Former President Bill Clinton visits Portland on Friday to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Former President Bill Clinton rallied a crowd of several hundred Kamala Harris supporters in Portland on Friday afternoon, urging them to help get out the vote on Tuesday and drawing a sharp contrast between the Democrat and former President Trump.

“I am campaigning for my grandchildren’s future. I want them to grow up with their fundamental rights and freedoms intact,” he said, drawing cheers inside the Halo at the Point on Thompson’s Point. Wearing a blue sports coat, Clinton stood in front of a giant blue Harris/Walz sign that was flanked by two American flags.

Clinton and other Harris surrogates, including U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills spoke to the invited audience as part of a final surge of rallies around the country for Vice President Harris as Democrats look to galvanize supporters and persuade undecided voters.

Clinton and the other speakers said former President Donald Trump is a threat to the economy and women’s rights.

Trump “thinks the election is about himself. Kamala Harris thinks this election is about you,” Clinton said, saying that Trump is all about “deriding and demeaning” his opponents.

“I don’t think it’s a close question on which candidate’s policies are going to be better for you,” Clinton said, referring to Harris’ plans for health care and child care.

Clinton said Trump’s proposed tariffs on goods would cost the average American $4,000.

“If you want to pay more for less, Trump is your guy,” said Clinton, a Democrat who was president from 1993-2001. Clinton defeated former President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot in the 1992 election and then won reelection by defeating Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, and Perot in 1996.

Former President Bill Clinton visits Portland on Friday to campaign for Kamala Harris. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Referring to turning the clocks back this weekend from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time, Clinton said, “Don’t turn around two days later (on Election Day) and set us back 50 years” by voting for Trump.

Clinton also ribbed Trump for continuing to deny that he lost the 2020 election. He likened it to watching the World Series, rooting for the New York Yankees to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, but then denying that the Yankees lost.

Before Clinton spoke, Mills warmed up the crowd, talking about Trump’s Supreme Court nominees resulting in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, stripping away abortion rights for much of the country.

“He (Trump) says he’s going to protect women while taking away our rights,” Mills said, “Donald Trump, we don’t want protection. We want our rights back.”

Pingree said “this is the scariest election of our lifetimes.” She said Project 2025, a document Trump has disavowed but was written by his former advisors, is a “blueprint to dismantle everything we care about” including Medicare, abortion rights, union rights and children’s programs like Head Start, she said.

“Kamala Harris’ agenda focuses on things that unite us, not divide us,” Pingree said.

Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck-and-neck in the intense campaign’s final days before voters go to the polls next Tuesday. Millions have already voted early, either through the mail or in-person voting.

Former President Bill Clinton shakes hands with Julian Rogers, vice chair of Maine Democratic Party, during a visit to Portland on Friday to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

The Harris campaign netted a Republican ally in former U.S. Rep. David Emery, R-1st District, who represented Maine in Congress in the 1970s and early 1980s, and introduced Clinton Friday.

“Donald Trump is unhinged, unstable and unfit to be president of the United States,” Emery said. “Donald Trump fails the character test.”

Maine is perceived to be in the Harris column overall. However, because the state splits two of its Electoral College votes by congressional district, Trump could earn one electoral vote from the more rural 2nd District, as he did in 2016 and 2020. The statewide winner gets two electoral votes, and each congressional district awards one vote.

Clinton, 78, won all four of Maine’s electoral votes both times he ran for president.

Neither Harris nor Trump, or their running mates, have visited Maine this presidential election cycle, although Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, and Gwen Walz, the wife of Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, visited in September.

Former President Bill Clinton greets people at Halo at the Point in Portland on Friday during a campaign visit for Vice President Kamala Harris. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Maine residents who attended the Clinton rally said they were impressed by the former president.

“He summed up my feelings about the candidates,” said Faith Beal of Portland. “This is going to go down in my memory as witnessing history.”

Jane Moriarty of Cumberland said she’s “feeling hopeful” that Harris will win, and she liked how Clinton “simplifies everything” so that voters know what they are voting about and yet does it in a way that’s not patronizing.

And Joelle Mikobi, of Portland, said she’s inspired by Harris and likes her background as vice president and as attorney general in California. Harris was also a U.S. senator from California before being picked by President Biden to be vice president.

“She is constantly having to prove herself as a woman, and as a black person,” Mikobi said.

Lance Boucher, who served as a policy advisor in former Maine Gov. John Baldacci’s administration, had Clinton sign a 1993 Time magazine issue that named Clinton the “Man of the Year.”

“I’m a political junkie and I’m always collecting political memorabilia,” Boucher said.