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Maryland is Obama country Barack Obama Elementary School is just down the road.

By Jennifer Epstein

10/19/14 06:22 PM EDT

Updated 10/20/14 06:35 AM EDT

UPPER MARLBORO, Maryland President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail here Sunday, vouching for his law school classmate and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Anthony Brown, even after he was interrupted by a pro-immigration reform protester.

The problem is, Im actually for immigration reform, Obama said at Dr. Henry A. Wise, Jr. High School here, after a young man holding a handwritten sign reading #Not1More shouted out. Of course, he should be protesting the folks who are blocking it, but thats OK.

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The focus of Obamas remarks, though, was on encouraging the predominantly African-American crowd of 8,000 that filled the high schools massive gym and a smaller runoff room to get out and vote.

Go find your friends to vote. Get your cousin to vote. Get your uncle to vote, he said at the end of his 25-minute speech in support of Brown, the states lieutenant governor.

( Also on POLITICO: Back in Chicago, Obama urges voters)

This is Obama country Barack Obama Elementary School is just down the road, and close to 90 percent of votes cast here in the 2012 presidential election were for him, the best he did in any county in the state. The crowd was energetic in waiting for the president and in welcoming him to the stage, but once the president started speaking, the crowd began streaming out, a few at first, but then by the dozen once Obama was about 10 minutes into his talk. Still, the vast majority of the large crowd stayed for the full event.

Maryland, we have made progress, Obama said, making his case as he listed achievements of his presidency, including spreading access to health care through the Affordable Care Act. Dont let folks say otherwise.

But he acknowledged: Tonight were here because we know there is more work to do, including fighting terrorism and infectious diseases, his only reference to Ebola during the speech.

When you cast that vote youve got a choice to make, Obama said, between two very different visions for America.

I believe that Republicans are patriots, that they love their country, but they are a broken record, he said. Later on, he turned to a standard part of his political speeches, urging the crowd to choose hope over cynicism. Hope is a better choice and were selling hope.

( POLITICO's polling center)

Before Obama took the stage, the crowd cheered at an invocation noting that the slaves who built the White House would be proud to see a fellow African-American as president, and that Obama would prove the pundits wrong and eventually be seen as the countrys greatest presidents. As the crowd waited for Obama, Reps. Steny Hoyer and Donna Edwards spoke, encouraging attendees to take advantage of early voting, which runs from Oct. 23-Oct. 30.

Polls say some of us are apathetic, Hoyer said, but ,I dont see anybody apathetic in this hall today.

President Obama has moved us forward, not back, Gov. Martin OMalley said.

Brown led Republican Larry Hogan, 49 percent to 42 percent, in the Baltimore Suns most recent poll, released last week.

( Also on POLITICO: How to blow an easy GOP win)

With just 16 days until Election Day, it was the presidents first campaign rally a function of his limited appeal nearing the end of his sixth year in office and scheduling pressures. He had planned to travel to Connecticut on Wednesday for a rally with Gov. Dannel Malloy, but postponed that trip and another day of travel on Thursday to stay at the White House and focus on his administrations response to Ebola.

From here, Obama is headed to Chicago, where hell join Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn for a rally at Chicago State University, a historically black institution in Roseland, the neighborhood where the president worked as a community organizer in the 1980s. He is also slated to campaign for the Democratic candidates for governor in Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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Barack Obama tries to energize base in Maryland - POLITICO