VP Kamala Harris to return to Detroit in June to speak at party fundraiser

Washington ― Vice President Kamala Harris plans to return to Detroit on June 8 to speak at the Michigan Democratic Party's annual Legacy Dinner, the state party's largest fundraiser, the Biden campaign confirmed late Monday.

The trip would be Harris' third visit to the state this year and her sixth since taking office. The vice president was just in Detroit two weeks ago as part of a multi-state economic opportunity tour.

“Vice President Harris knows that state parties are the backbone of winning Democratic campaigns. That’s why I am so thrilled to welcome her back to Michigan to speak at the Michigan Democratic Party’s Legacy Dinner," Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said in a statement. 

“This trip once again underscores the Biden-Harris campaign’s commitment to Michigan, and to the city of Detroit. Time and time again, the Biden-Harris administration has had Michiganders’ backs, whether it’s delivering historic low Black unemployment, investing in our auto industry, or capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month."

At the June 8 event at Huntington Place, the state party intends to give its Legacy Award to Shawn Fain, president of the United Automobile Workers union, which earlier this year endorsed President Joe Biden.

Harris during her last visit to Detroit announced that the Biden administration would provide $100 million for small and medium-size auto parts manufacturers to upgrade their facilities and train their workforces as part of a series of initiatives meant to spur the transition to electric vehicles being pushed by Biden. 

The EV transition has become a theme on the campaign trail as former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, regularly attacks Biden’s policies promoting electric vehicles, including during a campaign rally in Freeland this month, where he said the transition to EVs would bring “an economic bloodbath.”

The vice president's return to Michigan follows Biden's visit to Detroit on Sunday, where he headlined an NAACP dinner before thousands and stumped at CRED Cafe, a speakeasy opened last year by former National Basketball Association players and brothers, Joe and Jordan Crawford. First lady Jill Biden was in Detroit on Saturday, where she spoke at the Michigan Democratic Women's Caucus Legacy Luncheon.

The Biden-Harris campaign has been emphasizing Black voter outreach, with the president Sunday touting his administration’s investments in Historically Black Colleges, its efforts to remove lead pipes and his nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In response to Biden's address, the Trump campaign's Black media coordinator, Janiyah Thomas, said Biden was "on a pandering tour because he knows what we all know: Without the Black vote, there is no Democrat Party."

Staff Writer Craig Mauger contributed.

mburke@detroitnews.com