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ENLARGE
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Mary Schwalm/Reuters
DEARBORN, Mich.— Hollice McCollie set up his T-shirt stand outside the union hall where former primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, was making his case for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
He put out seven stacks of Sanders shirts, and at the end of his folding table, a single pile touting Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. McCollice, who travels the country selling T-shirts and buttons, said he included the Clinton shirts in a bow to political reality. “I’m for Bernie, but I’m an entrepreneur,” he said. “I have to sell Hillary.”
Many of the Vermont senator’s supporters share his ambivalence. Four months after Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton came together following a contentious primary, and a month before Election Day, most of his backers are falling in line behind Mrs. Clinton—some with enthusiasm, some reluctantly.
A smaller core, particularly young voters who flocked to his primary run, are considering or planning to vote for third-party candidates instead.
Mr. Sanders is working to bring them aboard with a newly packed schedule of campaign stops. On Wednesday, he was in Iowa; on Thursday, he made four stops in Michigan; and on Friday he traveled to Maine. On Saturday, he headlines a pair of events in Pennsylvania, with more stops to come.
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In his speeches, Mr. Sanders is more passionate about his disdain for Republican nominee Donald Trump than he is enthusiastic about Mrs. Clinton. He offers no anecdotes about the former secretary of state, or testimonials to her experience or leadership.
“This campaign is not a personality contest,” he told several hundred people at the United Auto Workers hall here. “I understand that neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump are particularly popular. I get that. But forget about that for a moment. Take a hard look at the agendas of the campaign, what these candidates stand for.”
Mr. Sanders then ran through the high points of the stump speech he delivered hundreds of times during his primary campaign, repeatedly interjecting that Mrs. Clinton understands, as he does, the need to increase the minimum wage, rebuild infrastructure, tackle climate change, make college more affordable and change campaign finance law.
Mrs. Clinton has a lot of work to do in Dearborn, home to many of the working-class white voters who have been drawn to Mr. Trump’s campaign, said Nick Kottalis, president of the UAW’s Dearborn Truck Plant unit.
Mr. Trump “has a solid foundation in the plant,” Mr. Kottalis said. “There’s just a lot of men who just don’t want a woman at the top. They think she’s pro-establishment, and they want change.”
At the UAW hall, Mr. Sanders tried to appeal to those voters the issue of trade. Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested Mr. Sanders backers should support him because they both oppose free trade agreements.
Mr. Sanders replied with thunderous outrage that so many Trump-branded products are manufactured abroad. “Don’t tell me about your love of the American worker when you’re exploiting poor people in Bangladesh. Bring those plants back to America!” he said.
The crowd was filled with Sanders-turned-Clinton supporters.
Fadia Faraj, 51 years old, says she cried when Mr. Sanders lost the primary contest and was determined to vote for Green Party nominee Jill Stein. She says Mr. Sanders persuaded her to back Mrs. Clinton.
“I have to listen to Bernie,” said Ms. Faraj, of Dearborn Heights. “He keeps saying, `Hold her accountable.’ He keeps saying, ‘Trust me.’” She added if Mrs. Clinton “does something crazy,” or if proof emerges she rigged the primary election against Mr. Sanders, she will vote for Ms. Stein.
“If Bernie didn’t push so hard for us to vote for Hillary Clinton, I wouldn’t vote,” said Benjamin Roy, 44, who works for an auto parts supplier and plans to vote for her at his urging. But he said, repeatedly, “I don’t like Hillary Clinton.”
In Dearborn, Jason Kuczek, age 39, said he wouldn’t support Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton and might write in Mr. Sanders’s name or vote for Ms. Stein. Even if his pick loses, he said, “At least I voted for the person I felt would be the best president of the United States.”
But David Russell, age 61, a retired factory worker, said he never doubted he would vote for Mrs. Clinton once she won the primary.
“It’s obvious you can’t vote for Trump,” Mr. Russell said. He said he sees many Trump yard signs in his neighborhood, so he put a Clinton sign in his yard and plans to make phone calls for her.
“I don’t see the country doing a lot of change under Hillary,” he said. On the upside, “It’s not going to get worse.”
Later in the day, Mr. Sanders appeared before an overflow crowd at the University of Michigan. Polling shows Mrs. Clinton running well behind President Barack Obama’s support with young voters, and Mr. Sanders’s campaign itinerary includes some college campuses.
Outside the museum where he appeared, Deb Ennis, an art teacher from nearby Ypsilanti, held a large sign proclaiming, “We still want Bernie.”
She said she plans to vote for Ms. Stein. “I never identified with a party in the first place. So it’s not like I’m leaving” the Democrats.
Still, Mr. McCollie, the T-shirt salesman, had followed Mr. Sanders to Ann Arbor, and as he packed up, he reported that on campus, he sold quite a few Clinton shirts.
As for his own vote, he is undecided.
Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com
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