Harris freshens up her message on the economy as Trump and Republicans go after her on inflation
WASHINGTON — Suddenly the time has come Kamala Harris ‘economy — a big opportunity, but also a potential risk for the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
Shortly after President Joe Biden left the race a week ago, Harris started to create her own story the economy by emphasizing ending child poverty, promoting unions, lowering health care and child care costs, and protecting “dignity” in retirement.
Not once in speeches in Wisconsin, Indiana or Texas she mentioned the word “inflation” — the overwhelming economic challenge plaguing Biden’s administration that forced him in his remarks to consistently acknowledge the pain voters are feeling as they deal with higher spending on groceries, gasoline, housing and cars.
Harris is giving more priority to what she thinks could happen in the future.
“Our vision of the future is a place where everyone has the opportunity not just to survive, but to thrive — a future where no child grows up in poverty, where every senior can retire with dignity, and where every worker has the freedom to join a union,” Harris told the American Federation of Teachers on Thursday.
But Republicans have moved quickly to blame Harris for the inflation they had previously blamed on Biden, emphasizing the cumulative impact of high prices under the Democratic administration.
Data from the Labor Department shows consumer prices have risen 19.2% since Biden took office, while average hourly earnings have increased 16.9%.
GOP leaders openly claim that Harris contributed to inflation, but do not specify how she did so, other than through her vice presidency.
“Vice President Harris is the mastermind of this administration’s record,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “Her fingerprints are all over these last four years of failure.”
Former and current officials who have worked with Harris said in interviews that criticism of inflation is not expected to stick with her because many voters see her as a fresh voice after nearly eight years under Republican Donald Trump or Biden in the White House.
Now it’s time for Harris to make her own economic policy positions known.
Some of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly discuss policy matters, said Harris would likely stick to Biden’s 2025 budget proposal and the plan to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, which Trump enacted in his 2017 tax overhaul.
Her emergence as the Democratic presidential candidate was accompanied by positive economic news.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that the economy grew with an annual rate of 2.8% in the second quarter. On Friday, it reported that its personal consumption expenditures measure of inflation fell to an annual rate of 2.5%, with financial markets now expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates in September.
People who have known Harris for years say her work as a California prosecutor has ensured that fairness is central to her thinking on economic policy.
“She’s a capitalist at heart — she wants to see companies do well,” said Yasmin Nelson, a former senior adviser to Harris. “But she recognizes that the balance has been tilted in their favor during the Trump administration. She wants to level the playing field, she says.”
Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, are keen to portray Harris as more liberal than Biden, suggesting the former California senator further curb fossil fuel use in favor of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.
Trump, on a meeting in North Carolina on Wednesdaycalled Harris “the most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history.”
Vance criticized her policies in an interview Friday on Megyn Kelly’s SiriusXM program.
“We cannot allow people who are going to destroy the American manufacturing and energy economy to take over,” Vance said. “It gets a lot worse when you bring in someone who is even more liberal than Biden.”
The Trump campaign quickly revived Harris’s statements from her short-lived race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. At the time, she said on CNN that she supported banning plastic straws, offshore oil drilling and the use of fracking for oil and natural gas, a controversial stance in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
Republican lawmakers also say Harris would raise taxes, something Biden’s 2025 budget plan would do only for wealthier households and corporations.
Harris’ campaign said it does not support a ban on fracking. During the 2020 Vice Presidential Debateshe emphasized several times that Biden would not end fracking.
The Energy Information Administration shows that both natural gas and oil production have surged to record levels during Biden’s presidency after a pandemic-induced slump. But the Biden administration’s policies are more restrictive than the GOP wants.
The bigger risk for Harris could be how persistent inflation affects voters’ views on the economy. Many economic models used by financial firms to analyze the election are based on the party of the incumbent candidate, not the candidate himself in this case.
Consulting firm Oxford Economics said Monday in an analysis that the odds were in Trump’s favor. The forecast is based on models that use economic data. It doesn’t necessarily take into account social issues like abortion and gun control that Democrats say will help them in the election.
The analysis showed that there is a great deal of uncertainty and that much can still happen in the coming months. However, it is fairly easy to conclude that inflation is still a hindrance for the vice president.
“I doubt Harris will significantly change the way swing voters think about the economy,” said Bernard Yaros, an economist at Oxford Economics. “She still carries the same baggage from presiding over the high inflation of 2021 and 2022. Like Biden, her approval took a hit during that inflationary wave.”