(WXYZ) — Decision 2020 is less than 100 days away and the road to the White House runs through Michigan.
Expect an all out campaign Blitz between now and November with the stakes arguable never higher.
There are two priorities both campaigns seemingly agree on, getting the virus under control, and rebuilding the economy but their visions of doing both are widely different.
The status of President Donald Trump and Joe Biden's campaigns, drawing contrast.
Both campaign tell 7 Action News why Michigan is so vital to this election year.
Below is a full transcript of interviews from the Biden and Trump campaigns:
Team Biden:
“We are a campaign on the march. We just announced a new $14.5 million ad buy across six states that Donald Trump won in 2016 included right there in Michigan.”
“We have out-raised the Trump campaign the last two months. We have nearly doubled our e-mail list the last two months alone. And this past weekend was our 100 days out organizing weekend of action which included hundreds of events across the country. We had over 100 events there in Michigan. We have volunteers making over 300,000 calls and booking 3,000 additional volunteer slots.”
“We are doing the hard work. We are taking nothing for granted. We are talking, we are meeting voters where they are. This is the most consequential election of our lifetime. Joe Biden said last year when he began running for president that this was a battle for the soul of our nation and this is a battle we intend to win.”
Team Trump:
“We’re in a great spot. Campaigns are about choices and as people start to focus in on these two men who are at the top of the ticket, both a sitting president of the United States Donald Trump and the challenger Joe Biden, you get to see vast differences across a wide range of issues.
The beauty of this particular campaign is that you don’t have to guess. This isn’t done in the abstract, meaning you don’t have to guess what an economy would look like under Joe Biden. We saw it for eight years, Michigan obviously felt it for eight years with 3.5 million jobs leaving America going to China because of Joe Biden’s decisions. 60,000 manufacturing plants closed down. Higher taxes, depressed wages. We saw all that.
You compare and contrast that with President Trump… tax cuts, record high stock market. You saw hundreds of thousands manufacturing jobs. 500,000 in fact coming back. Also plants opening up in new factories relocating to America because it was finally profitable to do business in this country again so more Americans had jobs under this administration than did the last one. And when you have more jobs than people to fill them you know you’re doing something right, so it was Donald Trump who took the reigns of the economy. He rebuilt it once, and he’ll do it again.
And when this horrific, unprecedented, unforeseen virus came in from China, he took bold decisive leadership and action and his moves saved lives in this country and I think that’s important to note.
So when you look at them side by side and these choices begin to get in front of the American people they’re going to see the choice is clearly obvious Donald Trump deserves another four years.
MICHIGAN
Team Biden:
“Michigan is critical. It’s a state where Joe Biden won every county during the primary included the counties where Michigan and Michigan State are and saw great turnout from young people.”
“We intend to campaign across all 83 counties this fall. We have great partners in Michigan in Governor Whitmer and Lt. Governor Gilchrist, Senator Peters, Senator Stabenow… who’ve been holding virtual events for us across the state.”
“I think ultimately, this election comes down to a choice: Do voters want another four years of a kind of erratic behavior, the kind of failed leadership, the kind of divisive rhetoric from the White House, or do they want something different? Do they want an experienced leader? Do they want someone who knows what it takes to lead with compassion and lead with empathy and lead a country in crisis back to a place where we can be prosperous again? That is who Joe Biden. That is the leader he is and that is the choice in front of American people and michiganders this fall.”
Team Trump:
“It’s interesting because Michigan has played a central role in so many presidential elections, and every state has a unique electorate. Michigan is part of that lifeblood of this country. You’ve got tough, hard working Americans living there wanting to make sure that their communities are safe, that their city streets are not devolving into criminal activity. That lawlessness cannot reign. Thats the mentality of folks in Michigan. They don’t want to see other countries getting breaks that they don’t get, and that’s what they had under Joe Biden. This president changed things. He won a lot of the states, that blue wall if you will, he busted right through it because so many on the left have taken for granted that people in Michigan and other states around your area just vote their way. But the fact is, this president is the one who stands up for the blue collar worker. This president is the one who got them more money in their pockets by cutting taxes and deregulation allowed so many more jobs to come flowing back into this country especially into a state like Michigan. Hundreds of thousands of them in fact. So, it’s one of those deals where Michigan becomes important because Michigan voters care and understand what’s going on in this country. It’s funny because, only in Washington DC would it be unique that somebody runs on a promise and then fulfills the promise. Donald Trump ran on the promise of getting the economy back together. He did. He ran on new jobs coming into this country, they did. So, when you get elected in statewide office in Michigan or even a local office there in state, you gotta come through. Michiganders don’t take kindly to those who promise things and don’t follow through, this president made promises, he kept promises. And people’s lives are better off for it."
ARE COVID AND CIVIL UNREST THAT HAVE DOMINATED HEADLINES THE ISSUES THIS ELECTION WILL HINGE ON?
