Jonathan Oosting

Detroit News Lansing Bureau

Kalamazoo — The presidential contest is “not a personality contest,” Bernie Sanders said Wednesday in Michigan, arguing that Democrat Hillary Clinton is better than Republican Donald Trump on issues that should really matter to voters.

The Vermont U.S. senator, who challenged Clinton in the Democratic primaries, is crossing the country in the final week of the election and urging voters to back his former rival.

It’s no secret people are discouraged by the political process this year, Sanders told an estimated crowd of 1,800 students and other supporters at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, suggesting people are “running away” from their televisions to avoid the ugliness.

“There are people who say they don’t like either candidate,” he said. “What I am asking you is to go beyond personality. Take a hard look at the issues that impact the working class and middle class of this country, and on every issue, you will find that Hillary Clinton is far superior to Donald Trump.”

Sanders, whose populist message and calls for a political “revolution” propelled him to victory over Clinton in Michigan’s March 8 primary, said his win here and in several other states led to the “most progressive” Democratic Party platform in history.

The self-described democratic socialist highlighted a plan that he and Clinton worked on to provide free in-state tuition to college students whose families earn less than $120,000 a year.

Sanders championed calls for a $15 federal minimum wage and said Clinton would appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who would seek to overturn Citizens United, a 2010 decision that paved the way for an influx of outside spending in political races.

“If we want to protect American democracy — one person and one vote — the choice is clear: Hillary Clinton for president of the United States,” he said.

Michigan has emerged as a battleground in the final week of the general election as Clinton seeks to hold off Trump in a state where she has enjoyed a consistent but declining advantage in the polls.

A Republican presidential candidate has not won Michigan since 1988, but Trump has focused on the state, including a Monday visit. Both candidates plan to run TV ads here through Nov. 8, and Clinton is set to return to Detroit on Friday.

Sanders’ latest tour of the state is taking the popular surrogate through two parts of Michigan he dominated in his shocking primary win. He topped Clinton by more than 22 percentage points in Kalamazoo County and by more than 30 points in Grand Traverse County, where he was expected to campaign later Wednesday.

In his roughly 50-minute Kalamazoo speech, Sanders did not mention recent controversies surrounding the Clinton campaign, including the FBI’s review of new emails it believes may be pertinent to her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Clinton has also been hounded by hacked internal campaign emails published in recent weeks by WikiLeaks, including one message suggesting former CNN contributor Donna Brazile tipped the Clinton campaign off to a question a Flint resident would ask her during the March 6 primary debate with Sanders.

Sanders said he thinks the economy is “rigged” and suggested Trump’s talk of Election Day fraud is an attempt to dissuade Democratic voters from turning out on Tuesday.

“Too many people have died fighting for American democracy,” Sanders said. “Don’t let Trump and his friends intimidate you.”

Sanders won Michigan, in part, by hammering some of the same free trade agreements that Trump has blasted in his repeated appeals to blue-collar workers. But he suggested Trump has not “walked the walk” despite his aggressive talk.

“If you really want to bring jobs back to America, why do you manufacture your clothing in China and Mexico?” he said.

A small group of students supporting Trump stood outside the Sanders rally holding flags promoting the Republican nominee, but all five refused to give their names. One suggested Trump would not be a “pay-to-play” president like he thinks Clinton would be, but said he is hunting for a job and did not want potential employers to read about his political activity.

“Even though we are holding these flags, I am not in any way, shape or form a racist,” said another pro-Trump student, suggesting the candidate has been unfairly characterized. “You walk around campus with a Make America Great Again hat and people look at you and call you a racist, but they have no clue what your stance is or who you are.”

With six days until the election, most Sanders supporters who attended Wednesday’s rally said they have already heeded his message to vote for Clinton.

“I trust his opinion and what he speaks of,” said Emma Dunlop, 19, a freshman acting student who said she voted for Sanders in March but has since made “the flop” for Clinton.

Tom Jones, a retired physician assistant from Kalamazoo, also voted for Sanders in the primary but said he is now planning to vote for Clinton.

“It’ll be her or Mickey Mouse,” he joked. “I certainly wouldn’t vote for Trump.”

Jones said he thinks Clinton has “incredible experience” on her resume — she served as secretary of state, a U.S. senator and first lady — that would benefit her as president.

Still, he acknowledged he is concerned over questions surrounding her private email server she used while running the State Department.

“I’m not seriously concerned in the sense of illegal acts — I really don’t think she’s done anything illegal — but I am concerned by her judgment,” Jones said. “She should have avoided these things.”

Two of Trump’s children — Donald Jr. and Ivanka — were also campaigning in Michigan on Wednesday. Running mate Mike Pence is expected to rally supporters Thursday in Portage, just south of Kalamazoo.

joosting@detroitnews.com