Donald Trump Heads to Michigan as Kamala Harris Opens Poll Lead

Former President Donald Trump is set to head to Michigan, where Vice President Kamala Harris is polling 3 points ahead.
Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to campaign on Thursday in the swing state, where he will deliver a speech in Potterville on the economy, inflation and manufacturing. It will be his third visit to the state in the past nine days and second this week after a speech to the National Guard Association in Detroit on Monday.
Potterville is in Michigan’s 7th District, which features a mix of Republican-dominated counties like Clinton and Shiawassee and Democratic strongholds such as Ingham.
The former president will discuss how he “will Make America Affordable Again and make sure that more of our money stays in our pocketbooks. He’ll stop the war on energy and protect Michigan’s auto industry, preserving the jobs that are the backbone of the Great Lakes State,” his campaign said in a Saturday morning press release.
He will then head to Wisconsin, where he will speak at a town hall moderated by former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who endorsed him in Detroit on Monday.
Trump’s campaign team is focusing on battleground states as he attempts to improve his standing in the polls.
“We need to keep our eye on the ball – that is the polling in our target states. Our goal is to get to 270 and winning these states is how we do it,” Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio said in a memo sent to journalists last week.
In Michigan, Harris is polling 3 points ahead of Trump, 46.7 percent to his 43.7 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker. The latest poll from the state, conducted by ActiVote between July and August 28, showed Harris and Trump tied.
Trump won Michigan in 2016, but the state flipped blue and backed Joe Biden in 2020.
The former president looked set to win Michigan back from the Democrats this year, leading Biden by a significant margin in the polls, until Harris became the party’s candidate last month, overtaking the former president’s lead on July 30, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Harris has also overtaken Trump’s lead in the other six swing states at various points and is currently leading Trump in every swing state other than North Carolina. She overtook him in Georgia on Wednesday with a 0.2-point lead.
Trump will visit Pennsylvania on Friday, where Harris is leading him by 1.7 points per FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker.
As Harris gains momentum in the polls, her campaign is also targeting battleground states. The vice president and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are currently on a two-day bus tour around Georgia.
On Wednesday, Harris and Walz visited Liberty County High School in Hinesville, where they dropped in on a practice session by the school’s band.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, also visited Georgia last week, where he sparked criticism after struggling to make conversation with employees at a donut shop.
Vance expressed sympathy for one of the workers at the shop who asked to be kept off camera in an interview with NBC News published on Tuesday.
“We walked in, and there’s 20 Secret Service agents, and there’s 15 cameras, and she clearly had not been properly warned, and she was terrified, right? I just felt awful for her,” Vance said.