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Vice President Kamala Harris announced a sweeping set of economic proposals on Friday meant to cut taxes and lower the cost of groceries, housing, and other essentials for many Americans.
“Look, the bills add up,” she declared, trying to address the financial concerns that are at the top of voters’ minds and that Republican Donald Trump is attempting to blame on her.
During a speech in the battleground state of North Carolina, Harris said that “building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency” as she promoted her plan for a federal ban on price gouging by food producers and grocers. She also proposed $25,000 in down payment assistance for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes.
“Every day across our nation, families talk about their plans for the future, their ambitions, their aspirations for themselves, for their children. And they talk about how they’re going to be able to actually achieve them financially, because, look, the bills add up,” Harris said. “Food, rent, gas, back-to-school clothes, prescription medications. After all that, for many families, there’s not much left at the end of the month.”
She stressed tax breaks for families, as well as middle- and lower-income people, promising to expand the child tax credit to up to $3,600 — and $6,000 for children in their first year of life. The vice president also wants to enlarge the earned income tax credit to cover people in lower-income jobs without children — which the campaign estimates would cut their effective tax rate by $1,500 — and lower health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.
Overall, the plans represent a continuation of many Biden administration priorities.
Harris isn’t looking for any radical departures from President Joe Biden, who stepped down from the race last month and endorsed her. Still, the vice president has embraced a dash of economic populism, shifting away from Biden’s emphasis on job creation and infrastructure to matters more closely tied to easing the cost of living -– food prices, housing costs, and tax breaks for families.
Much of what she’s proposing would require congressional approval, which is far from assured in the current political environment, though, and Harris’ campaign has offered scant details on how to pay for the ideas.
The vice president is seeking to blunt Trump’s attacks on her. He responded to her speech by posting on his social media account, “Kamala will implement SOVIET style price controls.” He gave his own speech Thursday, during which he displayed popular grocery store items meant to represent the high cost of food.
Some of Trump’s economic advisers offered further rebuttals to Harris’ plans before she spoke on Friday, with Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the former president’s campaign, calling them representative of a “socialist and authoritarian model.”
Kevin Hassett, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration, called it “completely preposterous” for the government to play a role in setting food prices, a reference to Harris’ proposed federal ban on “corporate price-gouging” on food.
In her speech, Harris offered stark contrasts with Trump’s economic proposals, including his call for steep tariffs on foreign goods. She said that her opponent “wants to impose what is, in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries.”
“It will mean higher prices on just about every one of your daily needs,” Harris said. “A Trump tax on gas, a Trump tax on food, a Trump tax on clothing, a Trump tax on over-the-counter medication.”
She added, “At this moment when everyday prices are too high, he will make them even higher.”
Year-over-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are still 21% above where they were three years ago. A Labor Department report this week showed that nearly all of July’s inflation reflected higher rental prices and other housing costs, a trend that, according to real-time data, is easing. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, contributing to lower inflation.
Harris’ grocery pricing proposal would instruct the Federal Trade Commission to penalize “big corporations” that engage in price spikes and it singles out a lack of competition in the meat-packing industry for driving up meat prices.
Monica Wallace, a county clerk who attended Harris’ speech, called the vice president’s economic plans “what we need.”
“I have a mother who is receiving services, and just in food stamps alone, she’s still not able to afford food that will last her,” Wallace said.
Comparing Harris to Trump, Wallace said she sees the vice president as someone “definitely for the middle and lower class,” whereas the former president is “for the people who make the money to do any and everything that they want.”
Polls nonetheless show that Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to handling the economy: Some 45% say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38% say that about Harris. About 1 in 10 trusts neither Harris nor Trump to better handle the economy, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Riding a resurgence of enthusiasm since the Democrats’ campaign reboot, Harris has embarked on a battleground state blitz in recent weeks that has broadened the number of races viewed as competitive by strategists. In North Carolina, Democrats are navigating renewed energy with caution in an economically dynamic state that hasn’t been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.
Gov. Roy Cooper told Friday’s crowd, “I have that 2008 feeling.”
“That’s the last time we voted for a Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama,” Cooper said.
