Biden, Obama to make stops in Flint and Detroit Saturday

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama will be appearing at drive-in events in Flint and Detroit Saturday, three days before election day. 

The campaign had confirmed earlier this week that Obama would be involved in Saturday campaigning with Biden, but had not yet released the locations. 

The Flint drive-in event will begin at 1:45 p.m. and the Detroit event will begin at 5:30 p.m.

Legendary Motown singer Stevie Wonder will join Biden and Obama at the Detroit rally.

The former president and vice president will speak about "bringing Americans together to address the crises facing the country and winning the battle for the soul of the nation."

The campaign is coming to try to motivate more Black residents to vote as Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, a fellow Democrat, warned Thursday that not enough residents were voting.

Winfrey is projecting a 50% turnout of Detroit voters based on incoming absentee ballot applications and ballots cast. That would be slightly more than the 48.6% of city voters who participated in the 2016 election and cast nearly 235,000 votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"But but that's not enough Detroit,” she said Thursday.

The Clinton camp had wanted Obama to rally in Detroit late during the 2016 campaign, but he had to go to Ann Arbor instead because a funeral for a Detroit police officer was scheduled on the same day.

Clinton, the former secretary of state, beat Republican Donald Trump 95%-3% in Detroit, but Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes or 47.5%-47.3%.

Both Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris have made stops in Detroit in the last several weeks. 

Detroit, the state's largest city, is a Democratic stronghold, but in 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received 76,000 fewer votes from Wayne County than Obama had four years prior. 

Vice President Mike Pence spoke at Bishop International Airport in Flint on Wednesday and announced the support of Flint City Council Vice President Maurice Davis. 

Flint has long been a Democratic stronghold, but the outlying communities in Genesee County moved further right in the 2016 election. 

Trump lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton in Genesee County — the state's fifth largest county — by about nine percentage points, or about 18,500 votes, in 2016. The loss was an improvement over Republican nominee Mitt Romney's performance there in 2012, when he lost the county to Obama by 57,100 votes, or about 28 percentage points. 

Staff Writer Ariana Taylor contributed.

eleblanc@detroitnews.com