Harris and Trump seek Arab American votes in Michigan in effort to shore up battleground states

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both sought support from Arab American voters Friday as they campaigned in Michigan, trying to lock down support in a battleground state that could decide the presidential race next month.

The Republican nominee visited a new campaign office in Hamtramck, one of the nation’s only Muslim-majority cities, and was joined there by Mayor Amer Ghalib, a Democrat who has endorsed Trump. Meanwhile, three city council members in the same town have endorsed Harris.

“His visit today is to show respect and appreciation to our community,” said Ghalib, who presented Trump with a framed certificate of appreciation.

Michigan is one of three “blue wall” states that, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will help decide the election, and the diverse voting blocs are key to winning the state. Both Trump and Harris, his Democratic rival, made a push for union workers and Black voters as they worked every angle for support.

“It’s an election for president. It’s not supposed to be a cake walk for anyone. There are very important issues at play,” Harris said.

David Plouffe, a top campaign adviser for Harris, told CNN that he believed all of the swing states were still in play, but the key was zeroing in on specific groups of voters.

“We’re going to treat every cohort like they’re a swing voter,” he said. “We’re going to fight for every vote.”

Trump has tried to capitalize on frustration with Harris over the U.S. backing of Israel’s offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel.

His allies have held meetings for months with community leaders in Michigan, which has a sizable population of Arab Americans, particularly in and around Detroit. Asked about the Hamtramck mayor’s endorsement, Trump said: “I mean, frankly, it’s an honor. I’ve got a lot of endorsements, Arab Americans, from a lot of people.”

Trump said he didn’t think the Arab American community would vote for Harris “because she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

At the campaign office, Trump said he was also getting support from unions and that the head of the United Auto Workers — who has endorsed Harris — doesn’t have a clue.

“I’ve saved Michigan,” he said, telling the crowds he would bring back more manufacturing. “We’ll end up having those plants built over here instead of in other countries.”

Trump also said that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack, who was killed by Israelis, “was not a good person.”

“That’s my reaction. That’s sometimes what happens,” he told reporters at the airport in Detroit.

Trump also said he would speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said President Joe Biden “is trying to hold him back … he probably should be doing the opposite, actually.”

Both Biden and Harris have said Sinwar’s death is an opportunity to stop the violence.

On Friday, 52 Lebanese Americans endorsed Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, saying in a letter that the voice of their community “will be heard” under the ticket’s leadership.

The letter reiterated calls for a cease-fire, and it cited a recent decision by the Department of Homeland Security to extend temporary legal status to Lebanese citizens in the U.S. Such status is made available to people from certain countries marred by war, turmoil or natural disasters.

But Harris has also faced demonstrators protesting U.S. support of Israel in the conflict. During a closed-door meeting Thursday with students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she was confronted by a protester, based on a video posted by a pro-Palestinian student group on social media.

According to the video, as Harris was telling students she was invested in them, a protester interrupted her saying, “And in genocide, right? Billions of dollars in genocide?”

The demonstrator was eventually escorted out by university police, as he continued recording.

At Harris’ first event of the day, scores of supporters gathered at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, on a carpet of fallen orange leaves under cloudless skies. The county leaned Republican for many years, and was won by Trump by 3% in 2016. But Biden won the county in 2020, and it has increasingly voted Democratic recently.

A phalanx of Democratic governors — Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Wes Moore of Maryland, Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Kathy Hochul of New York — took the stage before Harris.

Whitmer tore into Trump, calling him “a petty man who tells dangerous lies, and he’s always looking for someone else to blame.”

Harris stepped out to huge cheers as she ran through the differences between herself and Trump, cautioning that electing him would be dangerous for the nation, and slamming him as anti-union.

“The election is here. The election is here right now,” she said as she urged everyone to vote. “Your vote is your voice. Your voice is your power in a democracy.”

Later, at the United Auto Workers Local 652 hall in Lansing, Harris offered a direct message to union members: “I will always have your back.”

She warned that Trump would undermine collective bargaining and worker protections.

“We’ve got to get the word out to all the brothers and sisters in labor to remind them what this dude does,” she said.

Harris played a clip of Trump saying it’s not hard to build a car. “We could have our child doing it,” he said.

The Democratic vice president was set to finish her day at a rally in Oakland County, northwest of Detroit.

Meanwhile, Trump talked up his own support among labor unions and criticized the rise of electric cars during a rival event in Oakland County ahead of an evening rally in Detroit.

He called Teamsters President Sean O’Brien “a great guy.” O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention, and his union decided not to endorse Harris, which was viewed as a victory for Trump, given the union’s past support for Democrats.

“I think it’s been many decades before they endorsed a Republican. I think they’ll start very soon,” Trump said.

Trump’s Detroit event will be his first there since insulting the city last week. While warning what will happen if Harris is elected, he said that “our whole country will end up being like Detroit.” The city spent years hemorrhaging residents and businesses, plunging into deep financial problems, before rebounding in recent years.

Price reported from Detroit, and Cappelletti reported from Lansing, Michigan. Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New York; Isabella Volmert in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Colleen Long in Washington; and Scott Bauer in Milwaukee contributed to this report.