The presidential candidates were back in Michigan this weekend, the latest in dozens of Mitten State visits this year. In recent weeks, those visits feel more narrowly targeted toward Black voters.
Sam Robinson is a Detroit-based journalist. This fall, he’s covering election stories for the Detroit Free Press. We called him to talk about what he’s observed attending multiple stops for the Trump and Harris campaigns.
“They're really making a blitz,” Robinson said, referring to the week of October 14th.
“The alarm was raised a couple of weeks ago. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, a former state representative, who sort of sounded the alarm, and said that she didn't feel like the Harris campaign was doing enough to connect.”
Many Democratic party activists are still haunted by memories of Hillary Clinton’s stinging presidential defeat in 2016 – a year when analysts say the Clinton campaign missed opportunities to visit Michigan and close the sale with Black voters in metro Detroit, until then, a reliable sector of Clinton’s base.
This year, Robinson tells us the Harris campaign is taking no chances, scheduling voter roundtables and discussions with luminaries like actor Don Cheadle, former South Carolina Congressman Bakari Sellars, and - this past weekend - former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign continues to make pocketbook appeals and aim a cultural wedges toward socially conservative Black voters, in hopes of luring them away from the Democratic party. Robinson told us about a conversation with one Black Detroiter who said the former president stands in line with his own opposition to abortion rights and transgender rights.
Listen to the conversation for more on motivating issues, and Sam’s takeaways from independent Black voters he’s met this fall.
