Vice President Kamala Harris (L) and former President Donald Trump (R) | Andrew Roth and Getty Images photos
With campaign schedules coming into focus for the final hours of the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris is on track to significantly outpace former President Donald Trump in the number of events each candidate has held in Michigan.
Harris has held 22 events in Michigan since becoming the Democratic nominee for president after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign on July 21. Those events were split across 10 trips to the state.
In that same timeframe, Trump has, so far, participated in 15 events, visiting the state 10 times – with one final trip scheduled for Monday night, continuing a tradition of holding his final rally in Grand Rapids, where he also closed out his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
Dante Chinni, the director of the American Communities Project at Michigan State University, said that Harris, 60, embarking on an aggressive campaign schedule is likely a result, at least in part, of her being younger than Trump, 78, and Biden, 81.
“I don’t think Biden would have been capable of keeping up that kind of tempo. So the one thing is, many more events for Harris than there would have been for Biden,” Chinni said. “And honestly, I think you’re seeing some of that catch up with Trump a little bit. … I know we all talked about how old Joe Biden was, which was correct; Joe Biden’s very old. But Donald Trump’s very old, too, and I think that’s catching up with him a little bit.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 60, also outpaces 40-year-old U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), holding 20 solo events and joining Harris at three events across seven trips compared to Vance’s 13 solo events and one joint appearance with Trump across 10 trips.
The two men are scheduled to make one final trip apiece to the state on Monday. Vance is set to speak at an afternoon rally in Flint and Walz is scheduled to hold a Detroit rally with his wife, Gwen Walz, and singer Jon Bon Jovi that is expected to be part of a coordinated string of events live-streamed from across seven key swing states for a national audience.
While Trump has held rallies in Grand Rapids, Walker and Traverse City, Chinni said that the campaign has primarily deployed Vance to the west side of the state.
“I think there is some sign in the data that Republicans think, or the Trump campaign thinks, that Vance may be better on the western side of the state where the conservative nature of that part of the state has a little more of a religious overtone,” Chinni said. “Whereas Trump is really more like, give me the factory workers, I’m going to get them out and get them excited.”
But while Harris and Walz have made more total stops throughout the state than Trump and Vance, the Democratic ticket has generally held fewer general admission rallies, relying instead on smaller gatherings with union members and voters from target demographics.
Only about a quarter of Harris-Walz campaign events have been open to the general public, compared to about three quarters of Trump-Vance events.
In total, Trump will have held 10 rallies that were open to the general public, while Harris has held seven. Vance will have held 12 solo rallies, compared to Walz’s five solo rallies.
That’s in part because Trump’s support largely comes from diffuse rural areas, making it easier to reach those voters by holding a rally in a nearby population center, Chinni said.
“He’s going to end up around metropolitan areas because he wants a crowd,” Chinni said. “He’s not a small gathering kind of guy.”
Harris, for her part, has been focused on major cities – including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Lansing, Saginaw and Kalamazoo – in an effort to increase turnout in areas where voters are likely to break for Democrats.
“She’s hitting the parts of the state with larger African-American populations, which is perceived to be something of a weakness for her right now,” Chinni said. “She’s got to turn out the Black vote, and I think there’s some concern about Black men in particular and trying to reach those voters.”
No part of the state has received more attention than metro Detroit, with numerous visits from Harris, Walz, Vance and Trump.
“There’s every reason in the world to go to Detroit,” Chinni said. “It’s the biggest city in the state, it’s the biggest county in the state, the metro area is the biggest media market in the state. And it also happens to be Harris-friendly.”
In the final days of the campaign, Harris has focused on visiting college campuses while in Michigan, hosting rallies in Ann Arbor on Oct. 28 and East Lansing on Sunday.
“Her key to victory, in some ways, could be turning out large numbers of 18-to-29-year-old women, who are heavily Democratic right now,” Chinni said.
Michigan will end the election just shy of 100 total campaign stops by each nominee for president and vice president this year.
But while both campaigns have sent surrogates to the Upper Peninsula, none of the nominees for president or vice president have made the trip themselves.
“If I had time and I was the Harris campaign, I might spend the morning in Marquette,” Chinni said. “It’s really Democratic, and the race is so close, you get an extra 5,000 votes, who knows? This is the kind of election that might make a difference.”
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