North Carolina State University political science professor Steven Greene said that the state “went from a situation where Joe Biden was almost surely going down in defeat here, whereas Kamala Harris has a very real chance of winning,”
Deborah Holder, a 68-year-old Raleigh resident who runs six Mcdonald's restaurants, said of the vice president, “Her culture is something that is going to be a huge strength for her because she’ll be able to look at the rest of us not just as her constituents, but as people that she has dealt with in all walks of life,”
Harris is trying to strike a balance in defining her own image and economic agenda while still giving credit for the Biden administration’s track record. Her speech in North Carolina came a day after the president was asked if Harris might distance herself from his economic record and responded, “She’s not going to.”
In their first joint speaking event since Biden dropped out, he and Harris were in Maryland on Thursday where they showcased successful negotiations to lower prices for Medicare recipients on 10 prescription drugs.
But Harris spent far more time talking about Trump than Biden in North Carolina, promising “to build an America where everyone’s work is rewarded and talents are valued, where we work with labor and business to strengthen the American economy.”
“And where everyone has the opportunity,” she said, “not just to get by, but to get ahead.”
With inflation and high grocery prices still frustrating many voters, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday proposed a ban on “price gouging” by food suppliers and grocery stores, as part of a broader agenda aimed at lowering the cost of housing, medicine, and food.
It’s an attempt to tackle a clear vulnerability of Harris’ head-on: Under the Biden-Harris administration, grocery prices have shot up 21%, part of an inflation surge that has raised overall costs by about 19% and soured many Americans on the economy, even as unemployment fell to historic lows. Wages have also risen sharply since the pandemic, and have outpaced prices for more than a year. Still, surveys find Americans continue to struggle with higher costs.
“We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed,” Harris said Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. “But our supply chains have now improved and prices are still too high.”
Will her proposals do much to lower prices? And what even is “price gouging”? The answers to those and other questions are below:
What is price gouging?
There is no strict definition that economists would agree on, but it generally refers to spikes in prices that typically follow a disruption in supply, such as after a hurricane or other natural disaster. Consumer advocates charge that gouging occurs when retailers sharply increase prices, particularly for necessities, under such circumstances.
Is it already illegal?
Several states already restrict price gouging, but there is no federal-level ban.
There are federal restrictions on related but different practices, such as price-fixing laws that bar companies from agreeing to not compete against each other and set higher prices.
Will Harris’ proposal lower grocery prices?
Most economists would say no, though her plan could have an impact on future crises. For one thing, it’s unclear how much price gouging is going on right now.
Grocery prices are still painfully high compared to four years ago, but they increased just 1.1% in July compared with a year earlier, according to the most recent inflation report. That is in line with pre-pandemic increases.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that inflation has been defeated after Wednesday’s inflation report showed that it fell to 2.9% in July, the smallest increase in three years.
“There’s some dissonance between claiming victory on the inflation front in one breath and then arguing that there’s all this price gouging happening that is leading consumers to face really high prices in another breath,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.
In general, after an inflationary spike, it’s very hard to return prices to where they were. Sustained price declines typically only happen in steep, protracted recessions. Instead, economists generally argue that the better approach is for wages to keep rising enough so that Americans can handle the higher costs.
So why is Harris talking about this now?
Probably because inflation remains a highly salient issue politically. And plenty of voters do blame grocery stores, fast food chains, and food and packaged goods makers for the surge of inflation in the past three years. Corporate profits soared in 2021 and 2022.
“It could be that they’re looking at opinion polls that show that the number one concern facing voters is inflation and that a large number of voters blame corporations for inflation,” Strain said.
At the same time, even if prices aren’t going up as much, as Harris noted, they remain high, even as supply chain kinks have been resolved.
Elizabeth Pancotti, a policy analyst at Roosevelt Forward, a progressive advocacy group, points to the wood pulp used in diapers. The price of wood pulp has fallen by half from its post-pandemic peak, yet diaper prices haven’t.
“So that just increases the (profit) margins for both the manufacturers and the retailers,” she said.
Did price gouging cause inflation?
Most economists would say no, that it was a more straightforward case of supply and demand. When the pandemic hit, meat processing plants were occasionally closed after COVID-19 outbreaks, among other disruptions to supply. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lifted the cost of wheat and other grains on global markets. Auto prices rose as carmakers were unable to get all the semiconductors they needed from Taiwan to manufacture cars, and many car plants shut down temporarily.
At the same time, several rounds of stimulus checks fattened Americans’ bank accounts, and after hunkering down during the early phase of the pandemic, so-called “revenge spending” took over. The combination of stronger demand and reduced supply was a recipe for rising prices.
