DETROIT — Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton made a campaign stop at Wayne State University on Monday afternoon. Her visit came one day after the second presidential debate and one day before the last day to register to vote in Michigan.
“Sounds like we’ve got some Wayne State Warriors here today,” she said to a cheering crowd after taking the stage. “I am so excited, so thrilled to be here. Did anybody see that debate last night?”
Clinton appeared at around 3:15 p.m. She was introduced by several local dignitaries including Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Sen. Gary Peters, Rep. Sander Levin (D-9), Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-14), and Rep. John Conyers (D-13).
“Last night, when I got a chance, I tried to speak directly to the questions that are on people’s minds and share my vision of what we can do together,” the democratic presidential nominee said. “Donald Trump spent his time attacking when he should have been apologizing. He hasn’t paid a dime of federal income tax for years. Apparently the reason for that is he lost $1 billion in bad investments and failing casinos. How do you lose money running casinos?”
She talked about several topics including making public colleges tuition-free, increasing taxes for the rich, the auto industry’s big turnaround, putting people back to work and differentiated herself from Donald Trump.
“I supported President Obama’s decision to rescue the auto industry in America,” Clinton said. “Last year, in 2015, the auto industry had its best year ever. I think we can become the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. Clean renewable energy jobs, building a new modern electric grid to be able to take in and distribute clean energy. We can do this. Let’s finish the job of connecting the entire country to the internet.”
In Michigan, Hillary Clinton is ahead of Donald Trump by 11 points, according to a new poll released by the Detroit Free Press. She has 43 percent of likely voters in her favor compared with Trump’s 32 percent. Meanwhile, Gary Johnson (Libertarian) received 10 percent of the support while Jill Stein (Green) got 3 percent in the poll.
“We’re going to make public colleges like Wayne State tuition-free for working families,” the Democratic presidential nominee explained. “If your family makes less than $125,000 per year, it will be tuition free. If it’s over that, it will be debt free so you only pay what you can afford without going into debt.”
State Sen. Coleman A. Young II was also in attendance at the rally. He represents the 1st district, which includes portions of Detroit, Brownstown Township, Ecorse, Gibraltar, Grosse Ile Township, River Rouge, Riverview, Trenton, Woodhaven, and Wyandotte.
“It was electric, it was awesome,” Young said in an exclusive interview. “I think she nailed it out of the park. The choice has never been more clear. She is for the people and by the people. I’m so excited to support her. She’s going to win and we’re going to take it.”
About 2,500 students and supporters were on hand for the voter registration rally on Monday. Many of them registered to vote following Clinton’s remarks.
“It was really nice to see her ideas on college and tuition and how she plans on helping college students with their debt,” said WSU freshman Amy Cristini. “She supports workers in every field. I was really surprised to see how she really wanted to help college students.”
Her friend, Colin O’Shaughnessy, added: “It was powerful to see her working with someone like Bernie Sanders. The ability to conform and work together instead of fight. I like that a lot. She was really prepared to take on what Donald Trump said last night. She really went in-depth on those things.”
WSU seniors Kevin Stadler and Marky Sharrow also attended the rally in between classes. Both expressed that climate change is an important issue to them.
“It was great for her to come out, it seemed everyone was very energized coming off the debate,” Stadler said. “I’m very pleased with the turnout. The economy is important to me. That’s what I study here at Wayne State. Getting growth going and productivity up. But also climate change. I think it isn’t talked about enough. I think that’s something to focus on.”
Sharrow added: “What she did was sort of energize everyone and remind us how little time is left before registration ends and the actual voting day. Everyone needs to do everything they can so that we don’t have regrets on Nov. 9th when we wake up in the morning. Climate change is our moonshot of our generation. I think that her spin on it that we can use combating climate change to be the energy superpower of the next century is the right one to make.”
Hillary Clinton is working to secure more last minute votes in Michigan with less than 30 days until the Nov. 8th general election. We can expect to see more visits by Clinton and Trump in the days to come.
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