Flint — The campaigns of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden outlined stark differences for how their candidates would govern during stops across Michigan on Saturday, three days before the state's primary election.

Sanders, who won Michigan's Democratic primary four years earlier, held events in Dearborn and Flint. He targeted minority voters and participated in a panel discussion on racial and economic injustice on the campus of Mott Community College.

The self-proclaimed democratic socialist said voters should look into "our own hearts" to determine what's possible with public policy in the country.

"Every day, we are told by Congress, we are told by the pundits, we are told by the media what we can do and what we can’t do," Sanders said before a crowd estimated at more than 1,000 in Flint.

But earlier in the day, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was campaigning on behalf of Biden in Farmington Hills, said the country wouldn't elect a democratic socialist president.

"We can’t just run around telling everybody, ‘Oh, we’re going to give you whatever you want. It’s going to be free,'" Kerry said. "Maybe, that’s what democratic socialism does. And that’s not my label. It’s the label that he gives himself."

In addition to their contrasting messages, the campaigns are also rolling out diverging strategies ahead of Michigan's primary.

Sanders has been holding large events, including a rally in Detroit on Friday. On Sunday, he'll hold two more rallies in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor. His campaign announced that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York will join Sanders in Ann Arbor on Sunday night.

Sanders has also been focused on areas of the state where he struggled in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton.

Wayne County, home to Detroit, and Genesee County, home to Flint, were two of just 10 counties that Sanders lost to Clinton during that race. Sanders won the state's 73 other counties.

Biden himself isn't expected to campaign in Michigan until Monday. He'll hold a "get out the vote" event at 7 p.m. Monday at Renaissance High School in Detroit.

Over the weekend, Biden's campaign has been sending surrogates, like Kerry and Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, to the state to make his case.

Many of the surrogates have campaigned in southeast Michigan and Wayne County. Biden is expected to be strong there. Clinton beat Sanders there by more than 60,000 votes in 2016 in Wayne County, her largest margin of victory in the state.

Sanders' rally in Detroit on Friday night drew 6,000 people. Asked about that crowd size, Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, who's from Detroit but is backing Biden, brushed it off, saying rallies don't vote.

Biden has delivered real wins for the state of Michigan, Gilchrist said. Biden supporters have focused on former President Barack Obama's rescue of the auto industry during the economic recession and its efforts to expand health care.

"Talk is cheap at the end of the day," Gilchrist said. "It’s about making things happen."

That was the refrain from many Biden supporters on Saturday in Michigan. They argued that the former vice president who served with Obama can score policy wins while helping Democrats further down ballots in November.

"It’s great to have plans. It’s great to have a program," Kerry said in Farmington Hills. "But if you can’t get it through the houses of your legislature, it doesn’t mean anything."

Biden supporters also continued to criticize Sanders' Medicare for All proposal, which would guarantee health insurance for everyone in the U.S. but would come at an estimated cost of more than $30 trillion over 10 years.

Kerry said the plan would create "chaos" in the health care community. On Friday, Klobuchar argued that Democrats should work to build on Obama's Affordable Care Act not "tear it down."

But Sanders and his supporters pushed back against critics' ideas of what's possible.

“Don’t tell me we can’t do that,” Sanders said of guaranteeing health care, arguing that every other major country has a similar program in place.

Sanders continued to attack Biden's support of trade agreements, which Sanders said have sent jobs out of the U.S. He also cited a Detroit News article during his event in Flint. The article focused on Biden's support among African-American voters in Michigan.

Sanders questioned why voters would settle for the "same old, same old status quo" with African-American children living in poverty, school buildings crumbling and a large gap in home ownership between blacks and whites. The question came during his town hall on racial and economic justice.

Political activist Cornel West, a Sanders supporter and a professor of religion and African American studies at Harvard University, answered the question, touting Sanders' progressive record.

“We want the real thing," West said. “Bernie Sanders is the real thing.”

Sanders won Michigan by 1.4 percentage points in 2016 against Clinton. His supporters are hoping he and his vision for sweeping change can repeat that upset on Tuesday.

Greyson Gillett, 21, of Marshall, waited in line for about two hours to be among the first to get inside the gymnasium in Flint, where Sanders spoke on Saturday night.

"I like Biden. I’m going to vote for him if he beats Bernie," Gillett said. "But I think he’s just another establishment Democrat. The establishment is trying to push him through."

Jenny Lindemann of Flushing said she attended Sanders' event in Detroit on Friday and his event in Flint on Saturday.

“He has people-focused policy," she said, adding, "It’s policy that will actually benefit the lives of every American and not just the elites.”

cmauger@detroitnews.com