Still, some economists have argued that large food and consumer goods companies took advantage of pandemic-era disruptions. Consumers saw empty store shelves and heard numerous stories about disrupted supply chains, and at least temporarily felt they had little choice but to accept the higher prices.
Economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, called it “seller’s inflation.” Others referred to it as “greedflation.”
“What a lot of corporations did was exploit consumers’ willingness” to accept the disruptions from the pandemic, Pancotti said.
Is banning price gouging like instituting price controls?
During the last spike of inflation in the 1970s, both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations at times imposed price controls, which specifically limited what companies could charge for goods and services. They were widely blamed for creating shortages and long lines for gas.
Some economists say Harris’ proposal would have a similar impact.
“It’s a heavy-handed socialist policy that I don’t think any economist would support,” said Kevin Hassett, a former top economic adviser in the Trump White House.
But Pancotti disagreed. She argued that it was closer to a consumer protection measure. Under Harris’ proposal, the government wouldn’t specify prices, but the Federal Trade Commission could investigate price spikes.
“The proposal is really about protecting consumers from unscrupulous corporate actors that are trying to just rip the consumer off because they know they can,” she said.
Democratic lawmakers and delegates will flock to Chicago next week for a jovial four-night party of a national convention that just weeks ago was shaping up to put a dispassionate party on full display.
What would have been a stoic affair hindered by a major doubts that President Joe Biden could defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump is shaping up as an energetic crowning of Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee.
As the Democratic Party’s main message is Biden’s rather grim warning about Trump and American democracy. It is a forward-looking vision espoused with wide smiles by Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who have described themselves as “joyful warriors.”
Biden’s attempt to hold off his critics proved insurmountable, but Harris faces her own tall hurdles: Using the Democratic National Convention to continue her unlikely campaign’s early momentum and show she can shoulder a divided party and appeal to enough independent voters to knock off Trump and his sizable base.
Biden is scheduled to address the convention on Monday night, giving Democrats something of a tightrope to walk as they honor one president and hear an acceptance speech from who they hope is the next. But when asked about how Democrats navigate that potential awkwardness, Heather Hendershot, a Northwestern University professor whose research focus is political conventions, replied: “I think they’ve got this.”
“When it comes to managing this change at the top of the ticket, I really do think you’ll see a party that’s as unified as it can be,” she said in a Thursday telephone interview. “You’re going to hear from former Democratic presidents, the outgoing president and a former presidential nominee in Hillary Clinton.”
“That will be a big contrast with the RNC. Who were the former Republican presidents or vice presidents in Milwaukee? Donald Trump, that’s all,” Hendershot noted. “Success is projecting that unity via all the party leaders that will speak on stage, and then they will have to get two powerful speeches about the future from Vice President Harris and Governor Walz.”
A Monmouth University poll released Wednesday found a substantial jump in enthusiasm among registered Democratic voters and a sizeable one among independents. Less than half of registered Democrats (46 percent) in June said they were fired up about a Biden-Trump rematch, but that jumped to 85 percent in the latest Monmouth survey, conducted Aug. 8-12. The jump among independents was from 34 percent in June to 53 percent last week. Registered GOP voters held steady at 71 percent in both polls.
Monmouth found that 48 percent of registered voters said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Harris, compared to 43 percent saying the same about Trump.
“This is clearly a different ball game,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “The nominee change has raised the ceiling for potential Democratic support in the presidential contest by a small but crucial amount, at least for now.”
But Harris still has work to do to assuage various parts of her own base, especially when it comes to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“The big question is how to handle any disruptions on the floor. … But some of the folks that, had Biden stayed in the race, would have been doing the disrupting have been a part of the unity push,” Hendershot said. “The bigger issue is violence outside the convention hall.
“There, if disruptions on the floor are minimal, that would be a big difference from 1968, when the Democratic convention was marred by disruptions on the floor and violence outside the conventional hall,” she said. “If we only see big protests outside, then the Democrats’ message can be, ‘We have tremendous sympathy for those protesting. But they don’t represent the overwhelming majority of our party.”
‘More humane place’
Harris, in another sign of how she has altered the campaign, was direct and forceful with pro-Palestinian protestors during an Aug. 7 rally in Detroit.
“We believe in democracy. Everyone’s voice matters, but I am speaking now,” Harris said.
Audio captured by television networks indicated the protesters, including one woman with her head covered, wearing traditional Muslim attire, were chanting, “We won’t vote for genocide.”
