Science Act were awarded and help with the production. At Hemlock Semiconductor, where Harris met with workers and delivered brief remarks, she pointed to Trump's criticism of the bipartisan bill and said that when Trump was president, “he sold advanced chips to China that helped them with their agenda to modernize their military.” “

    “This is not … what is in the best interest of the security and prosperity of America,” she said, according to a press report about the event that was not broadcast.

    Harris also spent about 20 minutes Monday touring a union training facility in Warren where trainees learn a range of skills, such as glass assembly and industrial painting. At the end of the tour, she spoke briefly to a small group of supporters, reiterating her support for unions and calling Trump an anti-labor activist. When a man said she would win the upcoming election, Harris gave him a high five. “Save our country from him,” another man present said to Harris, prompting others in the room to nod in agreement.

    While Harris touted federal investment in manufacturing jobs, there is more at stake this November than the current White House's efforts to create good-paying union jobs, she said. “One of us will be elected and one of us will be sitting in the Oval Office on January 20th and it's a decision on many levels, including whether Donald Trump should sit in the Oval Office and stew about his enemies list or what do we do together will do…focus on American workers and American families,” Harris said.

    She expressed confidence that she will defeat Trump. “We will win,” she said to applause.

    Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.

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    Kathleen William
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