Trump rallies in Michigan on Sunday, a day after Obama campaigned for Democrats in Detroit and Cleveland

Nine days before the midterm elections, Michigan got both presidents in one weekend. Barack Obama campaigned in Cleveland and then Detroit on Saturday, his first rallies of the season. Donald Trump follows him into the state on Sunday with a rally in Port Huron, in an area he won in 2024 with more than 66 percent of the vote.

Picture is an illustration of a political rally in a Michigan arena, with a speaker at a podium, flags behind the stage and a dense crowd in front of it.

The prize in Michigan is an open Senate seat. Former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, faces Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat. El-Sayed would be the first Muslim elected to the Senate if he wins. Trump has attacked him from the Oval Office and at rallies all year, but Sunday is Trump's first campaign stop in Michigan itself this year.

Rogers has alleged, without evidence, that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed denies any affiliation with the group and calls it shameful for Rogers to question his allegiance to the United States. In a recent advertisement he answered the attacks on his faith directly. "Faith is a thing there's just too little of in Washington," he said.

Obama took the same argument up in Detroit. He framed the attacks as an attempt to make El-Sayed look less patriotic and less American, and he compared them with the false claims that he himself was born in Kenya. "We have seen this movie before," Obama said. "I starred in it. This stuff didn't work on me. Not in Michigan. It's not going to work on Abdul." In Cleveland he campaigned for Amy Acton and Sherrod Brown, called Trump an agent of chaos and cruelty, and told voters the election could act as a circuit breaker on the administration. Senator Bernie Sanders was set to rally with El-Sayed in Grand Rapids on Sunday, the same day as the Trump rally.

Trump spent Saturday in Florida and Georgia. He voted early in West Palm Beach, then rallied in Perry, Georgia, where he announced that Audi will build its first American factory near Macon. On Sunday in Port Huron he is also expected to take up the tariff fight with Canada, which has hit the Detroit auto industry hard enough that Rogers has put distance between himself and the president's policy.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats in the Senate and four in the House to take both chambers from the Republicans, who hold them 53 to 47 and 218 to 214, as of October 25. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.