The vice president attempted to restart her stump speech, but the protestors again interrupted with chants. That’s when Harris sounded a much different tone than Biden had when he was still running and was confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters. He had let them speak before security personnel removed them from rally venues.
“You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,” a stern-sounding and -faced Harris said, looking directly at the demonstrators. “Otherwise, I’m speaking.” But in a likely preview of her message to Arab American voters during her convention acceptance address, she had a more diplomatic message for another group protesting at a rally in Phoenix on Aug. 9
“Hold on. Here’s the thing: We are all in here together. … We’re here to fight for our democracy, which includes respecting the voices that I think we are hearing from,” she said.
“I have been clear: Now is the time to get a ceasefire deal and get the hostage deal done. Now is the time,” Harris said. “And the president and I are working around the clock every day to get that ceasefire deal done and bring the hostages home. So, I respect your voices, but we are here to … talk about this race in 2024.”
Arab American groups had been frustrated with Biden since soon after Israel responded to Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on its soil when around 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered. Over 650,000 Democrats did not vote for the president in the party’s primaries this year in protest.
More than 39,000 people have died in Gaza as Israel has contended its brutal bombing campaign has targeted Hamas operatives and leaders, according to a Hamas-run Palestinian health agency. Tens of thousands more have been wounded.
Even as Harris checked the protesters in Detroit and Phoenix, leaders of one of the top pro-Palestinian movements on Aug. 8 issued a statement indicating they spoke with Harris at the Motor City rally and would like to support her candidacy — though they are pushing for an end to U.S. arms shipments to Israel, something Harris has been clear that she does not support.
“We found hope in Vice President Harris expressing an openness to meeting about an arms embargo, and we are eager to continue engaging because people we love are being killed with American bombs,” the co-founders of the Uncommitted movement, Layla Elabed, and Abbas Alawieh, said in a statement.
“When we told Vice President Harris that members of our community in Michigan are losing dozens and hundreds of their family members to Israel’s assault in Gaza, she said back: ‘It’s horrific.’ It’s clear to us that Vice President Harris can lead our country’s Gaza policy to a more humane place. … Palestinians cannot eat words. Our communities are in deep pain,” they said.
But they ended with a warning: “Our democracy cannot afford to pay the bill for disregarding Palestinian lives should it come due in November.”
‘Battle of inches’
Whether Harris needs to worry about the bloc in Michigan could come down to turnout.
Trump had been narrowly leading Biden there, but a Morning Consult poll conducted after Harris had all but locked up the nomination put her up 11 percentage points. Three more recent polls put the vice president up there by between 2 points and 4 points, with a RealClearPolitics average of several polls giving her a 2.4 percentage point lead.
Any lingering members of that movement who conclude they can’t vote for Harris might be offset by independent voters who ultimately side with her.
“Despite her role as vice president, Kamala Harris is not currently burdened with President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, and is seen by a majority of voters as offering a chance to turn the page of the Trump/Biden era’ and representing a ‘new generation of leadership,’” Cook Political Report Publisher Amy Walter wrote in a memo this week.
“Harris’ success in closing the gap [on Trump] is driven by her consolidation of the Democratic base, and increased support among independent voters,” Walter added. “With partisans now equally engaged, the next 80-plus days will be a battle of inches centered on (re)defining the vice president’s image and defining the issues over which the presidential election will be fought.”
That work has been underway for several weeks. It will kick into high gear Monday in Chicago, and was on display at a joint event with Biden in Prince George’s County, Md., just outside Washington on Thursday.
“Our democracy is at stake,” Biden said to an overflow room crowd, “and I left you with the woman who is going to take care of it.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a bipartisan package of 10 bills that aims to crack down on smash-and-grab robberies and property crimes, making it easier to go after repeat shoplifters and auto thieves and increase penalties for those running professional reselling schemes.
The move comes as Democratic leadership works to prove that they’re tough enough on crime while trying to convince voters to reject a ballot measure that would bring even harsher sentences for repeat offenders of shoplifting and drug charges.
While shoplifting has been a growing problem, large-scale, smash-and-grab thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have become a crisis in California and elsewhere in recent years. Such crimes, often captured on video and posted on social media, have brought particular attention to the problem of retail theft in the state.
