WASHINGTON — For much of his presidency, Joe Biden struggled to convince Americans their financial condition was better than they perceived. Now, Vice President Kamala Harris will try to shake those negative perceptions as voters continue to fret about the trajectory of the economy.
Harris will lay out more details on her economic policy agenda during a speech in North Carolina on Friday where she is expected to focus on lowering prices, including a plan to prevent price gouging by major food producers and grocers, the campaign said. Harris will also propose a crackdown on acquisitions among food companies if those deals could lead to higher grocery prices.
The economy and concerns around rising costs have been among the top issues for voters, who have consistently given Biden low marks. While Biden sought to emphasize the positives, like relatively low unemployment and strong economic growth, he was unable to improve voters’ sentiments amid decades-high inflation. Former President Donald Trump has sought to tie Harris to the view on Biden, frequently asserting that she bears responsibility for all of the current administration’s policies.
Harris will have an opportunity during her remarks Friday and at next week’s Democratic National Convention to refocus the message on lowering costs for consumers and shift voters’ attention towards the future.
“Biden has always been focused on jobs and unemployment and that’s not what voters have been saying they are concerned about. For three years now, it was how much they’re paying for groceries and gas and the cost of housing that they were concerned about.” said Jeff Horwitt, a Democratic pollster with Hart Research. “It is much more about understanding where people are and what you’re doing to make a difference than trying to tell them something that they don’t believe.”
There are some early indications Harris has an advantage with voters over Biden on the economy in the weeks since taking over the nomination. In an NPR/Marist poll released earlier this month, 51% of Americans said Trump would do better at handling the economy compared to 48% who said the same of Harris — a slight decrease in support for Trump since June and an increase in support for Harris over Biden.
In a separate poll released this month by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan, 42% of respondents said they trusted Harris to handle the economy compared to 35% who said the same of Biden in July when he was the Democratic nominee. Around 41% said they trusted Trump in both the July and August surveys.
But other polls indicate Trump still holds a strong advantage. In a CNBC survey released this month, 40% of respondents said they would be better off financially if Trump won compared to 20% who said the same about Harris. But voters indicated they knew more about what Trump would do for the economy than Harris, leaving room for her to build support.
“There’s been good, encouraging movement for her, but the question is how much momentum can she have. Right now, it’s pretty early, people just don’t know a lot about Harris generally,” said Horwitt. “I think the real telling place is going to be two weeks from now after the convention.”
Overall, 78% of respondents rated the economy as fair or poor, virtually unchanged from a year ago, in the CNBC poll.
Inflation has been a top concern among undecided voters, who make up around 3% to 5% of the electorate. Among those undecided voters along with third-party voters, 72% said they believed inflation was getting worse compared to 57% of the general electorate, according to polling from the Cook Political Report.
Americans have been seeing a series of mixed signals on the economy in recent weeks. Stocks plunged earlier this month after the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in July and the pace of hiring fell short of economists’ expectations. That uptick in unemployment triggered rising fears of a recession with JP Morgan raising its odds of a recession this year to 35% up from 25%.
Meanwhile, corporate America has been warning about softening consumer spending. Amazon said it is seeing customers trade down to lower-cost items, Starbucks saw its store traffic decline, and Home Depot warned its expects sales to be weaker than expected in the second half of the year amid high interest rates and consumer uncertainty.
But other indicators this week showed that consumers continue to spend with retail sales increasing in July more than expected and Walmart reporting solid sales growth. Despite fears about the job market, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell last week for the second week in a row.
At the same time, consumers have been getting some relief from increasing prices. Inflation has shown consistent signs of slowing with consumer prices growing in July at the slowest pace since the start of the pandemic. Prices in July declined 11% for used cars compared to a year ago and fell 2.2% for gasoline.
Still, prices overall are up 20% since Biden entered office, according to the Consumer Price Index. While wages have been rising, when adjusted for inflation, consumers have slightly less buying power than they did at the start of 2021, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Grocery prices have seen some of the biggest increases over the past three years. Harris’s proposal would create a federal ban on corporate price-gouging in the grocery and food processing industries. During her remarks, she is expected to accuse meat processors of increasing prices while making record profits since the start of the pandemic, the campaign said in a preview of the remarks.
Harris has previously called for an increase to the minimum wage and an expansion of the child tax credit, two measures that would benefit lower-income households. She has also called for worker’s tips to be exempt from federal taxes, something Trump has also indicated his support for.
“Voters are forward looking, they care about the future, and she is smartly laying out new policy that has some populist appeal,” said Tim Hogan, a democratic strategist who worked as a spokesman for Amy Klobuchar’s 2020 presidential campaign and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “There is a newness to what she is and represents on the ticket.”
Consumers could get more financial relief in September when the Federal Reserve is expected by economists to cut interest rates during its last gathering before the November elections.
That could translate into lower interest rates on home mortgages, providing some relief to prospective home buyers, along with lower interest rates on credit cards and auto loans. An interest rate cut would also help lower borrowing costs for employers looking to expand their businesses.
“We’re certain that you’re going to see the Fed start cutting interest rates in September. I think it’s more of a question of how much they cut rather than whether they cut,” said Bharat Ramamurti, who served as a deputy director for the White House Council of Economic advisors during the Biden administration. “That will be an important moment politically because it indicates to the public that the Fed has confidence that they’ve beaten inflation. I think it will be an important turn of the page moment.”
Trump gave his own remarks on the economy on Wednesday in North Carolina where he said he would cut energy and electricity prices at least in half in the first 18 months of a second administration, but adding the caveat: “And if it doesn’t work out, you say, ‘Oh, well, I voted for him. I still got it down a lot.’”
He said he would lower energy prices by speeding approvals for new energy infrastructure, allowing drilling on new land and reducing regulations. Trump has said he opposes spending on wind and solar power. The U.S. is currently producing more crude oil than at any other point in history, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Trump has previously said he would put a 60% tariff on goods coming from China and decrease the number of immigrants coming into the country, accusing them of taking “black jobs.”
