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KALAMAZOO, Michigan — Kamala Harris’ hammering of Donald Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric is alarming some Democrats in this critical swing state who fear that message is falling flat.
Voters, they argue, have grown desensitized to Trump and the warnings about him. Polls not only show the economy remains the top concern here, but that Trump holds the advantage on it. And activists worry Harris’ attacks on Trump are distracting from her strongest issue: abortion rights.
In Michigan, where the cracks in Democrats’ traditional coalition have set the party on edge for months, the concern about Harris’ late-stage tactic is coming from all corners.
“It doesn’t play well in communities that are struggling to make ends meet, and that’s the problem. They’re talking to the wrong people,” said Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, a former state representative and Detroit school board member who is backing Harris. “We can’t keep campaigning on modes of fear.”
Harris has ratcheted up her warnings about the dangers of a second Trump term over recent weeks — returning to an argument that was central to President Joe Biden’s now-defunct reelection bid in what her campaign says is a response to the former president’s own escalating rhetoric.
In recent days, Harris has called Trump “unhinged” and “unfit to serve” over his threats to weaponize the military and the judicial system against his opponents, and over his portrayals of his political rivals as the “enemy from within.” She has promoted the idea that Trump is a fascist after his longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly, warned that the former president meets the definition of one. And her campaign has launched TV ads in battleground states warning of Trump’s disdain for democratic practices, a message she is expected to amplify by appearing on Tuesday at the site in Washington where Trump rallied his supporters ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
“Democracy’s on the line, it truly is. When a person tells you something, that they’re going to be a certain way, and they worship people like Hitler, and they say they’re going to turn the army loose on you, … those are words coming from a potential dictator,” said Mary Waters, a Detroit City Council member who is supporting Harris. “Now that is scary.”
Harris ticked through those warnings at a rally in Kalamazoo this past weekend, adding that Trump would “claim unchecked and extreme power” if reelected and reminding voters he called for the “termination” of the Constitution after his failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
But even among this friendly crowd, some Democrats were concerned that Harris was placing too much emphasis on Trump.
“I don’t see us moving anyone over with that message,” said Karen Lancendorfer, a Democrat who had come from nearby Portage to see Harris rally with Michelle Obama. Plus, she said, “it’s risky to go negative, because sometimes independents don’t like negativity.”
Across Michigan, activists are fretting that Harris is missing the mark as Republicans pummel her over the economy and crime in mailers and attack her on TV for declining to distance herself from Biden. And they worry that the argument that Trump is a threat to democracy — while intended to expand her coalition by appealing to independents and disaffected Republicans — is not enough to motivate lower-propensity Democratic voters.
“We’re going to shame people by saying ‘how dare you stay home and Donald Trump gets elected,’ rather than give people a reason to get people off their couches to vote,” lamented Carly Hammond, a Democratic organizer from Saginaw.
After going hard on Trump’s authoritarian tendencies in recent weeks, Harris’ campaign has already begun shifting focus back onto abortion and the economy. Harris held a massive rally in Texas last Friday focused on the threat Trump poses to abortion rights. That was followed Saturday by Obama’s direct appeal to men on the issue while campaigning with the vice president in Kalamazoo — where Harris delivered a speech that also emphasized pocketbook issues like lowering housing costs and tackling price gouging.
In response to a request for comment on local activists’ concerns about Harris’ messaging on Trump, Harris’ campaign said she has focused extensively on the economy in her trips to Michigan. On Monday, Harris visited a semiconductor plant in Saginaw that is set to receive $325 million in subsidies under the CHIPS and Science Act, touting her record on domestic manufacturing and attacking Trump for threatening to roll back the Biden administration’s landmark legislation.
“On every single trip the vice president has made to Michigan, she has been laser-focused on manufacturing, strengthening the economy and lowering costs,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said in a statement the campaign provided to POLITICO.
But as they canvassed a quiet neighborhood of single-family homes in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills on Friday, Democratic activists Marcie Paul and Emily Feinstein found Harris still had work to do on that front. Multiple voters expressed concerns about the economy. One man, an auto-industry worker who said he would not vote for Trump again after Jan. 6 but remained undecided in this election, said he wanted to hear more about the candidates’ business policies. One woman said she is voting for Harris in large part because of reproductive rights — but that she has “no” sway over her husband who “thinks business is more important.”
For Harris, “there’s a balance between the issues and the dangers of Trump,” said Paul, who chairs the Michigan-based progressive women’s group Fems for Dems. And right now, she said, voters want to hear “who [Harris] is and what she wants to do. They’re still getting to know her.”
Trump, on the other hand: “They know who he is,” Paul said.
“Unfortunately, personally, I feel as though we knew this about him,” Paul said of the recent revelations about what critics say are Trump’s fascist tendencies. “It’s just another drop in a very deep bucket.”
