Kamala Harris Backs Abdul El-Sayed at Detroit Maternal Health Roundtable
Kamala Harris endorsed Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a Detroit roundtable on Black maternal health, criticising Trump-era funding cuts.
Former US Vice President Kamala Harris threw her support behind Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, during a roundtable on Black maternal health in Detroit on Tuesday.
Speaking alongside El-Sayed, Harris described the Michigan Senate seat as carrying national weight. "His will be a voice, Abdul's, that is a voice representing the people of this state. And it will be a national voice," she said.
Harris used the event to criticise President Donald Trump's administration over funding reductions affecting maternity care. She said one in twelve women in the United States lives in a maternal care desert, and that Black women are three to four times more likely to die in connection with childbirth, while Native women face two to three times the risk. Noting that Medicaid is the largest funder of maternity care in the country, she said Trump had cut its funding by $1 trillion.
She also pointed to cuts at the National Institutes of Health to research projects classified under DEI, including work on fibroids, and argued that the Senate should act as a check on the administration's actions. "The United States Senate should be a stop gap on the abuses of this administration," she said, adding that El-Sayed would be one such senator if elected.
El-Sayed, for his part, said his focus would be on expanding health investment and supporting mothers and babies, including enabling families to decide when, where and with whom to have a child and to access services with love and support.
Earlier in the day, El-Sayed said he hoped Harris's midterm campaign stop in Detroit would help unify Democrats in the key swing state, where party factions were sharply divided during a hotly contested primary earlier this year and during Harris's 2024 presidential defeat. Harris, the first Black vice president, remains popular among Black voters who form the Democratic base in Detroit and who largely backed El-Sayed's primary opponent, Representative Haley Stevens, in the August primary.
El-Sayed said Harris also joined an event hosted by the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, describing her as a critical advocate as he works to consolidate support in his bid to defeat Republican Mike Rogers.