Democrats alarmed Harris’s economic message isn’t breaking through

Democrats are frustrated that Vice President Harris hasn't done more to sell her economic message and worry that former President Trump continues to have a sizeable advantage on what many voters say is their No. 1 issue.

Harris has focused on attacking Trump in recent weeks. But she has lost ground to him in the polls, as voters say they are less likely to be motivated moved by additional criticisms of Trump, whose flaws are well-known after standing in the national spotlight for more than eight years.

The Harris campaign says it will put more focus on the economy in the final week of the campaign, but abortion rights and criticisms of Trump’s character get more applause at Harris’s rallies with stars such as Michelle Obama, Maggie Rogers and Bruce Springsteen.

Some Democratic strategists view Harris’s scathing criticisms of Trump as necessary and effective, but they acknowledge she could be doing a better job of talking about the economy — a challenge that also vexed President Biden before he dropped his bid for reelection.

“Where I don’t think she’s done a good enough job is [Trump] gets away with saying, ‘The economy is the worst it’s ever been, there’s more unemployment, inflation is the highest it’s ever been.’ None of that is true,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist.

“It’s almost like he lies so much you get tired of refuting it, and I think that’s a mistake,” he said, referring to Trump’s ability to frame the Biden economy to voters.

One major Democratic donor told The Hill that Harris hasn’t properly made the case on the economy.

“Her economic message hasn’t broken through,” the donor said. “And the economy is the issue most people care about. She narrowed the gap a little on the issue, but she’s left a lot of people wondering about her vision.”

The vice president has put forth a list of proposals to help middle-class families: a plan to crack down on price gouging, an expansion of the child tax credit, an expansion of Medicare to cover home care, exempting tipped income from taxes, and a $25,000 down-payment to first-time homebuyers.

And while Harris has narrowed Trump’s lead on the issue, a recent Reuters/Ipsos found that voters still think Trump has a better approach than Harris on the economy, by a margin of 46 percent to 38 percent. The survey found that 61 percent of voters in battleground states say the economy is on the “wrong track.”

Robert Reich, who served as secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, on Monday wrote that Harris’s message needs to “center on anti-elitist economics.”

“When all of [the polls] show the same thing — that Kamala Harris’s campaign stalled several weeks ago yet Trump’s continues to surge — it’s important to take the polls seriously,” he wrote in an essay published on Substack.

“She needs to respond forcefully to the one issue that continues to be highest on the minds of most Americans: the economy,” he said.

A Democratic strategist agreed that Harris’s messaging on the economy “left a lot to be desired.”

“I still think there are folks out there who can’t tell you what she plans to do,” the strategist said. “That should have been something our side hammered home every day.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a prominent progressive and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has urged Harris for months to talk more about bread-and-butter issues that he believes will move working-class voters.

Sanders told The Associated Press that "she has to start talking more to the needs of working-class people," adding, "I wish this had taken place two months ago."

"The truth of the matter is that there are a hell of a lot more working-class people who could vote for Kamala Harris than there are conservative Republicans," he argued.

Future Forward, the Democrats’ biggest super PAC, issued a similar warning in a memo circulated Friday that attacking Trump for being a “fascist” isn’t persuading swing voters.

The group found that Harris’s characterization of Trump as a fascist ranked only in the 40th percentile of moving votes, while her discussion of expanding Medicare to cover the home care for the elderly ranked in the 95th percentile of effectiveness.

The New York Times first reported on the memo.

The Harris campaign responded over the weekend by signaling that Harris would focus on the economy during the final week of the race.

Harris on Monday put her focus on manufacturing and workers as she traveled across Michigan, a key battleground, where she visited a semiconductor assembly line in Saginaw that a received $325 million preliminary investment from the CHIPS and Science act President Biden signed into law in 2022.

Her campaign launched a new ad in seven battleground states last week, highlighting her plan to crack down on corporate price gouging and to cut taxes for middle-class families.

“You may not always agree with me, but I promise I will do everything I can to lift up the middle class and be a president for all Americans,” Harris says in the ad.

A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday showed Trump leading Harris on the economy by 6 points, 50 percent to 44 percent.

Ian Sams, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign, circulated a memo on Saturday noting that an AP/NORC poll from mid-October found that voters now trust Harris more than Trump on jobs and employment and housing costs.

The survey found Harris leading Trump on jobs and unemployment, 43 percent to 41 percent, and the cost of housing, 42 percent to 37 percent.

Trump led Harris on the cost of groceries and gas, 42 percent to 40 percent, according to the poll.

But Jarding, the Democratic strategist, said Harris’s attacks on Trump’s character and dire warnings that he would pose a serious threat to democracy are needed to sway voters as well.

“Yes, she should put more energy and more rhetoric into the economic argument but … she has to expose Trump. Because he’s out saying she’s bad and he’s great,” he advised.

“I think she needs to talk about the economy more … but I wouldn’t abandon the fascist” argument against Trump, he added. “You want to find something that scares people about a candidate. A few thousand votes in four, five or six states could swing this election.”

He noted that Trump has expended a lot of energy trying to scare voters about Harris by warning of criminals and terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and claiming that Harris supported taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for prison inmates.

Jonathan Kott, a Democratic strategist and former Senate aide, argued that Harris appears to be making steady progress on the economy, even though polls show Trump continues to have an advantage on the issue.

“Kamala Harris is doing exactly what she needs to do. She’s giving her positive message for what she would do, which is her economic agenda, and she’s contrasting herself with Donald Trump,” he said.

“What every campaign does at the end is they give voters a contrast, a choice. Kamala Harris is giving them a positive, forward-looking optimistic agenda for the country and then telling voters what the people who served with Donald Trump in his Cabinet and four-star generals have said about Donald Trump,” he added. “Donald Trump has never in any battleground state been over 50-percent and there’s a reason for that.”

Kott acknowledged that Trump still leads on the economy but argues “she’s cut into that lead significantly since she got into the race.”

Amie Parnes contributed.