Taking the stage before a rollicking crowd gathered at a hot Detroit Metro Airport hangar on Wednesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris made her first appearance as the Democratic presidential nominee in Michigan, introducing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, and saying "the path to the White House runs right through this state."
"I know we are all clear about what we are up against," Harris told the crowd, referring to the threat she said is posed by the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump and his conservative agenda. But she said in the speech that began just before 8 p.m. that Democrats were not grim about their chances or the effort ahead. "Understand that in this fight, we are happy warriors," she said. "Hard work is good work."
"This election is going to be a fight," she said as the speech got underway. "We like a good fight. When you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for and we know what we stand for."
Moments into her speech, Harris rebuked a small group of hecklers chanting slogans about genocide in Gaza.
"If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that, otherwise I'm speaking." Harris said as she flashed a withering stare at the protesters, who were drowned out by the rest of the crowd before being escorted out.
Harris said Trump's election, if it were to happen, would threaten fundamental freedoms, exacerbate climate change and damage health care access.
"In the next 90 days we need you to use your power ... we need you to energize and organize and mobilize and make your voices heard," she said, as she wrapped up a speech that lasted for about a half hour. "When we fight, we win!"
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Speaking before Harris came out, Walz revved up a crowd he said he was told was the largest to date of any rally of the Democratic campaign this year.
"It’s been a pretty interesting 24 hours for me, I have to be honest," said Walz, referring to his joining Harris for their first rally together Tuesday in Philadelphia. Noting that thousands came out to the airport and stood in the heat to be part of the effort to elect Harris, he said. "This is a place full of working folks, students, folks who care ... you did it (attended the rally) for one simple and beautiful and eloquent reason, you love this country."
Walz also said while Republicans "try to steal the joy from this country," Harris "emanates" it. Several speakers echoed the joy theme, calling Trump dark and divisive.
Both Walz and Harris gave shout-outs to union leaders, including UAW Shawn Fain, who spoke at the rally as well.
The UAW, said Harris, "knows what they fight for and knows how to win."
The rally was boisterous and at times profane but the crowd loved it swaying to the music and waving campaign placards.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer scored the loudest welcome of the warm-up speakers. She spoke just before Harris and Walz took the stage, praising their background while denouncing Trump.
"The truth is we can’t afford another four years of Donald Trump," she said. "A second term of Donald Trump would be an unmitigated disaster…. You wouldn’t buy a used car from this guy, much less trust him with the auto industry."
"We need a strong woman in the White House and it’s about damn time," Whitmer shouted to thunderous applause.
She also said she's been in a friendly competition to outdo Walz' accomplishments as governor for years. "He's the only governor I know who curses more than I do," she said.
Rally comes as the Democrats' fortunes have turned
Harris and Walz' appearance in metro Detroit comes just weeks after President Joe Biden, beset by questions about his age and mental and physical acumen being raised by critics in his own party, agreed to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee, endorsing Harris.
That touched off a political whirlwind that quickly saw Harris, a former U.S. senator and state attorney general from California, become the first Black woman and South Asian woman to secure a major party's nomination for president. In a span of days, Harris locked down support across the party without any serious effort to challenge her, as a burst of enthusiasm propelled her polling numbers higher nationally and in Michigan.
According to the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls done in the state, Harris had a 2-percentage-point lead on Trump in Michigan as of Wednesday. Prior to Biden's leaving the race, the Republican former president had a lead of about that much over Biden. On the day Biden stepped aside, a Free Press poll showed Trump with a 7-point lead over Biden, the highest such showing for a Republican presidential candidate in Michigan in decades.
Michigan is considered, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a key part of the "blue wall" that Democrats need to hold the White House. In 2016, Trump narrowly won all three in route to winning the race over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton; Biden beat Trump in all three four years ago.
Trump has made five visits to Michigan this year, the most recent being a rally in Grand Rapids on July 20, a week after an assassination attempt against him at a rally outside Pittsburgh. Biden has been in the state four times, most recently at a rally at Detroit's Renaissance High on July 12. Harris also visited Kalamazoo in July and in February was part of a roundtable discussion on the need for abortion access in Grand Rapids.
By the beginning of this week, Democrats had voted in a virtual roll call to make Harris the nominee ahead of the national convention in Chicago beginning Aug. 19. On Tuesday, she ended two weeks of speculation over who her vice presidential nominee would be by naming Walz, an avuncular and popular governor in Minnesota, who as a hunter, former high school coach and plainspoken Midwesterner is expected to play well in Michigan. The two kicked off a swing state tour on Tuesday in Philadelphia before heading to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday ahead of the trip to metro Detroit.
Harris and Walz were set to hold another event in metro Detroit on Thursday before heading to Phoenix.
Energy high at rally but several in crowd need medical attention
The energy among the crowd in the packed and hot airport hangar on Wednesday was palpable, with several thousand supporters lining up hours in advance to get inside. By 4:30 p.m., 2 1/2 hours before Harris and Walz were to speak, the hanger was full, with many guests wearing Harris pins or carrying pre-printed signs. Loudspeakers blasted upbeat music and the crowd, which was standing, began dancing at times. After the event got underway, the Detroit Youth Choir got a huge ovation when they completed their set.
