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Harris and Walz rally in Ann Arbor, as singer Maggie Rogers urges voters to ‘choose the light’ 

By Michigan Advance

October 29, 2024
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BY ANNA LIZ NICHOLS, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

MICHIGAN—The stakes of the election are clear, singer Maggie Rogers told attendees at a Monday rally for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in Ann Arbor. With the future of the country on the line, Rogers said she feels terrified.

“These are such wild and unprecedented times, and the energy feels so high, and the future feels so uncertain, and I don’t always know what to do with that feeling, but there is something to me that is greater than fear, and that’s action,” Rogers said at the event at the University of Michigan. “You can fight back against the fear of Donald Trump and everything that he creates. You can take action against his darkness. You can choose the light.”

So Rogers sang her song “Light On,” giving a new message to “leave the light on” for hope as the crowd lit their phones up at the rally at Burns Park.

The campaign said the rally drew 21,000 people. Harris appealed to the U of M community, located in a Democratic stronghold, praising all the first-time voters in the audience and saying that the baton for the fight for freedom sits in young people’s hands.

“I love your generation. I really do. … You are rightly impatient for change. I love that about you. You are impatient for change because you have only known the climate crisis and are leading then the charge to protect our planet and our future. You young leaders who grew up with active shooter drills and are fighting then to keep our schools safe,” Harris said. “You who now know fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers are standing up for reproductive freedom. … This is not political for you. It is your lived experience, and I see you, and I see your power.”

Although Harris and Walz are both barnstorming swing states, and have made frequent appearances in Michigan during the stretch of the election, the Ann Arbor visit marked a rare occasion that they appeared on the same stage.

Harris opened up her speech by touting her running mate, Walz, a former high school football coach.

“Coach Walz is always bringing the joy,” Harris said. “He cares about people. He understands people. He understands hard work, and he understands what it means to be a leader who lifts people up instead of trying to beat people down. That is Tim Walz.”

In football terms, the election is tied with two minutes on the clock, Walz told the crowd. It’s going to be a tough fight, but the Harris campaign is taking a page out of former University of Michigan head football coach Bo Schembechler’s book by focusing on “The Team. The Team, The Team, The Team,” rather than just one person.

“We’re moving this thing over the next eight days, an inch at a time, a yard at a time, one door at a time, one phone call at a time. … One or two extra votes per precinct in the state of Michigan will make Kamala Harris the president of the United States,” Walz said. “Leave it all on the field. When you’re old and gray like me, and you’re sitting on the porch and you’re rocking in that chair, and your grandchildren ask you, ‘What did you do in 2024 to save this democracy?’ — you’re going to be able to tell them, ‘Every damn thing you could.’”

Earlier in the day Monday, Harris traveled to Saginaw, where she visited Corning’s Hemlock Semiconductor Next Gen Facility, which recently received a $325 million investment under the CHIPS and Science Act which will add more than 1,000 more jobs.

Trump recently bashed the CHIPS and Science Act on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, saying it only allows rich companies to borrow money saying it’s not even good companies who benefit.

Harris spoke to employees at the Saginaw facility, thanking them for their work, which represents “the best of who we are as a country” as they work on innovative technology while honoring Michigan’s heritage of manufacturing.

She also stopped by an International Union of Painters and Allied Trades training facility in Warren, talking with union members and apprenticeship instructors about how labor organizations have promoted their ability to support their families and how apprenticeship programs support the community.

In Ann Arbor, Harris blasted Trump’s plan to make companies produce goods in the U.S. by implementing high tariffs on foreign goods saying his proposed 20% tariffs effectively would place a 20% sales tax on U.S. residents, costing them close to $4,000 a year.

Although voters should examine the plans Trump has for the economy and for affordable health care, it’s important to note what he’s already done, Harris said, notably, orchestrating the repeal of federal rights to abortion.

Rogers’ performance “Back in My Body” earlier in the evening seemed to underscore the campaign’s message for reproductive freedom. As she sang the lyrics “This time, I know I’m fighting. This time, I know I’m back in my body.”

And as women are being denied medical care during miscarriages and women have died since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,Harris said it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Trump who would want abortion bans in many states.

But even with all that has happened, there’s a lot to look forward to, Harris said, looking out at all the young people at the Ann Arbor rally who will be voting for the first time in a presidential election.

“… [T]he future of our country is bright. …We are fighting for the future, and we understand the opportunity that we have before us to turn the page on the fear and divisiveness that have characterized our politics for a decade because of Donald Trump,” Harris said. ”We have an opportunity to turn the page and chart a new and joyful way forward where we tap into the ambitions … and the aspirations and the dreams of the American people.”

READ MORE: Michigan voters share why they’re supporting Kamala Harris at Flint rally

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license. 

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CATEGORIES: VOTING
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