Harris meets with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Michigan
FLINT, Mich. — Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Michigan on Friday, part of an ongoing effort to stem defections from a pivotal group of voters who have fiercely criticized President Joe Biden for his staunch support of Israel’s wars in Gaza and now Lebanon.
The meeting came during a campaign swing through the Rust Belt as Harris has tried to both shore up and showcase the multiracial, multiethnic and even bipartisan coalition she hopes will land her in the White House. Arab Americans make up an unusually large proportion of the Democratic electorate in Michigan, a state critical to Harris’s campaign strategy.
On Thursday, the vice president campaigned in Ripon, Wis., with former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of the most outspoken Republican critics of former president Donald Trump. Cheney and her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, endorsed Harris last month, and on Thursday the former conservative congresswoman said Harris would be the first Democrat she has ever voted for.
After Friday’s meeting with Muslim leaders, Harris spoke at a campaign rally in Flint, a majority Black city whose 2014 water crisis became an international symbol of government neglecting the basic needs of its vulnerable citizens. That year, it emerged that a failure to add proper corrosion-control chemicals to the water supply had allowed lead to flow into homes and threaten the entire community.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/04/harris-rally-flint-detroit-michigan/