Kamala Harris Heads to Michigan for Senate Race Days After Ex-Fundraiser's Book Accuses 2024 Campaign of Faking Beyoncé Hype

Kamala Harris is stepping back into the national spotlight this week, and a new insider account is raising fresh questions about how her last campaign operated.

According to the Associated Press, Harris plans to campaign in Michigan next week alongside Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the state's open Senate seat. The two are scheduled to appear together for the first time at a roundtable on Black maternal health next Tuesday. Harris endorsed El-Sayed, a doctor and former head of health departments in Detroit and Wayne County, after his primary win over Rep. Haley Stevens.

"Vice President Harris looks forward to returning to Michigan to help turn out the vote in this critical state," Harris spokesperson Eduardo Negrón said in a statement to the AP. "It is critical we flip the Senate so we can bring down prices and stand up to Donald Trump's corruption."

El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative, for the seat currently held by Democrat Gary Peters. The AP notes Democrats need to flip four GOP-held Senate seats to take the majority if they hold Michigan, making the race one of the party's must-wins. Republicans have repeatedly cast El-Sayed as a "radical" liberal, the AP reported. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed for Democratic unity behind candidates like El-Sayed at a Detroit rally in August, after a bruising primary that exposed party divisions over U.S. support for Israel.

While in Michigan, Harris will also meet with the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the NAACP's Detroit branch. The AP notes Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential race to Donald Trump, is widely seen as a possible 2028 candidate.

The Beyoncé Allegations

The Michigan trip comes as Harris faces new criticism from inside her own former operation. Lindy Li, a onetime Democratic congressional candidate who became a major fundraiser for the DNC and raised money for both Joe Biden's 2020 campaign and Harris's 2024 run, has broken publicly with the party. Her book, "Unburdened: A Former Democrat Insider's Shocking Account of Political Power, Betrayal, and Party Collapse," is set for release September 22 through Harper.

"I don't think I could have lived with myself had I not told the truth," Li told Fox News in a recent interview.

In an excerpt published by the New York Post, Li writes that as a National Finance Committee member with VIP access to the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, she watched rumors swirl that Beyoncé would perform on the final night to close out Harris's acceptance speech. Beyoncé did not appear. Li writes that the letdown, especially among younger voters she says the singer holds outsized sway over, badly damaged the campaign's credibility. A person Li identifies only as "Alex" is quoted in the book predicting historians would mark the Beyoncé no-show as a turning point exposing what Li calls Harris's "inability to follow through on her massive promises."

Li's book also describes a Houston rally on October 25, 2024, less than two weeks before the election, where she says the campaign again teased a Beyoncé appearance that never materialized. The Post's headline additionally references Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny as artists the campaign allegedly used to draw and "exploit" crowds, though the published excerpt itself details only the Beyoncé episodes.

That Beyoncé did not perform at either the Chicago convention or the Houston rally is a matter of public record. Whether campaign officials deliberately lied, as opposed to failing to tamp down organic rumors or media speculation, is Li's characterization, drawn from her position as a campaign insider and told in a memoir written for publication and sale. No Harris campaign official or spokesperson is quoted responding to Li's specific claims in the material reviewed for this story, and no independent confirmation of internal campaign communications about the Beyoncé rumors has been cited.

A fair reading of Li's account also has to acknowledge she has an obvious motive to sell a critical book about the party she just left, and her prose in the excerpt itself is openly dramatized rather than a neutral recounting of events. The underlying claim may still be true, but the word "lied" in the Post's headline reflects Li's framing, not a confirmed fact established by documents or on-record admissions.

What happens next is straightforward to track. Li's book publishes September 22, and its full contents, including whatever it says about Swift and Bad Bunny, will get scrutiny once reviewers and reporters can check her specific claims against other campaign staffers' accounts. Separately, Harris's Michigan appearance next Tuesday will be one of her most visible political moves since the 2024 loss, in a Senate race Democrats view as pivotal to controlling the chamber. Whether either story affects El-Sayed's odds against Mike Rogers, or Harris's own standing heading toward 2028, remains to be seen.