Vice President Kamala Harris sought to make inroads with working-class voters at a campaign rally in Michigan, where she hammered former President Donald Trump’s economic agenda.
“Let’s be clear: Donald Trump is no friend of labor. Just look at the record and not the rhetoric,” she said Friday at a rally in Grand Rapids. “Seriously, he encouraged automakers to move their plants out of Michigan so they could pay their workers less.”
Ms. Harris vowed to sign the PRO Act if elected in November. The bill would make it easier for workers to unionize. She also blasted the former president’s record on manufacturing, saying he would cost Michigan and the country jobs.
“Donald Trump said he was the only one who could bring back America’s manufacturing jobs,” the Democratic nominee said. “Then America lost almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs when he was president, including tens of thousands of jobs here in Michigan. And those losses were before the pandemic, making Donald Trump one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in history.”
Later Friday, the vice president was to stop in Lansing and Oakland while visiting Michigan.
The Michigan swing is part of the campaign’s aggressive outreach to union workers, who have remained skeptical of Ms. Harris despite her overwhelming backing from labor leaders.
In Lansing, the vice president will campaign at a union hall, which represents workers at a General Motors plant that received a $500 million grant under President Biden’s tax, health care and climate law. The funds helped convert the plant from a gasoline-powered car factory to electric vehicle production.
In her remarks in Grand Rapids, Ms. Harris zeroed in on the funds sent to the state to boost manufacturing and blue-collar jobs. She blasted Mr. Trump’s economic plan, accusing him of wanting to soak working- and middle-class voters with higher taxes while giving handouts to his wealthy friends.
“I will invest in manufacturing communities like Kent County,” she said. “Together we will retool existing factories, hire locally and work with unions to create good-paying jobs.”
Mr. Trump is also making stops in Michigan on Friday, visiting Oakland County and holding an evening rally in Detroit. He will be hosted by Building America’s Future, a conservative nonprofit. He will also intensify his focus on manufacturing jobs and the cost of living, according to a release from the Trump campaign.
Ms. Harris has not received the affinity from laborers that they have for Mr. Biden, who has repeatedly bragged that he’s the most pro-union president in history. Her struggles with unions were laid bare by the decisions of the Teamsters and the International Association of Firefighters not to endorse her campaign.
Michigan remains a margin-of-error race with less than three weeks to go until Election Day. FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker shows Ms. Harris is marginally ahead of Mr. Trump in the battleground state by three-tenths of a percentage point, with 47.5% compared with Mr. Trump’s 47.2%.
The RealClearPolitics tracker shows Mr. Trump ahead by nine-tenths of a point, with the former president erasing Ms. Harris’ lead on Oct. 9.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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