The Harris campaign attacked former President Trump for campaigning Tuesday in Howell, Mich., a city with historic ties to the Ku Klux Klan and that was the setting of a white supremacist demonstration last month, where attendees expressed support for the former president.
The Harris campaign’s Michigan communications director, Alyssa Bradley, criticized the former president for “choosing to rally in a town that was historically known as ‘the KKK capital of Michigan.’”
“This [Tuesday] event on ‘crime and safety’ isn’t a dog whistle from Trump — it’s a bullhorn,” Bradley said in a statement Monday.
“His visit underscores the core choice in this election — between a prosecutor and a criminal, someone who has spent her life making communities safer and someone who encourages violence, and someone who will build a future where all Michiganders can get ahead and someone who wants to take us back to the days of the KKK,” Bradley later added.
The town has long been associated with the klan, in large part as a result of meetings that Robert Miles, a former Michigan Grand Dragon of the klan, held at his nearby farm many decades ago. The city has worked to distance itself from that reputation, but it occasionally faces obstacles.
In Howell last month, about a dozen protesters marched through the city’s downtown, waving flags with white supremacist slogans while chanting in support of the former president.
Just a few miles away on the same day, demonstrators displayed flags with antisemitic messaging and “KKK” written on them over the side of a highway overpass. In videos, protesters were captured chanting, “We love Hitler. We love Trump.”
Bradley, in her statement, criticized Trump for “still not condemn[ing] this hateful event that happened in his name.”
The Trump campaign, however, fiercely rejected the Harris campaign’s attacks and suggested news organizations were not applying the same level of scrutiny to the Harris administration. The campaign provided a list of events or rallies that Harris has held in the last month that took place in areas with past incidents of racism or antisemitism.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt also noted that President Biden held an event in 2021 in Howell and was not met with the same level of criticism for the city’s racist past.
“Did the media write this same story when Joe Biden visited Howell in 2021, or when Kamala Harris visits cities where racist protests and marches have occurred in the past? No, of course not, because the mainstream serves as a divisive, anti-Trump, mouthpiece for the Democrat Party,” Leavitt wrote in a statement provided by the campaign.
“President Trump will travel to Howell to deliver a strong message on law and order, making it clear that crime, violence, and hate of any form will have zero place in our country when he is back in the White House,” she added.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), one of a few Black Republicans in Congress, condemned the protests last month but said politicians should not then ignore the needs of the other residents of the town.
“OK, all those groups, whoever did that is distasteful. I denounce them myself. I want nothing to do with them,” Donalds said about the Howell white supremacists’ demonstrations last month, the Washington Examiner reported.
“But let me also tell you this: My brother-in-law lives there. He’s not some neo-Nazi. He’s just trying to work hard and do the right thing. There are good people who live all across our country,” he continued.
The Tuesday event comes as Democrats enter the second day of the Democratic National Convention and the race heats up between Harris and Trump.
Both campaigns have focused on Michigan, which is among a handful of states deemed critical to winning in November.
In the latest Michigan polling average from Decision Desk HQ and The Hill, Harris is leading Trump by 2 points, 48.4 percent to 46.4 percent. The polling average is based on 14 polls, 12 of which were conducted since Harris launched her campaign for president.