Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on stage at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on September 29, 2024.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Harris campaign representatives are planning a series of contacts 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 himself will not be attending these specific events. The campaign said “elected officials” and “community leaders” would take her place, but did not say who would represent her.
The campaign tour, titled “Small Business for Harris Waltz,” was critical to the Democratic Party’s victory in 2020, but it targeted Black and Latino voters, key voters who have begun to lean toward Republican candidate Donald Trump. It is being promoted as part of an appeal to the affiliated community. This election cycle.
President Trump is working to capitalize on that momentum.
“If you’re black or Hispanic, thank you, vote for Trump. You’ll be better off,” he said at a Georgia rally last Tuesday.
This week’s small business tour is the Harris campaign’s latest effort to curtail President Trump’s rise.
President Joe Biden implemented a similar strategy when he was expected to be the Democratic presidential nominee until he withdrew from the race in July.
In December, for example, he touted the gains for Black- and Latino-owned small businesses under his administration as a way to highlight efforts to close the racial wealth gap and win back voters nostalgic for the pre-pandemic economy. . That Trump oversaw.
Harris has adopted that argument in her own campaign, trying to draw a similar contrast to her Republican opponent.
“Vice President Harris has proven herself to be a champion for small businesses,” Richard Garcia, the Harris campaign’s director of small business engagement, 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 pitch specifically to small businesses in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The campaign plans to hold various sponsored events, volunteer training, and home parties.
Harris has so far proposed giving small businesses a $50,000 tax credit for startup costs, which would be expanded 10 times from the current $5,000 credit. He also proposed a 28% tax on long-term capital gains, lower than the 40% tax proposed by Biden, to reward “investing in America’s innovators, founders, and small businesses.”
