Kamala Harris Set to Lay Out Economic Agenda in North Carolina Speech

The vice president is expected to recalibrate President Biden’s policy themes in a bid to turn the Democratic economic agenda into an asset.

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Some advisers to Vice President Kamala Harris believe that appearing as a relative blank slate on key issues may help her attract support from business groups put off by some of President Biden’s policies.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s sudden ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket has generated a host of questions about her economic agenda, including how much she will stick to the details of President Biden’s positions, tweak them, or chart entirely new ones.

When she begins to roll out her policy vision this week, Ms. Harris is likely to answer only some of those questions.

During an economy-focused speech on Friday in Raleigh, N.C., Ms. Harris will outline a sort of reboot of the administration’s economic agenda, according to four people familiar with Ms. Harris’s plans.

She will lay out an approach relatively light on details, they said. It will shift emphasis from Mr. Biden’s focus on job creation and made-in-America manufacturing, and toward efforts to rein in the cost of living. But it will rarely break from Mr. Biden on substance.

That strategy reflects the advice economic aides have given Ms. Harris: to be clear and bold in talking about the economy, but not overly specific.

Her ability to do that has been effectively enabled by the unusual circumstances of Mr. Biden’s abrupt departure from the presidential race, which allowed Ms. Harris to secure the Democratic nomination without enduring a long primary campaign.

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