Progressives Warn Harris Must Change Her Closing Message as the Election Looms

Progressive Democrats warn Kamala Harris risks losing the support of a small but significant portion of her political base unless she changes her campaign's closing message — and its messengers — immediately.
Specifically, several progressive leaders believe that the Democratic nominee has been too focused on winning over moderate Republicans in recent days at the expense of her own party's passionate liberals. And they say that Harris' closing message, which is increasingly centered on Republican Donald Trump and the threat he poses to US democracy, ignores the economic struggles of the nation's working class.
Some far-left leaders are also irked that Harris has shared the stage in recent days with former House Republican leader Liz Cheney and billionaire businessman Mark Cuban while progressive icons like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been relegated to low-profile roles.
“The truth of the matter is that there are a hell of a lot more working-class people who could vote for Kamala Harris than there are conservative Republicans,” Sanders told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday.
Sanders noted that he's been doing whatever he's asked to help Harris win. He has participated in two dozen Harris campaign related-events this month alone, although they're largely in rural areas. None have been with Harris.
“She has to start talking more to the needs of working-class people,” Sanders said. “I wish this had taken place two months ago. It is what it is.”
The Harris campaign believes there are still undecided moderates. Less than two weeks before Election Day, Harris is trying to assemble a sprawling coalition featuring voting groups with conflicting priorities.
She’s relying on the traditional Democratic base — African Americans, Latinos and young people who overwhelmingly lean left. Harris’ team is aware that some liberals are frustrated by her approach, especially on her support for Israel’s war against Hamas. But the campaign sees a major opportunity to expand her coalition by winning over disaffected Republicans, especially college-educated voters in the nation’s suburbs, who are uneasy about Trump.
From the Harris campaign’s perspective, the focus on moderate Republicans at this moment is simply a matter of math.
The Democrat’s campaign assesses that 10% of swing-state voters are still undecided or persuadable, according to an aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Of that 10%, some 7% are considered “Cheney Republicans” who are receptive to messages attacking Trump, the aide said.
At the same time, the Harris campaign believes her chief political liability is the perception that she’s too far left. Trump’s allies are pounding the airwaves accusing the former California senator of being a “radical-left liberal.” Therefore, she has been reluctant to appear with progressive icons like Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist.
Harris instead made three swing-state appearances this week with Cheney, a stalwart conservative who was a Trump ally before turning sharply against him after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Harris is scheduled to deliver a major address next week, a formal closing argument of sorts, focused on the danger Trump poses to US democracy. She will deliver the speech on Tuesday at the Ellipse in Washington, the same location where Trump hosted the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Progressives want Harris to talk more about the economy
Frustrated progressives do not discount the need to warn voters of Trump's authoritarian leanings, but some wish her closing message was more focused on addressing voters' overwhelming pessimism about the state of the economy and the direction of the country.
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, praised Harris' advertising team for “smartly” investing hundreds of millions of dollars behind ads focusing on grocery prices, taxing billionaires and Social Security — “things that both win swing voters and pump up the base.”
But, Green said, “there’s been an odd disconnect between the campaign’s economic populist ad strategy and the event strategy that focuses almost exclusively on Liz Cheney kumbaya optics that depress the base right as voting begins and don’t provably win more swing voters than bread-and-butter issues.”
Others are frustrated that the Harris campaign hasn't featured progressive leaders like Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez in higher-profile spots.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution, suggested that as many as 10% of progressives may not vote for Harris because of their frustrations. Some may not cast a ballot at all, he said, while some may even support Trump. The former president has called Cheney, a backer of the US invasion of Iraq, a “stupid war hawk” as he tries to win over Arab Americans in Michigan angry about the more than 42,000 Palestinians killed in Israel's Gaza offensive.
“We just want to raise a red flag. Don't take the progressive movement for granted,” Geevarghese said. “There’s got to be an economic argument at the end of the day. That’s the No. 1 thing that matters to voters.”
Indeed, about 4 in 10 likely voters in a recent CNN poll said the economy was their most important issue when deciding how to vote, and about 2 in 10 said protecting democracy was. About 1 in 10 named either immigration or abortion and reproductive rights.
To be sure, Harris is not ignoring the economy or other progressive priorities.
She has outlined plans to crack down on price gouging by corporations to help reduce the cost of groceries in addition to reducing the cost of prescription drugs, cutting taxes on the middle class while raising taxes on billionaires, offering a $25,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers to help lower housing costs, and expanding Medicare to cover vision and hearing coverage, among other things.
Ocasio-Cortez made three stops in swing-state Pennsylvania last week on Harris' behalf. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, a key Harris ally, has also been a steady presence on the campaign trail.
Former President Barack Obama, still beloved by many progressive voters, has been active in the campaign's closing days. He headlined an event with Harris for the first time on Thursday night in Georgia.
Meanwhile, Trump is continuing to lean in on the issues that his campaign sees as his strongest: the economy and inflation, immigration, crime and foreign policy.
The Republican nominee is set to outline his formal closing message Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York City that's expected to focus on average Americans' displeasure with the direction of the country. He begins virtually every rally with a variation of: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
“Kamala Harris broke the economy. She broke the border. President Trump very clearly is going to fix the economy and fix the border,” said Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller, who argued Harris, with her focus on Trump, wasn't talking about how she will make life better for the vast majority of Americans.
Harris acknowledged during a CNN town hall this week that some progressives may be unhappy with her leadership, particularly on Israel.
“But I also do know that for many people who care about this issue, they also care about bringing down the price of groceries," she said. "They also care about our democracy and not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

