Harris breaks from ‘Bidenomics’ in North Carolina

RALEIGH, North Carolina — Don’t call it “Bidenomics.”

Vice President Kamala Harris used a speech on her economic platform Friday to try to distinguish herself as a candidate from President Joe Biden, casting her agenda as more ambitious and forward-looking. From her rhetoric to the phrases plastered around the room, Harris was sending that message loud and clear.

“Now is the time to chart a new way forward,” Harris said to a crowd in the closely divided state, as people chanted the words back. “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 not to just get by, but to get ahead.”

Behind the podium at Wake Tech Community College’s Hendrick Center for Automotive Excellence, the words “OPPORTUNITY ECONOMY — LOWERING YOUR COSTS” served as a backdrop. And around the room, the words “A NEW WAY FORWARD,” filled large banners and signs waved by supporters. The crowd of roughly 200 people chanted “we’re not going back” as Harris attacked former President Donald Trump’s economic plans.

The nature of Harris’ policy rollout underscored the key challenge for her truncated campaign: distancing herself from a Biden presidency dented by memories of soaring inflation and voters’ perception that conditions are getting worse, while retaining and building on the Biden policies that have largely succeeded in revitalizing the post-pandemic economy and delivering a slew of long-term benefits for the working class.

The vice president Friday briefly touted the economic progress and accomplishments under the Biden administration — from job creation to investments in infrastructure, chips manufacturing and clean energy to the recent decrease in inflation — but she said she knows many Americans aren’t yet feeling improving conditions.

“Costs are still too high. And on a deeper level, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead,” she said. “As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity. Together, we will build what I call an opportunity economy.”

Harris, who said she will unveil more details about her economic policy plans in the weeks ahead, has also leaned further into aggressive attacks on corporations for “price gouging” and driving up prices at the grocery store. And she has filtered well-worn ideas through a new, unapologetically populist lens.

That has made for a striking contrast from Biden, who never completely warmed to efforts to shift the blame for inflation to big business and often softened his own populist rhetoric with reassurances that he was a “capitalist.”

“There was not a lot of comfort among Biden’s more senior political and economic advisers about going all-out populist and blaming corporate profits,” said one Democrat close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics. “The people around Harris are much more comfortable with that kind of an assault.”

It was no accident that Harris’ team chose to highlight the policy rollout in North Carolina, a state Democrats at the top of the ticket haven’t been able to turn blue since 2008. The Tar Heel State had appeared increasingly out of Biden’s reach in recent months, but Harris’ entrance into the race — and new polls showing a neck-and-neck match-up — has Democrats hopeful they can make a play for its 16 electoral votes. Harris, who has visited North Carolina 16 times as vice president, plans to stump in the state regularly over the next few months, competing with Trump’s frequent stops in the battleground.

“I have that 2008 feeling,” said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, speaking before Harris. “We in North Carolina know what that means. … It is time for North Carolina to make history again.”

Harris’ entrance into the race has allowed Democrats to take a fresh crack at messaging on a vexing issue, as polls show voters giving the vice president higher marks on the economy despite serving in the current administration. Friday’s speech marked an opportunity for Harris to insist that her administration would not just amount to “Biden 2.0,” a term those close to her have bristled at in recent weeks.

“This is now about her agenda and not about the last four years and what has been accomplished or not accomplished,” said Morgan Jackson, a North Carolina Democratic strategist. “It’s always a challenge when you’re running a reelect to talk about successes, especially if people aren’t necessarily feeling, on the economy, the success. I think having Kamala Harris as the nominee allows us to turn the page.”

Harris’ agenda aims to make housing more affordable, ease health care costs and crack down on corporate greed that Democrats have blamed for high grocery prices — priorities that largely mirror the challenges that guided Biden’s four years in office. While her approach is more aggressive than Biden’s, Friday made clear that her distinctiveness will rest largely on emphasis and style, as she reboots an existing policy agenda that remains broadly popular with the public — but that the president had proven unable to articulate in a compelling way.

As Harris outlined each pillar of her blueprint for lowering costs, she tried to draw contrast with her opponent’s policies — and Project 2025, an effort that brands itself as a conservative administration-in-waiting.

Trump “plans to devastate the middle class, punish working people and make the cost of living go up for millions of Americans,” Harris said.

Republicans on Friday sought to tie Harris to Biden’s economic policies. The Trump campaign released a new ad, playing a clip of Harris saying that “'Bidenomics' is working.”

Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign spokesperson, told reporters ahead of Harris’ speech that her “policies rival some of the most socialist and authoritarian model models from world history. Instead of unleashing American energy and reducing the burden on American people, she would impose price controls that are something out of Venezuela or Cuba.”

“And of course, while she touts her plan as what she will do on day one in the White House, she ignores the fact that she's been making policy in the White House for almost four years.”

Harris has populated her economic team with a mix of longtime aides and former senior Biden officials, many of whom have long pushed for the Democratic Party to take more progressive stances.

Brian Nelson, a former senior Treasury official and longtime California ally; former Biden economic official Gene Sperling; and Deanne Millison, who served as Harris’ chief economic adviser in the White House, have led much of the policy planning process, people familiar with the matter said.

Bharat Ramamurti, who was deputy director of Biden’s National Economic Council and an adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) before that, and ex-Biden National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, were also among those brought on to advise Harris’ agenda.

Harris was also among those in the White House who were more receptive to efforts from outside groups to convince the administration to take a stronger line on blaming corporations for inflation — including emphasizing the government’s antitrust enforcement actions and spotlighting its crackdown on various “junk” fees.

Several progressive groups, including the Progressive Campaign Change Committee and Groundwork Collaborative, had pushed Biden for months to deploy more populist tactics, pointing to polling showing voters were broadly receptive to the idea that big companies were responsible for driving up prices.

But the idea split those inside the White House, with some questioning whether there was enough hard evidence that corporations were price gouging on a large scale. And while Biden occasionally took shots at “corporate greed,” he never made it a central element of his stump speech.

But even as she takes a more populist turn, Harris’ campaign has been peppered by questions about whether she still holds several of the liberal positions she adopted for her failed 2020 presidential run.

The scrutiny has generated a succession of stories on her reversals, including disavowing her earlier support for single-payer health care, a ban on fracking and an overhaul of the nation’s main immigration and customs agency. Republicans have seized on those changes to portray Harris as a flip-flopper, accusing her of lacking core policy beliefs.

“All of the rollback that we saw in the last few weeks of the very extreme far-left policies that she proposed or supported in the past — that rollback was just inaccurate,” said Kevin Hassett, former Trump White House Economic Council chair, on a call with reporters ahead of Harris’ speech.

Harris’ allies have portrayed her shifts as driven by her vice presidential experience, arguing that her views evolved during her time in the administration. Advisers also maintain that several of the White House’s top priorities, such as expanding the child tax credit, were ones that Harris played a central role in pushing through.

“She gets the opportunity to champion some of these policies and these approaches that President Biden has also been pushing,” said Michael Linden, a former senior official in Biden’s Office of Management and Budget. “But she will get a fresh hearing for them, and they will feel different coming from her.”