This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.
As early voting kicked off on Saturday in Detroit, Kamala Harris was in one of the city’s high school gyms delivering a simple message: early votes are the best way to block Donald Trump’s return to power.
“Now who’s the capital of producing records?” the Vice President asked in in a city with a legacy of musical hits. “So we are going to break some records here in Detroit today.”
Harris was joined by superstar Lizzo for a high-energy rally near an otherwise sleepy park that houses an early voting site. Afterward, in an impressive flex of organizing power, the crowd marched across the street to the park where they could be among the city’s first to cast ballots for Harris.
“If you ask me if America is ready for its first woman President, all I have to say is it’s about damn time,” Lizzo said, riffing on one of her biggest hits.
Early vote began in Detroit on Saturday and expands statewide next weekend. Democrats traditionally have banked huge numbers in Michigan before Election Day, although no one seems sure which way that might break this year. Democrats anecdotally feel like they have a slight advantage, but Republicans insist they are on new ground given the GOP’s renewed interest in banking votes early, after Trump assailed the practice in 2020.
Hence the deployment of Lizzo, the Detroit-born artist who made the case for Harris in a high school gym under basketball-caliber lights and lacking any concert-level sound systems. The stripped-down setting seemed like it was designed to energize the residents of this decidedly local neighborhood rather than suggest an arena-caliber event. Campaign aides say that was no accident, as the goal was to attract voters in the neighborhood, and then have them cross the street and vote.
Both Harris and Trump have spent the last 36 hours barnstorming Michigan, whose 15 electoral college votes are seen by both campaigns as critical. On Friday evening, Trump struggled with microphone troubles at a disjointed rally where he tried to reframe his bad-mouthing of Detroit a week earlier.
Along with Lizzo, Harris was joined at the rally by six national union presidents and plenty of local pols. As the speeches rolled on, Harris’ campaign aides shrewdly worked the gym, hoovering up voter and volunteer contact information.
“The race is tight. It’s going to be hard work. But we like hard work,” said Harris, who was soon racing to the airport to rally early voters in Georgia. “We’re here because this is a working day.”
As will be every single day between this and Election Day.
Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.
