Harris’s closing message must separate her vision from Biden’s

“Just win, baby.”

While acknowledging her unpopularity in swing districts, that was what then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in 2018 to vulnerable Democratic incumbents and challengers weighing the political calculation of opposing her as House Democratic leader.

Ultimately, that distancing from Pelosi worked for several incumbent and aspiring House Democrats, helping the party maximize its gains while taking back the House. Most notably in red Pennsylvania District 17, Republicans ran ads trying to link underdog challenger Conor Lamb to Pelosi, cheekily calling him one of “Nancy Pelosi’s sheep.” Yet the attack never resonated. From the beginning, Lamb vowed that he would not support Pelosi. He ended up winning the hotly contested special election, pulling off one of the biggest upsets of the cycle.

We’re now seeing a similar dynamic in this year’s presidential election. While Harris should certainly not repudiate any of President Biden’s policies that she has supported as vice president, the same underlying imperative to create more political distance exists.

In recent days, the campaign has been working on this challenge, with reports that Harris has been “weighing” how she can differentiate herself from Biden. In his recent speech in Philadelphia, Biden said “Kamala will take the country in her own direction,” offering perhaps the most direct message yet of daylight between himself and his vice president.

To be clear, Harris’s messaging on protecting American democracy and restoring abortion rights has been stellar. That, along with the fact that she is a younger and more stable alternative to an increasingly delusional and vengeful Donald Trump, may very well be enough to put her over the top.

But with Election Day less than a week away, it’s crunch time for Harris to strengthen her case by distinguishing herself on the key issues where voters are looking for a new direction. Voters' concerns about high prices, the rising cost of living and immigration remain serious electoral liabilities that could still propel Trump back to the White House.

Most troubling for Harris is the fact that these concerns are especially evident with working-class voters in the swing states that will determine the election. A polling of these voters by my organization, Progressive Policy Institute, reveals they not only see inflation as the most important issue facing the country but say the primary blame for rising costs is the country’s current economic policies.

That’s why it is essential for Harris to use her closing message to outline her own forward-looking vision and resist the temptation to over-defend the legislative accomplishments of the past four years — regardless of their merit.

The Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and CHIPS and Science Act were landmark achievements but implementing historical levels of federal investment is a grueling process, and most of their impacts are still a long way from being realized by ordinary people.

As a result, many of these voters currently are unable to see anything other than loads of government spending, which again, they believe has driven up household prices and made their day-to-day lives more expensive.

Harris’s recent rhetoric on working more with the private sector and self-identifying as a “pragmatic capitalist” is a positive step in changing the narrative of her economic approach. But she can go further by pledging to be more fiscally prudent in addressing overspending concerns and outlining how she will tackle rising costs more aggressively by offering her own ideas, such as freezing new spending until the big Biden initiative dollars are out the door and giving the working-class relief by cutting the payroll tax.

While voters have responded well to the Harris campaign’s messages about cracking down on price-gouging corporations, they still typically support American companies — regardless of their size — as long as they play by the rules, offer them low prices and strengthen our economic hand against China and other adversaries.

Returning to an antitrust policy that intervenes when concentration raises prices, as opposed to the current ideologically-driven tendency to go after anything and everything “big” is another economic policy area where Harris can signal to voters that she is serious about delivering low costs.

Perhaps most frustrating for the Harris team is seeing Trump maintain his polling edge on immigration, despite his tanking the bipartisan immigration deal in broad daylight and over-the-top lies about pet-eating immigrants. Yet Harris must meet voters where they are, not wish they were someplace else. She must refute the false “border czar” narrative peddled by Trump but also address the fact many voters feel there is currently a crisis at the border with not enough being done to stop it.

There is a middle path that Harris can carve out, making clear her plans to do more to strengthen America’s borders when she takes the reins, while still rejecting the hateful rhetoric spewed by Trump.

The task of successfully convincing enough voters that Harris will offer a fresh approach is the key to chipping away at Trump’s long-standing advantage on issues like the economy and immigration. And with so much on the line and so little time left, Harris should not hesitate to explain how she plans to plot her own course and change directions.

Now is not the time for sensitivities. It’s time for Democrats to pull another page from Pelosi’s playbook. Do what it takes to “just win, baby.”

Stuart Malec is the national political director at Progressive Policy Institute.