Kamala Harris started “like a rocket” at Michigan. Now she slipped

Marcie Paul is upset.

Paul, a Democratic activist, is knocking on the doors of hundreds of strangers, making phone calls and sending out fliers, all in an attempt to get people to vote for Kamala Harris.

When Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in July, Paul was hopeful after seeing the vice president “take off like a rocket” in Michigan.

The state is one of three “blue wall” states – along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – that went Democrat in 2020, and if won again, it would help Harris to a presidential victory.

But with less than a month until Election Day, Harris' honeymoon in Michigan may be coming to an end, making her path to victory less certain. Last week's Quinnipiac poll showed Donald Trump leading the swing state by three points.

“It would be truly unrealistic for anyone to maintain this pace throughout the entire race — even if it is significantly shortened,” said Ms. Paul, a resident of West Bloomfield, Michigan, and co-founder of the liberal group Fems for Dems. “But I thought we would be a little more comfortable.”

Ms. Paul is among several Democratic Party organizers and lawmakers in Michigan who say the state's presidential race is tighter than expected, even though the Harris campaign appears to have learned lessons from 2016. Critics say then-Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton lost the state because she won, obviously.

Michigan, which was a reliably blue Midwestern state before 2016, has since become a battleground state with 15 key Electoral College votes.

At this point in the election cycle four years ago, when Biden was fighting Trump, the Democratic candidate had a clear advantage and won the state by 150,000 votes. Now it's dead heat.

“There is no obvious solution” for Harris to break through, said Michigan State University politics professor Matt Grossmann.

Democrats have poured millions into advertising in the state. Harris' participation in the race brought more than 100,000 new volunteers to Michigan, and her campaign says she visited the state more than any other state except Pennsylvania.

Trump has also made at least a dozen stops in Michigan this year, but some campaign operatives have raised alarm that his campaign has allowed old-fashioned field game tactics like door knocking and billboards to fall by the wayside in several swing states, including Michigan.

But Harris is increasing her campaign visits this week after at least three Michigan Democratic lawmakers warned of declining support.

But Michigan's tight race shouldn't come as a surprise, Lavora Barnes, chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party, told the BBC.

“Nobody working here in Michigan should have or expected it to be any easier than it already is,” she said. “We always knew it would be difficult.”

Even though the state is far from the southern border, Democratic organizers still hear that immigration is a top concern for Michigan voters.

“I don't understand why,” said Ms. Paul, the Fems for Dems leader. “It just doesn't matter to us.”

But the issue resonated with many voters the BBC spoke to, including Mary Beierschmitt of Novi, Michigan.

“This is a serious problem,” she said, adding that she believed Harris did not handle the situation well as vice president when tasked with finding solutions to the source of migration.

Last year, the number of illegal border crossings reached a record high. After the Biden administration introduced asylum restrictions, they dropped to their lowest level in four years.

Trump has made attacks on Harris' immigration record a centerpiece of his campaign. His attention focused not only on the southern border but also on Midwestern states, including neighboring Michigan, Ohio, where the former president falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants settling illegally in the town of Springfield and eating its inhabitants' animals.

Voters tend to blame the party in power for frustrations over domestic issues like the economy and immigration, even if the Biden administration is not solely responsible for the border crisis and rising costs of living, said Jonathon Hanson, a lecturer at the Ford University School of Public Policy in Michigan .

“The disadvantage with Harris and Biden is that while they have done a lot of things to help the economy recover from the deep downturn, it is a harder story to tell from a political perspective,” he said.

Trump may also have an advantage among some swing voters in Michigan because he is better known than Harris after four years in office and years in the public eye, Hanson said.

Tim and Janet of Novi, Michigan, say they know Trump's personality well and don't like it. But independent voters have already cast their ballots for Trump because they believe he articulates his policies better than Harris.

“I can't vote for someone just because it's a good time to feel good,” said Tim, a 75-year-old who declined to give his last name for privacy reasons. “They need to do something and have policy initiatives that will be beneficial.”

But in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Harris' new economic policies are having an impact on independent voter Darrell Sumpter.

The vice president introduced a number of economic proposals during her campaign, which included a plan to provide first-time homebuyers with an average $25,000 and an expansion of the child tax credit.

“I could never even afford a house. I've been waiting for years,” said Sumpter, 52, who voted for Trump in 2020 and is leaning toward Harris this year.

“I don't want the country to go right back to the same state it was under Trump,” he added.

In 2016, former Secretary of State Clinton campaigned mostly nationally rather than locally in the state, Grossmann said.

“The ads were the same here as anywhere else,” he said. “They were about Trump's personality and saying negative things, but there was a belief that it didn't really work.”

She lost the state by just 10,000 votes.

Currently, both Harris and Trump are focusing their messages in Michigan on the state's largest industry, automakers, in an attempt to appeal to working-class and union voters.

In recent weeks, Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, have criticized the Biden administration's support for the electric vehicle industry, saying it will cost Michigan auto workers their jobs.

Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz responded by claiming that Trump cost the state manufacturing jobs while he was president.

But on other local issues, the obscurity may actually be to Trump's advantage, political experts say.

Michigan, home to the largest Arab-American population in the U.S., is birthplace of the Uncommitted movementa protest campaign to pressure Biden and Harris to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

The movement refused to endorse Harris, raising concerns that a credible Democratic voting bloc would not side with the party this time.

Meanwhile, Trump won over some Arab Americans by saying less, Grossmann said. The former president has been vocal about his support for Israel, but he also promised to end the war, without providing details on how he would do it.

“In this community, being vague or vague is kind of an advantage,” Grossmann said.

In Hamtramck, a suburb of Detroit where approximately 60% of the population is Muslimthe city's first Arab mayor, a Democrat, supported Trump.

“President Trump and I may not agree on everything, but I know he is a man of principle,” Mayor Amer Ghalib told the media.

“We asked many times whether (Biden and Harris) should change course, but nothing happened.”

Despite concerns about declining support, several political experts and Democratic strategists say Harris' campaign is doing almost everything in its power to stay on top of the race in Michigan.

Still, Alysa Diebolt, chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Macomb County, which Trump won in 2020, said more could always be done to stoke voter apathy.

“I think Harris definitely has something to work on,” Diebolt said. “You have to sprint to the finish line in Michigan.”

Sharon Baseman, vice-president of Fems for Dems, said she hoped these concerns would motivate people not to become complacent.

“We are all afraid,” she said.

Hanson noted that polls in Michigan and across the country will likely be off by a few points on Election Day. However, he added that it was difficult to determine in which direction.

“It's a razor-thin margin,” he said, “so it really could go either way.”