Economy, abortion

At her campaign stops in Michigan, Harris questioned Trump’s character and emphasized abortion rights following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stripped away national protections.

Despite having been vice president for the past four years, Harris attempted to present herself as the candidate of change ready to close the book on the Trump era of political discord. He earned endorsements from some notable Michigan Republicans, including former U.S. Representatives Fred Upton and Dave Trott.

Trump, meanwhile, spent considerable time criticizing the economy under Democrats, including inflation that spiked in 2021 and 2022 but has since declined.

He copied Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” – and framed the election as a referendum on Harris’s job as vice president under Biden.

As he did in previous campaigns, Trump also criticized undocumented immigrants and argued that Democrats were not doing enough to protect Michigan’s auto industry from foreign competition.

The Trump campaign also made a major bet: diverting resources from traditional get-out-the-vote efforts to a new “election integrity” program.

This was done, in large part, to assure Trump’s most loyal supporters that the election was worth participating in, despite Trump’s continued claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him.

The heavy focus on litigation meant that a substantial portion of the Republican ground game was outsourced to groups like America PAC, funded by Elon Musk, and Turning Point Action.

A series of dark money groups funded by Musk, the world’s richest man, also funded ad campaigns aimed at harming Harris by promoting her as pro-Israel in Muslim areas of Michigan and as pro-Palestinian in Jewish areas of the state.

Reporters Nushrat Rahman, Mike Wilkinson and Robin Erb contributed