During a campaign stop with firefighters in Detroit Friday, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris praised their “extraordinary” work and the union that represents them, using worker rights as the starting point for a speech about her economic plan if elected.
“I am so thankful to you and for the union that supports you and your right to all that you deserve in terms of the wages and the benefits that you so rightly have earned,” Harris told the crowd at Redford Township Fire Department, where a banner reading “A New Way Forward” hung above a fire truck.
Harris was speaking to members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and United Auto Workers — unions that endorsed her within days of taking over the Democratic presidential campaign from President Biden in July.
“When unions are strong, America is strong. And our unions have always fought to make our nation more equal, more fair and more free,” she said one day after the Biden administration helped negotiate a tentative agreement with striking dockworkers to reopen the nation’s East Coast ports.
It also comes as the U.S. Labor Department released a surprisingly upbeat jobs report for September and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.1%.
Speaking in a key battleground state, Harris trumpeted a statistic she often brings up at campaign rallies — the Biden administration’s creation of 730,000 new manufacturing jobs over the past three-and-a-half years — and added some Michigan specifics. She said 20 new auto plants had been announced during her term as Vice President and that 500,000 new small businesses had applied to open in the state.
“When I am president, I plan to build on that progress and that success,” she said, before outlining many of the points in her recently released economic plan.
That plan includes an increase in the small business startup tax deduction from $5,000 to $50,000, working with the private sector to build 3 million new homes by 2028 and providing first-time home buyers with $25,000 in down payment assistance.
She acknowledged living costs need to be lower and reiterated her plan to lower prices on everything from health care to groceries by taking on corporate price gouging. She also pledged to cut taxes for 100 million middle-class Americans and offer a $6,000 child tax credit.
“I will always put the middle class and working families first,” Harris said. “I come from the middle class, and I will never forget where I come from.”
Drawing a contrast with former President Donald Trump and repeating her oft-used lines about the gifts and wealth transfers he received from his father and his publicized multiple flirtations with bankruptcy, she said, “In this election, in 32 days, everything we have fought for is on the line.”
At an event later Friday in Flint, basketball hall of famer and legendary Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson stumped for Harris in his home state.
"Nobody's going to outwork her," Johnson told the crowd in Flint. "She's committed to you as the people United States, the people of Michigan. She's committed to you. She's going to be a president for everybody. And one thing she's going to do is finally unite us, bring us together, that other party is trying to tear us down."
He also encouraged Black men to turn out for Harris with roughly a month until Election Day.
"Our Black men, we've got to get them out to vote, that's number one," he said. ""Kamala's opponent promised a lot of things last time to the Black community that he did not deliver on. And we gotta make sure Black men understand that.
"So, that's why I'm here: To make sure I help Black men understand, first, get out and vote, and then vote for the next president of the United States, Kamala Harris," he said.
Also speaking Friday in Flint, UAW president Shawn Fain, who called Trump a "scab," echoing his comments from the Democratic National Convention in August.
Harris said that, unlike what Trump says about the Biden administration’s rules on electric vehicles, “I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”
“But here’s what I will do, I will invest in communities like Flint,” she said.
Harris also criticized Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, after Vance, while campaigning in Michigan on Wednesday, refused to commit to continue federal support going to a GM plant in Lansing, Michigan's state capital.
“Donald Trump's running mate suggested that if Trump wins, he might let the Grand River Assembly Plant in Lansing close down,” Harris said as the crowd booed.
She said that, by contrast, the Biden administration had fought to keep the plant open, adding, “Michigan, we, together, fought hard for those jobs and you deserve a president who won't put them at risk.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.