Bon Jovi performs at the Walz Rally in Detroit’s Hart Plaza

Detroit – Democrats are making their last-ditch effort to drum up votes for the presidential election on Tuesday with a late-night rally at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit, a deep blue stronghold that could help send Kamala Harris to the White House as the nation’s first female president.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is expected to make remarks encouraging Michiganders to vote Tuesday after rock legend Jon Bon Jovi performed with other musical guests.

The event began around 7:15 pm with speeches by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan; Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist; Rep. USA Elissa Slotkin, Democratic candidate for US Senate; and US Senator Gary Peters. Event organizers said Walz will speak around 10:30 p.m

The Detroit Youth Choir performed after the initial round of speakers at the election-eve event, which also featured Grammy-nominated country duo The War and Treaty, who rose to fame in Albion in rural south-central Michigan.

In a preview of inclement weather that could affect Election Day voting in parts of Michigan, a light rain moved through downtown Detroit but passed about 30 minutes into the event. Several hundred fans filled seats and a standing section in front of the stage in Hart Plaza, a riverfront park in downtown Detroit.

As Harris tries to motivate and excite voters in the final days before Election Day, her campaign has announced rallies in several swing states featuring performances by some of music’s biggest names.

Lady Gaga is expected to join Harris at a rally in Philadelphia on Monday, as are the Roots, Ricky Martin, Fat Joe and others. by Variety. Katy Perry will headline a rally in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Bon Jovi, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, has supported a number of Democratic candidates over the past two decades in his home state of New Jersey and across the country.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as he did in 2016 and 2020, will hold his last campaign rally before election day Monday night in Grand Rapids. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, campaigned in Flint earlier in the day.

Michigan — with its 15 winner-take-all electoral votes — is widely considered a key battleground state for the election, and public polls show no clear favorite to win state.

Bon Jovi took to the stage at 9.30pm with Michael and Tonya Trotter, the married duo of The War and Treaty, to perform their joint single ‘The People’s House’. The song is an anthem celebrating “turning the page”, mirroring the Harris campaign’s rallying cry of “we’re not turning back”.

“Tonight, I chose to come here and not discuss politics or smear anyone. I have a simple question: Who can we rely on to unite us when we are most divided?” Bon Jovi asked the crowd.

He praised the Harris campaign staff, volunteers and supporters who knocked on doors, made phone calls and spread the word about the vote. “You’ll know you’ve made history,” Bon Jovi said.

Michael Trotter spoke about the importance of showing undecided or reluctant voters on Tuesday.

“They’re afraid. Fear tells them it doesn’t matter. Fear tells them to stay home,” he said. “What we’re telling them to do right now is, let’s go vote. We did this together.

“Go home tonight, tomorrow, go to your colleagues, go to your church members, go to your family members, go to your community, go to your neighbor. Don’t ask them, take their hand and say, “Go. We have this.

Bon Jovi promised to return for more songs after remarks by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Walz.

Earlier in the night, Detroit Mayor Duggan listed a number of recent watershed moments for the city as it continues a comeback from decades of economic and population decline — capped by its 2013 bankruptcy filing .

“A couple of weeks ago, a guy stood in that building over there and said if Kamala Harris is elected president, all of America will be like Detroit,” Duggan said, referring. Comments made by Trump on October 18 calling Detroit’s comeback “artificial” in a speech at Huntington Place near Hart Plaza.

The three-term mayor noted that the Detroit Riverwalk has been named the nation’s best by USA Today for three consecutive years, a population that increased last year for the first time since 1957 and a crime rate that fell to its level . the lowest level since 1966.

Duggan attributed the city’s recent resurgence to the support of Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris.

“When cities across America called for help under the Trump administration, all we got were tweets,” Duggan said of Trump’s use of social media as president.

Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, predicted good results for Democrats after the polls closed Tuesday.

“It will be a new generation of leadership that will finally unite our country and not divide our country,” the state’s junior senator said. “And while Donald Trump is thinking about revenge and revenge, come on. Harris is thinking about how she will bring real hope to this country.”

Slotkin, D-Holly, also decried a “divisive, angry and vitriolic” political environment in Michigan since Trump emerged on the scene in 2016, though he had harsh words for Republicans and their supporters.

“You’re standing here in the rain on the night before the election, on a Monday night, because you love your country and you want it to be better,” Slotkin told the pro-Democrat crowd.

She continued: “We love our country, so wear your patriotism on your sleeve. Carry the flag, carry it proudly and don’t give an inch to the pretenders on the other side who wrap themselves in the damned flag and then spit it out. the values they represent”.

Her opponent, GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers, snubbed the star-studded Harris-Walz campaign rally on the eve of the election.

“Don’t be put off they’re bringing Bon Jovi to Detroit. Yes, they got Bon Jovi. But you know, we have auto workers, that’s what we have,” Rogers said at a rally in Flint earlier in the day with JD Vance, the candidate for the vice presidency of the Republic of Moldova.

He continued: “They brought in Sarah Jessica Parker to say all the bullshit. Guess what we have? We have the Teamsters. And they may have Taylor Swift, but we have members of the United States military who … know and count on us to win this election.”

The leadership of the United Auto Workers union — considered a key constituency in auto-heavy Michigan — has endorsed Harris and said internal polls show her leading by 20 points among its members in the Great Lakes state.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters union has not endorsed a national candidate, although it has said internal polls show a majority of its members support Trump. However, the Michigan chapter of the union supported Harris.

Election Day voting in Michigan begins at 7 a.m. Tuesday and ends at 8 p.m

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@GrantSchwab

Writer Melissa Burke contributed.