The legislation includes the most significant changes to address retail theft in years, the Democratic governor said. It allows law enforcement to combine the value of goods stolen from different victims to impose harsher penalties and arrest people for shoplifting using video footage or witness statements.
“This goes to the heart of the issue, and it does it thoughtfully and judiciously,” Newsom said of the package. “This is the real deal.”
The package received bipartisan support from the Legislature, though some progressive Democrats did not vote for it, citing concerns that some of the measures are too punitive.
The legislation also cracks down on cargo thefts, closes a legal loophole to make it easier to prosecute auto thefts, and requires marketplaces like eBay and Nextdoor to start collecting bank accounts and tax identification numbers from high-volume sellers. Retailers also can obtain restraining orders against convicted shoplifters under one of the bills.
“We know that retail theft has consequences, big and small, physical and financial,” state Sen. Nancy Skinner, who authored one of the bills, said Friday. “And we know we have to take the right steps to stop it without returning to the days of mass incarceration.”
Democratic lawmakers, led by Newsom, spent months earlier this year unsuccessfully fighting to keep a tougher-on-crime initiative off the November ballot. That ballot measure, Proposition 36, would make it a felony for repeat shoplifters and some drug charges, among other things. Democrats worried the measure would disproportionately criminalize low-income people and those with substance use issues rather than target ringleaders who hire large groups of people to steal goods for them to resell online. Lawmakers’ legislation instead would allow prosecutors to combine multiple thefts at different locations for a felony charge and stiffen penalties for smash-and-grabs and large-scale reselling operations.
Newsom in June went as far as proposing putting a competing measure on the ballot but dropped the plan a day later. Proposition 36 is backed by a coalition of district attorneys, businesses, and some local elected officials such as San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
Newsom, flanked by a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers, business leaders, and local officials in a Home Depot store in San Jose, said the ballot measure would be “a devastating setback” for California. Newsom said last month he will work to fight the measure.
“That initiative is about going back to the 1980s and the war on drugs,” he said. “It’s about mass incarceration.”
How to tackle crimes in California has become increasingly difficult to navigate in recent years for state Democrats, many of whom have spent the last decade championing progressive policies to depopulate jails and prisons and invest in rehabilitation programs. Newsom’s administration has also spent $267 million to help dozens of local law enforcement agencies increase patrols, buy surveillance equipment, and prosecute more criminals.
The issue hit a boiling point this year amid mounting criticism from Republicans and law enforcement, who point to viral videos of large-scale thefts where groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight. Voters across the state are also vexed over what they see as a lawless California where retail crimes and drug abuse run rampant as the state grapples with a homelessness crisis.
As the issue could even affect the makeup — and control — of Congress, some Democrats broke with party leadership and said they supported Proposition 36, the tough-on-crime approach.
It’s hard to quantify the retail crime issue in California because of the lack of local data, but many point to major store closures and everyday products like toothpaste being locked behind plexiglass as evidence of a crisis. The California Retailers Association said it’s challenging to quantify the issue in California because many stores don’t share their data.
Crime data shows the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles saw a steady increase in shoplifting between 2021 and 2022, according to a study by the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California. The state attorney general and experts said crime rates in California remain low compared to the heights decades ago.
The California Highway Patrol has recovered $45 million in stolen goods and arrested nearly 3,000 people since 2019, officials said Friday.
As Barack Obama locked up the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, John McCain launched an attack ad that tried to demean his younger opponent as a political lightweight by calling him “a celebrity,” on par with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
But Obama’s celebrity status didn’t prevent him from being elected, and political experts say Kamala Harris, who suddenly became “the coolest thing in pop culture,” could gain an edge in the Nov. 5 election over Donald Trump, who has his own complicated history with celebrity.
Going into next week’s Democratic National Convention, the Oakland-reared former prosecutor is “a rock star” on social media with all the coconut-themed TikTok memes and so much else, said Robert M. Shrum, a longtime strategist for Democratic candidates and a USC political science professor.
She’s also packing in crowds at rallies with her amiable everyman running mate Tim Walz and has become “an aspirational figure” for women and young people who are exhilarated about the chance to elect the first female president, said Democratic strategist Chai Komanduri.
“I was really excited to see her,” said Spencer Hall, a San Jose State University sophomore who flew to Las Vegas for the day to join an estimated 15,000 others at her rally. He stood in line for about 10 hours, with a diverse crowd chanting, “We’re not going back.”
