When Harris Talks About the Economy - And When She Doesn’t - 9/23/24

Ask Kamala Harris about abortion, and she will answer in clear and unmistakable language about her commitment to legal protections for reproductive rights, the blame she places on Donald Trump for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and her pledge to restore those protections if elected president.

Ask Harris about immigration, and she will respond with strength, toughness and resolve, reminding you that she has been a border state prosecutor, harshly criticizing Donald Trump for preventing the passage of legislation that would have enhanced border security, and promising to enhance the fight against fentanyl trafficking and human smuggling.

But if you ask her about the economy or inflation, Harris will tell you about her experience growing up in a middle-class household; she will express sympathy for Americans who are struggling with their finances, and she will talk in broad terms about the need for Democrats and Republicans to work together toward common-sense solutions. Then, if there’s time, she will describe her vision of a “care economy”, which includes a child tax credit, homeowner assistance and small business start-ups.

Polls are showing that while Harris is closing the gap with Trump on which candidate Americans trust more on economic issues, much of that movement is coming from college-educated voters who are already more likely to support her candidacy for other reasons. But her inability to persuade working-class voters was underscored by her failure to secure the national Teamsters union endorsement last week, and her economic message is not having the same effect on other traditional Democratic constituencies like young people and non-white voters. While Harris is running much better with these constituencies than Joe Biden had been before his withdrawal from the race this summer, she is still not attracting the same levels of backing from these groups as Biden in 2020 or Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

As I mentioned in last week’s column, Harris’ campaign made a strategic decision to use her debate with Trump to discredit the former president by luring him off-message to respond to a series of taunts that she had thrown at him about the size of his rallies, his inheritance, and other distractions. The tactic succeeded masterfully, drawing Trump into protracted defenses of this mocking him at the expense of the issues he had intended to emphasize.

But Harris’ success also came at a cost. The more time she spent criticizing Trump, the smaller her window of opportunity to tell the voters about the details of her own record and goals. This trade-off left Harris scrambling to find other platforms from which to discuss her economic agenda, and since no speech, rally or interview would attract an audience nearly as large as the debate, her team immediately began pressing for another face-off with Trump.

Although he had previously called for multiple debates, Trump quickly rejected the offer. And this past weekend, when Harris accepted an invitation from CNN to meet up in October, Trump reiterated his opposition, arguing that another debate should not take place after early voting had begun in many states. Harris’ advisors believe that Trump might change his mind, and Trump himself told an interviewer that he might decide to accept “if I got in the right mood.”

Of course, the one thing that could cause Trump to reconsider is if he and his advisors come to believe that such a high-profile encounter would be necessary in the campaign’s closing weeks if it appears he is falling behind Harris and needs something dramatic to change the trajectory of the race. But right now, with polls showing the candidates within the margin of error both nationally and in every swing state, Trump has little incentive to get back on stage and provide Harris with a sizable audience to whom she can fill in the blanks about her economic plans.

Because Trump relies so much more heavily on his existing base of loyalists than Harris does on hers, his team is confident that he can reach his supporters through non-traditional means. But Harris’ strategy counts on support from swing voters too, and cable TV and digital outreach won’t get her the audience she needs to explain how her platform will affect their lives. That means that Harris needs a debate much more than Trump does—at least for now.