Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on stage during a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. September 29, 2024.
Kevin Lamarck | Reuters
Harris’ campaign surrogates are planning a series of visits with small businesses in at least six battleground states this week, according to a preview of the announcement first obtained by CNBC on Tuesday.
Harris will not be attending these specific events in person. The campaign said “elected officials” and “community leaders” would represent her, but did not specify who those representatives would be.
The campaign tour, titled “Small Business for Harris-Walz,” was in part an appeal to the Black and Latino communities that were essential to Democrats’ 2020 victory but were starting to shift in favor of Republican nominee Donald Trump. Charged. This election cycle.
Trump has been trying to capitalize on that momentum.
“If you’re black or Hispanic, thank you very much. Vote for Trump. You’ll be in good shape,” he said at a Georgia rally last Tuesday.
This week’s small business tour is the Harris campaign’s latest effort to quell Trump’s gains.
President Joe Biden employed a similar strategy when he was expected to become the Democratic presidential nominee before dropping out of the race in July.
In December, for example, he touted the gains of Black-owned and Latino-owned small businesses under his administration to highlight efforts to close the racial wealth gap and win back voters nostalgic for the pre-pandemic economy. It was directed by Trump.
Harris is adopting these arguments in her campaign and seeking to draw a similar contrast with her Republican opponent.
“Vice President Harris has proven that she will be a champion for small businesses,” Richard Garcia, director of small business engagement for the Harris campaign, said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s not like Donald Trump, who is only fighting for himself.”
Over the next week, the Harris campaign will expand its outreach to small businesses, particularly in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. In this campaign, we plan to hold various organizational events, volunteer training, and house parties.
So far, Harris has proposed providing a $50,000 tax credit for small business start-up costs, a tenfold expansion from the current $5,000 deduction. She also proposed a 28% tax on long-term capital gains, a lower rate than Biden’s 40% tax proposal, to reward “investments in America’s innovators, entrepreneurs and small businesses.”