During a recent Swing Left Young People for Harris virtual rally, participants hailed her as Queen Brat, referencing dance-pop queen Charli XCX’s endorsement. They also affectionately referred to her by her first name – a sure sign of celebrity, said Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna CollegeCould I be unconventional and just say a couple things loaded: 
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But no one can say whether the “Kamalanomenon” excitement will last through the election and sway undecided voters, older white men, or others who may not care about her social media stardom. Thus far, though, she’s winning over millennials and Gen-Zers, beating Trump 53% to 36% in a new NextGen America survey of voters under 35. She’s also taken a small lead in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and raked in $310 million in donations at the end of July.
Since Joe Biden stepped down as the Democratic presidential candidate on July 21, a buoyant and confident Harris has dominated the news cycles, as well as the celebrity-entertainment media, and not just because her candidacy stops a retread of 2020’s election between two older white men. The relatively youthful 59-year-old Harris also is a Black and South Asian woman who has long been underestimated, even by her own party, fueling an underdog narrative that America loves, journalist Matthew Yglesias said.
Moreover, with her smile, delivery and sometimes goofy humor, she radiates “authenticity” – that “holy grail” in both electoral politics and celebrity, as sociologist Tressie McMillan Cotton wrote in the New York Times.
People who’ve watched Harris’ rise from San Francisco D.A. to California attorney general, U.S. senator, and vice president say the star power was always there. Precious Green, director of community engagement at Manny’s community hub in San Francisco, disputes the idea that she’s an “overnight celebrity.” Once Biden recommended she replace him, Green imagines Harris saying, “You just discovered me? I’ve been at this year for years. I’m ready for day one.”
Since Harris’ first day as presidential candidate, her team has unleashed a social media campaign aimed to convert organic excitement about her candidacy into viral posts that tell her story. The team also has seized on her celebrity endorsements, especially from stars with Gen-Z appeal. Beyonce immediately let the candidate use her song “Freedom” to push her messages on abortion, gun violence, health care, and Trump’s felony convictions, while Megan Thee Stallion delivered a “Hotties for Harris” performance at her first presidential campaign rally in Atlanta. Thus far, Taylor Swift has yet to repeat her endorsement of the 2020 Democratic ticket, but there’s a Swifites for Harris social media movement.
Trump has publicly and privately fumed over the attention Harris has received, with the former reality TV star trying to break into news cycles by doing interviews with friendly inoculators like Elon Musk or by accusing Harris of faking her crowd sizes. He’s long touted his celebrity affiliations, resulting in what Komanduri calls a “pop culture gender war” between the two campaigns. Trump’s endorsements from Hulk Hogan and UFC’s Dana White ostensibly appeal to men, Komanduri said. However, some of Trump’s past-their-prime celebrity supporters and affinity for “Macho Man” and Frank Sinatra could make him come across as “the cool older uncle to younger men,” or, worse, like a backward-looking candidate, Komanduri said.
The fact that both candidates are wrapping themselves in the aura of celebrity follows decades of conflicting ideas about its role in presidential politics. While critics of Obama and of movie-star-turned-politician Ronald Reagan accused both of lacking substance or experience, Americans also have expected their presidents to be great unifiers and comforters-in-chief — larger-than-life roles suited to charismatic individuals with experience in communicating narratives about themselves to mass audiences.
To a certain extent, the presidency is “a show, it’s a pageant,” said Evan Norman, a Florida-based P.R. expert. In this realm, Trump could sell himself to voters in 2016 as the towering, all-knowing business leader he presented in “The Apprentice.”
Some of the most well-regarded presidents of the 20th century attained a veneer of celebrity because they “mastered the media of the day, whether that was the fireside chat of Franklin Roosevelt, the televised debates of John F. Kennedy or the late-night TV appearances of Bill Clinton,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego.
In her new identity as a celebrity candidate, Harris draws comparison to Obama, and not just because she’s a person of color who’s risen to such political heights. But Harris as a superstar may surprise many who only know her as Biden’s low-key vice president or for running an underwhelming 2019 presidential campaign. Republicans have accused her of being the “DEI hire” who advanced her career because of her race, gender, or social connections, while Trump used a racist trope to challenge her presentation of authenticity by saying she only “turned Black” for political expediency.
With the help of her entertainment lawyer husband Doug Emhoff, Harris has befriended powerful people in show business, which would make her the most “Hollywood-connected” president since Reagan, The Ankler newsletter said. Notably, though, the gossip site TMZ said her campaign is limiting celebrity presence at the DNC so it won’t be painted as a “liberal Hollywood elite event.”
