EAST LANSING, Michigan — With two days until Election Day, Kamala Harris raced through four stops in battleground Michigan Sunday without mentioning Donald Trump’s name, urging voters not to be fooled by the GOP nominee’s disdain for an election system that she claims is rigged against her.

The vice president said he was confident in the upcoming vote count and appealed to voters “especially those who haven’t voted yet to not fall for this tactic, which I think includes suggesting to people that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.”

At a rally at Michigan State University, Harris got a stirring response when she asked who had already voted and then gave the students another job — encouraging their friends to vote in a state that allows voter registration on Election Day.

Instead of her customary pitch that Trump is unstable, unstable and seeking unchecked power, Harris sought to contrast her upbeat tone with the darker message of her unnamed Republican rival.

All of this served to boost his standing in one of the Democratic “blue wall” states in the Midwest that was considered the smoothest potential path to an Electoral College majority.

“In this election we finally have the opportunity to turn the page on a decade of politics driven by fear and division,” he said, in an indirect reference to Trump. “We’re done with this. We’re tired of this. America is ready for a new beginning, a new path where we see our American friends as neighbors, not enemies.”

Harris also avoided directly mentioning Trump during her 11-minute morning speech at the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God. But his comments still served as a clear overlap with the Republican candidate.

“There are those who are trying to deepen division, sow hatred, spread fear, create chaos,” he said. At the same time, while in Pennsylvania, Trump declared the United States a “failed nation” and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after the 2020 election, but denied losing to Democrat Joe Biden.

While Trump called Harris’ party “evil,” Harris quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah and told her friendly audience that she sees herself ready to “chart a new path forward.”

Addressing a mostly student crowd in East Lansing, Harris promised consensus would be achieved.

“I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are enemies,” he said. “I’m actually going to give them a seat at the table because that’s what strong leaders do.”

That was enough for Michigan State junior Alexis Plonka, who will be voting in her first presidential election. Plonka, who said he has family members who support Trump, applauded the vice president for not making a direct reference to the former president.

“I think one of the things that drives people away from Trump is that Trump is so opposed to people who disagree with him and isn’t willing to work with them,” he said.

That approach reflects the extensive network Harris has built since taking on the Democratic mandate in July after 81-year-old President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid. By portraying Trump as indecisive and unfit for office, he attracted supporters from New York’s progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Still, Harris is trying to tap into her core Democratic electorate, including the young voters she appeals to in Michigan, in part by emphasizing her support for abortion rights and Trump’s role in ending a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. One of the loudest cheers she received in East Lansing Sunday night was for declaring that the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday afternoon, Harris pushed back on Trump’s characterizations of the US election and leveled accusations against the former president. rose again While campaigning in Pennsylvania. Harris said her recent comments were intended to “distract from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country.” Harris said those “good systems” were in place in 2020 and he “lost.”

Harris used her latest swing in Michigan to commend progressives and members of the state’s significant Arab American population who are angry at the Biden administration for continuing the U.S. alliance with Israel while Netanyahu’s government pushes its war against Hamas in Gaza.

“I have made it very clear that the death toll of innocent Palestinians is immeasurable,” Harris told reporters.

In East Lansing, he addressed the issue immediately after he began his speech: “As president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring the hostages home, to end the suffering in Gaza, to ensure the security of Israel, and to ensure the security of Israel.” .” “The Palestinian people can realize their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination.”

Some students in East Lansing voiced their opposition Sunday with vocal calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. At least one participant was escorted out after calls for a ceasefire.

After attending church in Detroit, Harris greeted customers and grabbed lunch at Kuzzo’s Chicken and Waffles; where the former Detroit Lions player ate collard greens at a Detroit restaurant owned by Detroit native Ron Bartell. Later, Harris stopped by Elam Barber Shop, a Black-owned business in Pontiac, where he participated in a moderated conversation with local leaders and Black men.

Back in Detroit at the end of the day, Harris joined a Zoom call from the airport tarmac with “Win ​​With Black Women,” the group that rallied for her the night she first entered the race. Harris thanked the women for their organizing work and called on them to make a final push to “mobilize our Facebook groups, our family group chats, and everyone we know” to get the vote done.

Michigan, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, is critical to Harris’ fate. Barack Obama took the region by storm in 2008 and 2012. But Trump flipped Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2016, prompting severe criticism from Democrats who said candidate Hillary Clinton was taking the states as is. Biden returned the three to the Democrats’ column in 2020.

Losing any of the three would put pressure on Harris to win among the Sun Belt’s four battleground states: North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

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Barrow reported from Washington.