KAMALA Harris was forced to laugh off an awkward encounter with her supporters last night as a feeble attempt to fire them up fell flat.
The vice president was making her final stop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Monday, where she was joined by her running mate Tim Walz and singer Maggie Rogers.
Kamala Harris addresses the crowd at her campaign rally at Burns Park in Ann Arbor, Michigan,[/caption]
The VP, pictured last night, will give her closing arguments on Tuesday[/caption]
At one point, her enthusiastic fans began chanting her name, yelling “Ka-ma-la, Ka-ma-la, Ka-ma-la”.
The quick-thinking VP tried to flip the script, asking supporters to yell their own names instead of hers.
“Now I want each of you to shout your own name. Do that,” Harris said. “Because it’s about all of us,” she laughed.
A quiet murmur began but the vast majority of the crowd was baffled, lowering signs and looking around.
Harris was quick to recover and laughed off the bizarre moment, continuing her speech: “I have fought my whole career to put the people first.”
Sticking largely to her stump speech, she went on: “Now is the time to get out the vote, Michigan,” as the crowd chanted “vote, vote vote”.
The presidential nominee also spoke directly to youngsters, telling them: “I love your generation, I really do,” noting they are “rightly impatient for change”.
Michigan had the highest youth voter turnout rate nationwide in 2022, with long lines stretching outside polling locations on college campuses.
Harris told the crowd on Monday: “You can vote early now through Sunday, November 3, and we need you to vote early, Michigan, because we have just eight days to go, the Democratic presidential nominee said at an outdoor rally in 50-degree weather.”
“And we will win,” she said. “We have an opportunity to turn the page and chart a new and joyful way forward.”
Thousands packed into Burns Park for the event featuring Rogers, who sang Love You for a Long Time and some of her other hits.
The event also reunited Harris with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, spent the day in the swing state of Georgia, a day after hosting his controversial rally in New York that saw speakers use crude and racist language.
“I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump told his supporters at Georgia Tech.
“Now the way they talk is so disgusting and just horrible.”
Before the huge Maga event at MSG, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz, had compared it to a 1939 rally held by Nazi sympathizers at the same venue.
A string of officials who worked with Trump have also recently described him as a “fascist” while the wild rhetoric used at the MSG rally sparked fury among voters.
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” triggering condemnation from Hispanic leaders.
Speaking in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump went on to call out former First Lady Michelle Obama, calling her “nasty”.
“You know who’s nasty to me? Michelle Obama,” he said.
“I always tried to be so nice and respectful … She opened up a little bit of something. She was nasty. Shouldn’t be that way. That was a big mistake that she made.”
Obama spoke at a political rally with Harris over the weekend and is set to headline an Atlanta rally for her nonpartisan voter engagement group on Tuesday.
It comes as uncertainty ramps up into the final full week of the 2024 campaign, with Harris and Trump locked in a fiercely competitive presidential contest.
What happens in the coming days will be pivotal in deciding the winner of next week’s election.