There were several instances where it appeared some in the audience needed medical attention because of the heat. Harris, Walz and Whitmer all had to stop their speeches at various moments to call for medics to help people in the audience.
The rally at the hangar also appeared to steal a page from Tump's playbook. He's hosted rallies at hangars in Waterford and Saginaw this year. The crowd in Romulus was pulsing as the Vice President's plane, Air Force Two, pulled up outside with its robin's egg nose cone glistening in the sunshine.
Harris emerged from the plane with "Freedom" by Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar blasting over the loudspeakers.
Gloria Polk, 79, of Detroit, was sweating in the heat but excited to be at the rally. She’d tried to get onto an earlier Harris rally on Zoom but couldn’t get in.
“I was at the Obama rally in Detroit (in 2008) and I sense a similar vibe,” she said. “But this energy came in two weeks.”
Polk said she likes Harris and what she stands for. “I think the fact that that she cooks and dances makes her everybody's person,” she said.
Leslie Wagner, 61, of Grosse Pointe, is a psychologist who was giddy at the thought of seeing Harris. “I saw Geraldine Ferraro (who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee to Walter Mondale in 1984 and the first woman to be a major party's vice presidential nominee) speak, when she ran,” she said. “I saw Hillary Clinton when she was supporting her husband and I'd really like the first woman president to be Kamala Harris.”
Sandra Richardson-Smith of Detroit, said she considers the election crucial to the future of the country. She refused to say Trump's name, saying she only refers to him as 45, the number president he was.
"I'm concerned about the prospect of losing our democracy," she said. "That other president has no program. He's a felon,"
But the Democratic tour wasn't going without challenge: Ahead of Wednesday's rally, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who Trump has named as his vice presidential nominee, made remarks outside the police department in Shelby Township in Macomb County, which Trump has won in each of the last two elections. Vance specifically hit Harris for the Biden administration's failure to stop a surge in undocumented immigrants coming across the southern border for months. Trump has promised to round up illegal immigrants and institute a mass deportation policy if reelected.
Harris' campaign, however, is expected to underscore the argument that the Biden administration had reached a bipartisan deal in Congress to increase funding for border agents and detention facilities only to see it fail when Trump came out against it.
Before the rally, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley issued a statement blaming Harris for high inflation rates and gas prices. "Michiganders won’t be fooled by the Harris-Walz campaign focused on memes, celebrity endorsem*nts and pushing their extreme agenda far and wide," he said.
And some of the criticism came from a crowd of around 50 pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside the event to opposeHarris' appearance.
"As the Biden-Harris administration continues to facilitate almost daily massacres across Gaza, we see through the empty attempts to distance a presidential nominee from her complicity in genocide," said Assmaa Eidy of Dearborn.
Protesters wore Palestinian keffiyehs and waved Palestinian flags as they held signs reading "abandon genocide." Loudspeakers and drumming accompanied chants like "Harris, Harris you can't hide, you are funding genocide." Police vehicles and officers on foot blocked off traffic outside the terminal to allow for the protest and legal observers were onsite.
JD Vance:GOP VP nominee takes aim at Harris, Walz on immigration, policing in Michigan speech
Other Democratic leaders speak before Harris
Prior to the 7 p.m. remarks by Harris and Walz at Detroit Metro Airport, a host of speakers took the stage, including Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and Democratic members of Michigan's U.S. House delegation. U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, who urged Democrats to take the threat posed by Trump in Michigan more seriously eight years ago, said, “I feel a lot better now than I did in 2016."
"Donald Trump is not going to win Michigan,” Dingell said. “Michigan will not let them win. We’re going to hold them accountable.”
U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, reminded the crowd of Harris’ visit to Flint during the city’s water crisis when lead contamination was found in the drinking supply. "She didn’t have to do that,” Kildee said. “She did it because she believes that everybody deserves a shot.”
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan praised Biden and Harris for passing the infrastructure bill that authorized billions in aid to Michigan. He also recalled a visit to the Trump White House when he thought he was going to get word of Trump’s infrastructure plan. Duggan said Trump complained for 30 minutes about how mean CNN had been to him before discussing infrastructure.
“He said there’s no federal money for infrastructure but if you mayors want to build toll roads, you can do that,” Duggan said. “That was his plan.”
Fain, in his remarks, praised Harris as a "badass woman who has stood on the picket line" with workers, including with UAW workers when they struck General Motors in 2019, and denounced Trump − who has repeatedly attacked Fain and UAW brass for endorsing the Democratic ticket − as a "lapdog of the billionaire class," doing little when union auto plants in Michigan, Ohio and Maryland closed during his presidency.
He also noted that Trump began to speak much more favorably about electric vehicles, which he had criticized as expensive and impractical, when Tesla founder Elon Musk endorsed him and committed to helping fund a Super PAC supporting Trump. None of Tesla's plants are unionized.
As for Walz, the UAW president said labor urged that he be selected as Harris' running mate, calling him "a working class guy with working class values."
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.
