As election day nears, more than 50 people gathered around the Sparty Statue on Sunday night to hear prominent candidates, including gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer, rally for a final push of support.
MSU College Democrats president Briana Shamsuddoha introduced Schauer and his running mate Lisa Brown at the end of the rally. Brown said there was still work to be done.
"We need you to do a little bit more," Brown said. "You've done so much ... but we need you to do a little bit more. Knock on a few more doors, call a few more people. To remind people what's at stake for this election."
Schauer is locked in a tight race with Republican incumbent Rick Snyder in the election's final hours, with the latest poll averages placing Snyder only slightly ahead. Schauer said if those in attendance could get everyone they knew to vote, he had no doubt regarding their victory.
"You are going to decide this election," Schauer said. "Finish the job, fight for Michigan."
Schauer, who earned a master's degree at MSU, wasn't the only Spartan among the candidates at the rally. Brown attended MSU as an undergraduate and also earned her law degree here.
Attorney general candidate Mark Totten is a MSU College of Law professor. He opened the rally, calling his opponent, Republican incumbent Bill Scheutte, "the most radical far-right attorney general in the nation."
"I am running to give Michigan families an attorney general who keeps families safe and never lets politics get in the way," Totten said.
Totten accused Schuette of "waging one extreme crusade after another," citing the stay Schuette filed to delay overturning a ban on same-sex marriage, while his office appeals the federal court ruling.
"Sooner or later, you need to face the voters," Totten said. "That's why on Tuesday, we're going to win and we're going to fire Bill Schuette."
Following Totten, disability attorney Richard Bernstein, who is running for Supreme Court justice, spoke, thanking attendees, a majority of them students from MSU College Democrats, for their hard work this election season.
"Life is not always going to be fair," Bernstein said. "But our judges absolutely have to be," as he mentioned his campaign slogan, "justice should be blind."
He said judges "have to be blind to special interest, partisan politics and political ideology."
Ingham county treasurer Eric Schertzing, running for Michigan's 8th congressional district, spoke briefly after Bernstein. Schertzing, running as a Democrat in a mostly Republican district, told the crowd when he was a MSU democrat, it was a Republican district and with their hard work "we turned it blue."
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