Democrats warn Harris must find right message on economy

Democrats are warning that Vice President Harris needs to solidify her economic message before former President Trump ties her to a narrative that plagued President Biden while he was the nominee.  

Before Biden’s withdrawal from the race last month, the economy was the dominant issue for voters, with a string of polls indicating Trump was winning on that matter. The surveys concluded that voters trusted Trump on economic issues more than they trusted Biden. 

But for the last six weeks, the news cycles have been dominated by a rash of political headlines including the uncertainty in the Democratic Party following Biden’s disastrous debate performance, an attempted assassination on Trump, the former president’s selection of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate and the Republican National Convention.

Less than a week later, the transition from Biden to Harris overtook the headlines, followed by a two-week wave of enthusiasm for Harris, only accelerated by the attention around her own veepstakes. 

Democrats haven’t had to worry much about policy during that time, and Republicans have focused largely on identity politics, including Harris’s race and ethnicity. But Democrats say Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), must go on the offensive on the economy before Republicans bring it back to the forefront of the campaign. 

“The big question is, ‘Can you win the message war there? Can you convince the hearts and minds, and win the conversation on what the future looks like?’” said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist. “Obviously Republicans traditionally have an advantage on this. But while you’re litigating the last three years, you need to make sure you’re putting it into context about, “Who do you trust in the future” on the economy.

At the moment, Harris is “getting a free pass” when it comes to the economy and other top policy issues, one major Democratic donor said. “But they need to be ready to have a solid economic argument at their fingertips,” the donor cautioned. “Biden struggled to articulate that message.” 

The economy is gaining in urgency as an issue as it nears an inflection point following a period of interest rate hikes and quantitative tightening undertaken by the Federal Reserve in response to elevated postpandemic inflation.

A key recession indicator known as the Sahm Rule was triggered last week by an increase in the unemployment rate to 4.3 percent. Markets widely expect the Fed to cut interest rates at its next meeting in order to start stimulating the economy.

Polls taken after Biden dropped out show Harris has narrowed the gap with Trump on the overall handling of the economy. A Morning Consult poll out this month showed that 50 percent of voters said they trusted Trump on the economy, while 42 percent said they trusted Harris. It was a sizable difference from earlier this year, when 51 percent said they trusted the former president while 37 percent said they trusted Biden on the issue. 

A recent Marist poll revealed Trump still held a small lead over Harris on who would better handle the economy, 51 percent to 48 percent. 

Biden struggled to gain political momentum from the economy as it went through an exceptional period during his presidency. The aftermath of the pandemic shattered many conventional assumptions on economic performance.

Employment levels remained near record highs even as the Federal Reserve cranked interest rates and trimmed its balance sheet. The central bank and many economists predicted a recession for 2023 that failed to happen. Corporate profits surged to record highs, and economic growth blew past expectations in several quarters.

But Biden was unable to capitalize on those impressive metrics as a bout of high inflation weighed on consumers’ minds and his economic approval ratings. In May, just 38 percent of Americans had confidence in Biden’s handling of the economy — a number that fell as low as 35 percent in 2023, with only George W. Bush during the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse coming in lower among recent presidencies, according to Gallup.

By contrast, Trump came in at a 46 percent economic approval rating in that poll, near numbers maintained throughout the course of his presidency. Trump presided over relatively low unemployment and inflation. His campaign has grabbed headlines on the economy with some drastic economic proposals, including a 10-percent general tariff on imported goods that could replace the income tax.

He’s also talked about serious restrictions on immigration as a way to increase domestic wages and employment, calling them in a recent interview with Bloomberg “the biggest [factor] of all” in his economic policy designs. Businesses could push back against their access to cheap labor, investors have told The Hill, and some researchers are concerned that Trump’s policies would be inflationary.

Trump advisors have even drawn up a plan, according to The Wall Street Journal, to limit the power of the Fed, the statutorily independent U.S. central bank with vast power over the economy. Trump regularly criticized Fed Chair Jerome Powell during his presidency and has blasted him on the campaign trail, as well.

Trump’s messaging on the economy and anti-globalization rhetoric has proven resonant with his supporters and even those that signaled support for other potential GOP candidates.

“Just take a step back and be honest,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier this year at an economic forum. “He was kind of right about NATO. He was kind of right about immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Trade, tax reform worked. He was right about some of China.”

A source close to the campaign said Harris is working through an economic message and has brought in former Biden White House adviser Gene Sperling and others to help.

So far, the Harris campaign’s economic stances have stayed pretty much in line with those of the Biden campaign, hitting many of the same points on jobs, health care, and falling inflation, while knocking conservative proposals.

During a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Harris gave a broad-brush preview of her economic messaging. 

“We fight for a future where we build a broad-based economy, where every American has the opportunity to own a home, to start a business, and to build wealth,” she said. “We fight for a future where we bring down prices that are still too high and lower the cost of living for America’s families, so that they have the chance not just to get by, but to get ahead.”

Kevin Madden, a longtime Republican strategist who served as an adviser on Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) 2012 presidential campaign, said the election is still “likely to be decided by the mood of the electorate related to the economy, and the mood has been sour due to concerns about inflation and rising costs.” 

Harris, Madden said, “should own the policies and record of the Biden administration, but only if Trump makes sure of that. 

“The downside of Trump and Vance pushing on identity politics and culture issues in their initial contrast message against Harris, is that it squandered an opportunity to win over swing voters on their top issue, which is the economy.”

At a Thursday press conference, Trump hit the issue of the economy right off the bat, warning off the back of recent economic indicators that the U.S. could be on the verge of a serious downturn.

“We have a very bad economy right now. We could literally be in the throes of a depression,” he said, although depression warnings among economists are few and far between.

Investors and economists told The Hill that the Harris-Walz campaign should break free of familiar economic narratives and capitalize on the unexpectedly strong performance that Harris has helped to oversee.

Democrats should drown out the narrative of elevated inflation by focusing not on the well-known overperformance of the job market, Westwood Capital founding partner Dan Alpert told The Hill, but by playing up hard numbers on wage gains.

“They should remind the American people that the average weekly income for all private sector jobs in February 2020, the eve of the pandemic, was $979. Today it is $1,200,” Alpert wrote in an email.

“Stop talking about how many jobs were created. Americans know that is skewed by post-pandemic re-employment. Focus on the dollars in their pockets,” he continued.

Beyond individual metrics and talking points, Alpert also said that Harris should extend the working-class vision for the economy evident in Biden’s ardent support for organized labor and depart from recent bigger-picture policy norms.

“[This is] the issue that will re-elect Trump if Harris and Walz ignore it: the economic and physical precarity of the bottom three quintiles of our population,” he said. “This is both Trump’s strength and, as a Republican, his Achilles’ Heel. The Democrats need to firmly disavow Clinton era support for neoliberalism that resulted in greater polarization of wealth and income.”