As in Hollywood, becoming a political star often depends on timing and circumstance, Harris’ supporters concede. In addition to being Biden’s vice president when he decided to drop out of the race, she’s better able to shine in contrast to a polarizing opponent. “It she were up against a more normal Republican, it’d be a different kind of race,” Pitney said.
That said, Harris has gotten “four years of on-the-job training as vice president,” said Walnut Creek activist Ogie Strogatz. Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, who has met Harris on multiple occasions, said the vice president possesses a quality often attributed to both charismatic leaders and to movie stars: the ability to make the person they’re talking to feel like the only person in the room. “When you meet her, even briefly, you get direct eye contact, a warm smile,” Ellenberg said.
“I think she has grown tremendously in the last four years, her messaging is more sophisticated and you can feel a greater sense of confidence and purpose,” Ellenberg said. “She knows why she’s in this position, she’s ready to lead and she’s ready to deliver.”
Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled her economic agenda in a speech Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Democratic presidential nominee laid out plans including a proposal for a federal ban on what she called price gouging on groceries, as well as $25,000 in down payment help for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes. She also spoke at length about lowering drug costs and criticized the platform of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Here’s a closer look at some of her promises and claims.
The impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs
HARRIS: Trump “wants to impose what is in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. ... And you know, economists have done the math. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year.”
THE FACTS: Harris was referring to Trump’s proposal to impose a tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports — he has mentioned both figures — and up to 60% on imports from China.
Most economists do expect it would raise the prices on many goods. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, estimates it would reduce average incomes in the top 60% of earners by 1.8%. And the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive advocacy group, has calculated that the higher tariffs would cost households an extra $3,900 a year. However, Trump has said the tariff revenue could be used to cut other taxes, which would reduce the overall cost of the policy.
Lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs
HARRIS: “I’ll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone.”
THE FACTS: Harris made this promise while referencing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which allows Medicare to negotiate medication costs directly with drug companies. While it is difficult to predict whether she will be able to keep it, especially without more details, recent policy can provide some clues.
For example, the White House announced Thursday that it had inked deals with manufacturers that could save taxpayers billions of dollars by knocking down the list prices for 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs. However, there are a number of factors — from discounts to the coinsurance or copays for the person’s Medicare drug plan — that determine the final price a person pays when they pick up the drugs at their pharmacy.
Powerful drug companies unsuccessfully tried to file lawsuits to stop these negotiations. They ended up engaging in talks and executives hinted in recent weeks during earnings calls that they don’t expect the new Medicare drug prices to impact their bottom line. However, the manufacturers have warned that the Inflation Reduction Act could drive up prices for consumers in other areas.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations achieved $35 insulin copay caps for certain Medicare recipients. Biden’s caps have a wider reach, as they apply to all insulin products covered by any Medicare Part D or Part B plan, according to health policy research nonprofit KFF. Trump’s applied only to some insulin products covered by a voluntary subset of Part D plans.
A federal ban on grocery ‘price gouging’
HARRIS: “As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans. ... And I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food.”
THE FACTS: While grocery prices are 25% higher than they were before the pandemic four-and-a-half years ago, they have settled down recently and it’s not clear that much price gouging is now going on.
In the past 12 months, grocery prices on average are up just 1.1%, comparable to pre-pandemic increases. Also, prices for most goods and services, in general, don’t fall significantly except in steep, painful recessions. Instead, most economists expect that wages will rise enough so that Americans can adjust to higher costs. Still, prices remain higher overall than they were just a couple of years ago.
Addressing housing shortages and helping home buyers
HARRIS: “And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals. ... While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.”
THE FACTS: These promises could end up working at cross-purposes. By helping more Americans afford homes, the Harris proposal to subsidize down payments would almost certainly increase demand, at a time when estimates of the U.S. housing shortage already range from 3 million to as high as 7 million.
Harris’s proposal to provide tax incentives to builders to encourage more home and apartment construction would address that concern, but there are many reasons experts cite for the housing shortage, including restrictive zoning laws, higher costs for building materials, and even shortages of construction workers, which tax incentives can’t address.
Harris is also promising to cut red tape that restricts new buildings, but that is mostly a state and local concern, and many localities are already moving to make it easier to build homes.