Team Biden:
“I believe so. I believe that this president has failed the American people on both, on two fronts: On getting this virus under control. He is waving the white flag he is walking away. His aides describe him as distracted by this virus, as bored of the fight against COVID-19. Meanwhile, rates are skyrocketing every single day. He has yet to implement the kind of nationally, coordinated response we need. On testing, on contract tracing, on getting PPE to the places that we need it in order to get this virus under control. This is something that’s impacting every single family in America and particularly there in Michigan and this president has decided it is not important for him to show leadership on this issue. I think that is what is going to be on most folks minds this fall. Vice President Biden has put out clear plans every step of the way on what he would do to get this virus under control. What he would do to get us, to get our economy back, to get us working again. Those, that kind of experienced leadership, that kind of concrete plans… That’s what Americans want. Americans want someone who knows what they are doing back in the White House.
Team Trump:
“I think this election is going to come down to several things. I talked about the choices before but it’s going to come down in my opinion, to COVID, the culture and the economy. Thankfully, President Trump is on the right side of all three. When it related to COVID, let's not forget: Donald Trump mentioned COVID in his State of the Union speech early at the beginning of the year. He’s been focusing on this for a long time. In fact, when he moved to shut down flights from China and from Europe, Joe Biden said that was the wrong thing to do and in fact he called the president names: ‘racist, xenophobic.’ Other leaders like Nancy Pelosi went out in China town in California and said the president is not right, we’re open for business here. She wasn’t wearing a mask when she did that by the way. And also Governors like the one in New York for example, also left things open much later than the rest of the country shut down. By his bold decisive action, we saved countless lives. In fact some of the models early on: 2.2 million people were expected to die in this country without doing anything, but this president’s moves saved those lives.
But also as far as the culture is concerned. You’re seeing these streets devolve into some type of hells cape that quite frankly is unacceptable to a vast majority of the American people.
For the first time, a republican received endorsements from police unions because they understand that Donald Trump wants to protect American families, wants to allow law enforcement to do their job.
Joe Biden doesn’t. When you take a look, again you don’t have to ask what would happen, you’ve seen the lawlessness in the streets. You’ve seen the riots, you’ve seen the looting. You’ve seen fires set to churches and to businesses. I mean, this is completely unacceptable and when Joe Biden pops out of his hiding hole, he points out, ‘Hey,’ ‘Absolutely’ I think was his quote. ‘Yes absolutely we should redirect funds away from the police.’
And for those in the media trying to twist those words and say ‘redirect doesn’t mean defund,’ let me ask you: I don’t know what you make in a year but if it’s ok I’ll just redirect some of the money out of your next paycheck into my bank account. That’s defunding. Everyone knows what that means. So, the difference is clear here and when we look at the economy I mention all the ways the president has been better on the economy too, so make no mistake about it, your job isn’t safe, your family isn’t safe and your American way of life is not safe with Joe Biden.
He’s raging war on all three with his policies.
ACCEPTING AND ADHERING TO ELECTION RESULTS
Team Biden:
“Yea he will and a free and fair election is critical to who we are as a democracy and as Americans and we are going to do everything we need to do to ensure that those elections this fall are fair and are free and frankly Donald Trump raising doubts about legitimate ways of voting.. should motivate every michigander to get out to the polls this fall and vote him out of office because that is unacceptable.”
Team Trump:
"This is an interesting question, because of course if the election is free and fair we will accept the results, but if the election is free and fair we of course expect this president to be reelected.
It’s the democrats who refuse to accept the results of the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton just the other day was pointing out that she had actually won the White House. You have democrats pointing to the state of Georgia for example, Stacey Abrams they say is the dully elected governor as opposed to Governor Kemp. It’s the democrats who have a track record of not abiding by the results of an election.
But you’re also asking this president to promise to accept the results of an election that quite possibly, if the democrats get their way, could be extremely tainted.
When you’re talking about universal mail-in voting which is what the democrats want to do, they want to upend the entire voting system in just four months. There’s no way that can be done. Let’s not forget, we’re still trying to figure out who won some of the districts for congressional seats in the state of New York. We have hundreds of thousands of votes in California that haven’t been counted for their recent election, and who could forget the debacle in Iowa. Democrats had a simple caucus in the state of Iowa and I know the state very well I’ve been there many times for presidential campaigns… They couldn’t get the app to work. I still don’t think we know who won the Iowa caucuses on the democratic side. So, you can’t ask anyone to adhere to a system that could be fatally flawed on the front end. We just don’t know where that goes yes. We want every single vote to count. We want every single vote to matter. We want more people to be involved in the process of voting but it has to be done in a free, fair way, otherwise we are going to see weeks and weeks and weeks of not knowing the outcome because of the lawsuits and all of the nonsense. It’s got to be done in a way that protects every single citizens vote. That’s what’s important to us here.”