DEARBORN, Mich./MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Harris crisscrossed two Midwest swing states on Friday, as Trump made a last-minute bid to win over Arab-Americans in Michigan while Harris denounced her Republican opponent for violent remarks about former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney.
Heading into the final weekend of the presidential campaign, Trump made a brief stop in the heavily Arab American city of Dearborn, Michigan, where he called for an end to conflict in the Middle East but offered no specifics on how he would do so if elected to a second term.
Visiting The Great Commoner coffee shop in Dearborn, Trump used the appearance to make a pitch to voters that are angry with how the Biden administration has handled Israel's war in Gaza and Lebanon.
"We have a great feeling for Lebanon and I know so many people from Lebanon, Lebanese people and the Muslim population, they're liking Trump and they've had a good relationship with him," he said. "This is it, this is where they are, Dearborn. We want their votes and we're looking for their votes and I think we'll get their votes."
Both Trump and Harris had Friday night rallies in Milwaukee, part of several stops in the key "Blue Wall" states of Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump has a fraught relationship with Arab and Muslim voters, spending much of the last decade demonizing them. In his first days in office, he signed an executive order that banned travel from majority-Muslim countries, and has expressed support for a similar ban if elected again.
At a rally earlier this year in Wisconsin, he implied a surge of migrants into the U.S. would lead to a terrorist attack similar to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel, vowing that "we do not need a jihad in the United States of America."
Now, in a state that he narrowly won by 10,000 votes in 2016 and President Biden won in 2020, Trump's outreach represented a last-minute effort to convert a key demographic group to his side.
Harris called Trump's remarks about Cheney "disqualifying"
Speaking to reporters ahead of her Wisconsin stops, Harris addressed the violent language used by Trump in a late-night diatribe against Cheney, calling the remarks "disqualifying."
Asked about Trump's visit to Dearborn, Harris told reporters she had a "significant amount of support" from Arab Americans because of her position on ending the war in Gaza and her commitment to a two-state solution — and because of her positions on economic issues.
Harris has had her own struggles with Arab American voters stemming from opposition to the war in Gaza. Leaders of the "uncommitted" movement, which grew out of Democratic opposition to President Biden's policy toward Israel and Gaza, has said it would not endorse Harris for president, but it has urged supporters to "vote against" Trump. Harris' rallies are often interrupted by protesters upset about the war in Gaza.
A tussle over the economy
Harris and Trump also spent Friday focused on blue-collar workers, which make up a significant portion of the electorate in both states. Together with Pennsylvania — the third of the "Blue Wall" states — Michigan and Wisconsin are home to a higher eligible-voting population of white voters without college degrees than the four other swing states up for grabs.
At IBEW Local 890 in Janesville — a city that lost thousands of jobs when a GM plant closed in 2009 — Harris panned Trump's record on manufacturing jobs.
"He said Wisconsin would soon be home to a plant that he called ... the eighth wonder of the world," Harris said, referring to a Foxconn factory that was promised but never built. "Typical for a person that is all talk, no walk," she said.
As Harris drove into the town of Little Chute, Trump supporters waved flags and signs outside. But there was also a long line of Harris supporters who couldn’t get in to the overstuffed high school gym.
In the closing stretch of her campaign, Harris has jettisoned a line she had used in nearly every speech, describing herself as the underdog in the race. Now, she is talking more and more about winning.
Even though polls show the race is too close to call in swing states, Harris campaign officials told reporters they have been reassured by early voting data and by recent focus groups with undecided voters.
"Make no mistake: we will win," Harris said at stops on Friday.
At his rally in Milwaukee, Trump zeroed in on Friday's jobs report showing employers added a scant 12,000 jobs in October — a figure that was skewed by an ongoing strike at Boeing and by the impact of Hurricanes Milton and Helene.
"These are the worst numbers anybody's heard of," Trump said.
"I stand before you today is the only candidate who can rescue our economy from total obliteration and restore it to strength, prosperity and actual greatness," he added.
Trump held his Milwaukee rally at the Fiserv Forum, the same arena where he formally accepted the Republican nomination days after an assassination attempt. He won the state in 2016, but lost it to Biden four years ago by just over 20,000 votes.
The final push
This weekend, Trump and Harris will be racing from swing state to swing state, trying to rally supporters and win over the last remaining undecided voters. Harris will have stops in Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina before wrapping her campaign Monday with a set of rallies in Pennsylvania — including one in Allentown, where more than half of people are Latino, mainly Puerto Rican.
Trump will be traveling to Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. He also has a stop in Virginia — a state Harris is widely favored to win. He'll end his campaign with stops Monday in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
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Zena Issa of Michigan Public contributed from Dearborn, Michigan. Tamara Keith reported from Wisconsin.
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