Anika Begay
By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver her first policy-focused speech as a Democratic presidential candidate on Friday, criticizing rising prices in a sign that her campaign could put big companies and corporate executives in trouble.
Harris will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina, a state where Democrats are hoping to flip the election, to outline her plan “to reduce costs for middle-class families and counter corporate price gouging,” her campaign said Tuesday.
Harris canceled an event in North Carolina last week because of Tropical Storm Debby. Focusing her first major policy speech on the economy and setting it in North Carolina shows how her campaign has revived Democrats’ hopes of flipping a state they’ve won only twice in the past half-century.
With less than three months to go before the Nov. 5 election, when she will face Republican Donald Trump, Harris has attracted renewed enthusiasm and funding after President Joe Biden stepped aside and saw polls swing in his favor in some states.
His campaign sees states like Pennsylvania as must-wins, but North Carolina is more coveted. Biden lost the state to Trump by a 1.3% margin, or just 74,000 votes, but his prospects there were dim before he resigned on July 21.
ATTACKING CORPORATE GREED
Harris’s speech will be watched closely to see how her style and substance differ from Biden’s, whose economic policies have received poor marks from voters angry about the cost of housing, medicine, groceries and gasoline.
On Saturday, Harris announced her support for eliminating tip taxes, a position similar to Trump’s. On Thursday, Harris will host a White House event with Biden that is expected to focus on health care costs.
Biden blamed the still-high prices on corporate greed, accusing them of increasing profits by reducing portion sizes and not passing the cost savings on to consumers.
Major consumer goods companies have been raising prices in recent quarters, and food prices have increased by 25% between 2019 and 2023.
Harris fought against “corporate greed and price gouging” when she was California attorney general from 2011 to 2016, challenging pharmaceutical, oil, electronics and cosmetics companies, a campaign official said.
Harris “knows the costs are too high and will make fighting inflation a priority from day one,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added, speaking earlier at the event.
This approach differs sharply from Trump’s, who has argued that easing regulations across industries from finance to energy will lower costs and spur growth.
Nationally, Harris led Trump by five percentage points, 42% to 37%, according to an Ipsos poll released Thursday, widening her lead from a Reuters/Ipsos poll released July 22-23.