Georgia's president called for protests on Monday following a disputed parliamentary election, and the United States and the European Union urged a full investigation into reports of violations in the voting.
The results, with almost all precincts counted, were a blow for pro-Western Georgians who had cast Saturday's election as a choice between a ruling party that has deepened ties with Russia and an opposition aiming to fast-track integration with Europe, said Reuters.
Monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said on Sunday they had registered incidents of vote-buying, voter intimidation, and ballot-stuffing that could have affected the outcome, but they stopped short of saying the election was rigged.
President Salome Zourabichvili urged people to take to the streets to protest against the results of the ballot, which the electoral commission said the ruling party had won.
In an address on Sunday, she referred to the result as a "Russian special operation". She did not clarify what she meant by the term.
The ruling Georgian Dream party, of which Zourabichvili is a fierce critic, clinched nearly 54% of the vote, the commission said, as opposition parties contested the outcome and vote monitors reported significant violations.
Georgian media cited Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze as saying on Monday that the opposition was attempting to topple the "constitutional order" and that his government remained committed to European integration.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States joined calls from observers for a full probe.
"Going forward, we encourage Georgia's political leaders to respect the rule of law, repeal legislation that undermines fundamental freedoms, and address deficiencies in the electoral process together," Blinken said in a statement.
Earlier, the European Union urged Georgia to swiftly and transparently investigate the alleged irregularities in the vote.
"The EU recalls that any legislation that undermines the fundamental rights and freedoms of Georgian citizens and runs counter to the values and principles upon which the EU is founded, must be repealed," the European Commission said in a joint statement with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
President Zourabichvili, a former Georgian Dream ally who won the 2018 presidential vote as an independent, urged Georgians to protest in the center of the capital Tbilisi on Monday evening, to show the world "that we do not recognize these elections".
For years, Georgia was one of the most pro-Western countries to emerge from the Soviet Union, with polls showing many Georgians disliking Russia for its support of two breakaway regions of their country.
Russia defeated Georgia in their brief war over the rebel province of South Ossetia in 2008.
The election result poses a challenge to the EU's ambition to expand by bringing in more former Soviet states.
Moldova earlier this month narrowly approved adding a clause to the constitution defining EU accession as a goal. Moldovan officials said Russia meddled in the election, a claim denied by Moscow.

Progressives Warn Harris Must Change Her Closing Message as the Election Looms