On the economy, Harris looks to reassure moderates

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ big economics speech this week didn’t break much new ground on policy, but did give a clear sense of which voters she’s targeting in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

Harris reiterated some progressive ideals. She declared that “I’ve always been and will always be a strong supporter of workers and unions,” and once again called for federal legislation against price gouging by big corporations.

The bulk of the speech, however — from her repeated use of the word “pragmatic” to her extensive discussion of support for small businesses — aimed to reassure moderate voters that as president, she wouldn’t lurch radically to the left.

The tone may disappoint some progressive Democrats, who have argued that Harris should stake out bolder positions. But that approach fits Harris — a politician who for most of her career has favored carefully calibrated steps over swinging for the fences.

It’s also a strategic choice by her campaign about how best to motivate the final slice of voters who will decide the election in the battleground states.

What Harris proposes

In his campaign four years ago and in the first few months of his administration, President Joe Biden laid out an ambitious progressive agenda.

Some of his wish list became law, including efforts to boost renewable energy and expand subsidies for health insurance. Much else failed in the Senate, which Democrats controlled by just a single vote.

Harris has put forward a more modest plan, but one which, nonetheless, forms a sharp contrast with proposals from former President Donald Trump.

Trump’s economic policy, which he also outlined in a speech Wednesday, combines huge tax hikes on imports of all types with a varying array of proposed income tax cuts. Trump says the increased tariffs would spur domestic manufacturing, but a wide variety of economists warn they would sharply increase prices.

Harris advocates several tax cuts aimed at middle-income and lower-income Americans. The list starts with an expanded tax credit for families with children, which Congress passed on a temporary basis in 2021 but did not renew. The money would cut the number of children living in poverty roughly in half, studies have found.

Harris would add a second tax cut of $6,000 during a child’s first year. She would also broaden the Earned Income Tax Credit, which supplements the wages of low-income workers.

All told, the Harris campaign estimates that about one-third of Americans would benefit.

On health care, Harris would make permanent the health insurance subsidies that are set to expire at the end of 2025. Those provide a major price break on insurance for the more than 21 million Americans who don’t get coverage through their jobs and buy it on the Obamacare marketplaces.

Housing and industrial policy

Harris’ biggest policy innovation would be on housing, which has emerged as a top concern for voters, especially young people, but hasn’t been the subject of sustained federal attention for decades.

Harris proposes several steps to increase housing supply, with a goal of building an additional 3 million housing units.

“Increasing the housing supply will help drive down the cost of housing,” she said in her speech — a statement that may seem like Economics 101, but which many voters have been skeptical about.

Realistically, increased supply won’t have a big effect on prices for several years. In the meantime, Harris would also give $25,000 in assistance to first-time homebuyers. That may not seem like much in high-cost markets like Los Angeles. Nationwide, however, more than half of all homes currently sell for less than $420,000, making Harris’ proposal a significant chunk of a potential down payment.

Finally, Harris has embraced several ideas for the federal government to nurture industries that could be critical for the country’s economic future. In her speech, she specifically mentioned biomanufacturing, aerospace, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain and clean energy — “from advanced batteries to geothermal to advanced nuclear.”

That type of targeted government assistance, which experts refer to as industrial policy, was long out of fashion in Washington but has enjoyed a resurgence under Biden, which Harris would continue.

“China is not moving slowly. They’re not. And we can’t afford to, either,” she said, pledging to speed up the process of reviewing new projects, getting permits and making decisions.

“Patience may be a virtue, but not when it comes to job creation or America’s competitiveness.”

Why that matters electorally

Harris almost certainly will win more votes than Trump.

Democrats not only have won the popular vote in both of Trump’s previous elections, they’ve done so in seven of the last eight presidential contests — all but 2004. That’s an unmatched record of success in American politics, and there’s no evidence so far to suggest this year will differ.

As everyone reading this knows, however, winning the presidency requires carrying enough states to get a majority of electoral votes. Right now, polls suggest that seven key states — Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — remain too close to call.

To win those states, Harris needs a big turnout of Democratic voters. But her campaign has clearly signaled that they believe she also needs to win over voters who remain outside the Democratic base.

One target group are voters who previously have backed Republicans but have been alienated by Trump — the sort of people who backed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in this year’s GOP primaries.

Democrats wooed them during their convention last month, but many remain susceptible to Trump’s accusations that Harris is a radical who would adopt leftist economic policies.

Young voters

That’s also true of another critical group: younger voters, including a lot of young Latinos.

Those voters mostly won’t cast ballots for Trump, but it’s an open question whether they’ll turn out. Many worry a lot about the cost of living and express concerns about Harris sparking another bout of inflation.

The semi-annual Harvard Youth Poll, released on Tuesday, found that Harris leads Trump 61%-30% among 18-29-year-olds who are likely to vote.

That’s far better than where Biden stood this spring among young voters, but it remains a few points behind the Democratic margin the same poll found this time four years ago. The poll strongly suggested that economic concerns are the main reason Harris still lags.

Harris has amassed a huge lead, 70%-23%, among young women, the poll found. Among young men, her majority is smaller, 53%-36%.

Young men and young women trust Harris more than Trump on abortion, protecting democracy and healthcare. On the economy, however, young men, 42%-34%, put more trust in Trump while young women narrowly said they trusted Harris more.

Young people who aren’t enrolled in college and don’t have a degree also narrowly trusted Trump more than Harris on the economy (39%-31%). Young Latinos were almost evenly divided.

A recent survey of Latino voters by the Pew Research Center found a similar pattern. Harris led Trump 57%-39%, the poll found — similar to the 61%-36% margin by which Biden defeated Trump in 2020, according to Pew’s analysis of who voted that year. To win states like Arizona, Harris probably needs to expand that margin at least a bit.

The economy ranked as the top issue for Latino voters, the poll found, and the survey found those voters almost evenly divided on which of the two candidates would handle it better. On most other issues, including abortion, healthcare and immigration, Harris had a significant advantage.

To motivate those voters to turn out for her, Harris’ campaign has adopted a two-prong approach that her speech illustrated — offering tangible benefits that will help with the problems they face, especially high housing costs, while trying to reassure them that she won’t reignite the inflation they fear.

There’s evidence that strategy is working: Trump’s once-large advantage on handling the economy has shrunk in many recent polls.

A Republican Senate

There’s one other reason for Harris to stick with a fairly limited set of economic proposals: She has little chance of getting a more ambitious agenda through Congress.

If Harris wins the White House, there’s a good chance Democrats will also regain a majority in the House. Prospects for a Democratic-controlled Senate look grimmer.

Democrats currently control the Senate with 51 votes. They’re all-but-guaranteed to lose West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin III is retiring. And in Montana, a state that has become increasingly Republican, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester lags behind his challenger in recent polls.

The party is pouring more resources into Texas and Florida, where Republican incumbents Sens. Ted Cruz and Rick Scott could be vulnerable. Both of those races remain tough for a Democrat to win, however.

Even with a Republican Senate, Harris would have significant leverage on some issues: The fact that nearly all the Trump tax cuts expire at the end of 2025 will give Democrats a lot of room to bargain. But the chances of major new programs being enacted would be vanishingly small.

In 2020, many Democrats looked at the chaos of the Trump administration and hoped for a landslide victory that could propel a wave of progressive reform through Congress.

But four years later, as this week’s speech illustrated, the party is heading into the final weeks of the election in a more sober mood with a candidate who, by temperament, favors incremental change and a political climate that is unlikely to allow anything else.