Just before Democratic Vice Presidential hopeful Tim Walz approached the lectern to address an enthusiastic, packed crowd in the ballroom of Traverse City’s Park Place Hotel on Friday, Nov. 1, he turned around and fist-bumped supporters flanking him on stage with Harris-Walz campaign signs. Grand Traverse County Commissioner Ashlea Walter and her daughter Phoebe were among them. Upbeat and enthusiastic, with John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” playing in the background, Walz arrived early and spent 23 minutes during his pep rally with the Northern Michigan crowd of progressives and Democrats, reminding them that polls in the Nov. 5 presidential election would close in under 100 hours, and encouraging them to vote, and turn out others to vote, for Kamala Harris for President, and push away the vitriol and and dark vision of Republican candidate Donald Trump. Polls show that Michigan, a crucial swing state, is very close.