Kamala Harris is zeroing in on a monumental task that could make or break her prospects in the final month before Election Day: wiping out Donald Trump’s persisting advantage among voters on whom they trust to handle the economy.
While Harris has gained ground on stewardship of the economy, Trump still leads in most surveys about the issue, which frequently ranks as the top concern for voters. The Harris campaign and Democratic allies believe she must erode that advantage and at least fight it to a draw.
“With four weeks to go, we’re going to be laser-focused on this and be talking about this,” a Harris aide said.
The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said Harris and her team will spend the final stretch of the campaign presenting her as the candidate fighting for the middle class, citing her upbringing and agenda, while portraying Trump as caring more about cutting taxes for wealthy Americans like himself and hitting his plan for aggressive tariffs as a de facto middle-class tax hike.
Her strategy is playing out through TV and digital campaign ads, a gradual stream of policy rollouts and speeches, and a new media blitz by Harris designed to connect her biography to her economic vision — for instance, recalling her mother's struggles to buy a home and offering a $25,000 credit for first-time homebuyers. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, argued in the recent debate that Trump’s economy was weak even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Top Democrats are acutely focused on the economy after they were burned by the issue in recent elections. Some argue Hillary Clinton lost ground by emphasizing Trump's character over an economic message. And exit polls showed Joe Biden underperforming the polls in 2020 amid a deficit against Trump on handling the economy. Now party strategists believe that among the narrow but crucial slice of swing voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, the economy will carry the day.
“If I had one piece of advice: They need a much, much stronger and detailed economic message,” Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis said. “Talking about aspirations, hopes and dreams is not a message. The economic issue is still Trump’s core advantage and one of the only reasons this race is as close as it is.”
Still, Harris is performing better than Biden did on the economy against Trump. She has put proposals to lower costs front and center in a departure from Biden, who focused more on touting macroeconomic gains; that fell on deaf ears with many middle-class and lower-income voters, who still feel the pinch of higher prices more than low unemployment or record-high stocks.
A recent NBC News poll found that Trump led Harris by 9 points on handling the economy — down from the 22-point lead he held over Biden earlier this year. A Cook Political Report swing state survey in late September found Harris pulling even with Trump on “getting inflation under control,” although Trump still led by 5 points on whom voters would rather see “deal with the economy.” A New York Times/Siena College national poll released Tuesday found that the economy is the No. 1 issue influencing likely voters, with abortion a distant second and immigration just behind that.
Harris unveiled her latest policy plan Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” hitting both economic and health care concerns with calls to expand Medicare to cover long-term care and home health aides, a major issue for middle-age voters — especially women over 50 — who are caring for both children and aging parents.
“I took care of my mother when she was sick. She was diagnosed with cancer,” Harris said. “And so it is a personal experience for me, as well as something I care deeply about.”
As Harris ramps up her media appearances, a Democratic strategist said she would do well to deliver “tight and strong” answers about the economy at every opportunity. The aide, who spoke candidly about Harris on condition of anonymity, added: “She has this instinct to go to a word salad, and there’s no need for that.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt pushed back against Harris’ argument that she would be a better steward of the economy.
“President Trump is crushing Kamala Harris on the issue of the economy because he’s a businessman with a proven track record of economic success from his first term in the White House,” Leavitt said in an email, touting low gas prices and mortgage rates during his presidency.
She attributed post-pandemic inflation to “Kamala’s socialist spending bills” and said Trump is the candidate who would “make America affordable and wealthy again.”
Harris allies say that while she has improved compared with Biden’s standing against Trump on handling of the economy, it's not yet enough to ensure she wins the presidency.
“She’s still underwater overall on the economy. … There is still more to do,” said Alyssa Cass, the chief strategist for Blueprint 2024, a Democratic outfit that studies key voting groups. “I think fighting the issue to a draw would get her there,” she said, citing Harris’ strengths on other issues, like abortion.
“A closing message very laser-focused on reducing prices by going after corporations and a middle-class tax cut, paired with a focus on protecting Social Security, Medicare and the [Affordable Care Act], allows her to close the gap on prices that currently exists,” she said.
Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said that she has conducted focus groups with persuadable voters and that some voters who personally can’t stand Trump are open to him because of the economy.
“People almost always say ‘I hate him but,’ or ‘I like him and’ — ‘but he did a good job on the economy,’ ‘the economy is better under him,’” she said. “That’s sort of the permission structure for people to support Trump because they know they’re not supposed to like him and vote for him because they know he’s kind of a bad guy.”
