Vice President Kamala Harris greeted a small but lively crowd of supporters at Wake Tech on Friday for the first policy-centric speech of her presidential campaign. It was her 16th visit to North Carolina as vice president and her first as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
During her speech, Harris unveiled a series of proposals aimed at lowering the cost of living for working- and middle-class Americans: a ban on price gouging for food and groceries, up to $25,000 in downpayment assistance to first-time home buyers, an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, and lowering the cost of prescription drugs like insulin.
“For too many people, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead,” Harris told a crowd of about 200 gathered inside Wake Tech’s Hendrick Center for Automotive Excellence. “As President, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability, and dignity.”
It probably wasn’t an accident that the Harris campaign chose an auto manufacturing training center for the speech. The vice president pitched her plan to uplift working-class Americans against a backdrop of shop safety posters and a vintage car suspended in midair—fitting complements to the populist, kitchen-table flavors of her newly unveiled policy proposals.
Wake County board of commissioners chair Shinica Thomas, North Carolina attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein, and governor Roy Cooper took turns speaking on stage before Harris, amping up the crowd with messages about middle-class prosperity and protecting consumers. Cooper recalled his time as Harris’s colleague as attorneys general of their respective states, and described the vice president as a tough and focused leader.
“I have that 2008 feeling!” Cooper declared, referencing the last time North Carolina voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.
Since Harris supplanted President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in July, she and Donald Trump have been polling at a statistical tie in North Carolina—where Trump won in 2020 and 2016 and had enjoyed a consistent lead over Biden in this year’s polls.
Up until now, Harris’s nascent campaign has been light on policy details, instead riding a wave of energy from a reinvigorated Democratic Party. She’s drawn crowds of tens of thousands at rallies in battleground state after battleground state, sometimes logging multiple campaign stops per day. Friday’s event was a smaller gathering, but still energetic. Just as she’s done for weeks in her stump speech, Harris drew contrasts between herself and Trump.
“If you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for,” Harris told the crowd to waves of applause. “Donald Trump fights for billionaires and large corporations, I will fight to give money back to working and middle-class Americans.”
Durham Mayor Leo Williams was at the event and commended Harris’s focus on affordable housing and lowering prices for consumers.
“She’s speaking to the American people,” Williams says. “She’s speaking to the people of Durham right now.”
Wake County Commissioners Vickie Adamson and Cheryl Stallings were also in attendance, and say they believe Harris’s economic policies will resonate locally.
“”She’s much more in touch with working families in this area and throughout the country,” Stallings says. “She really understands what working families are going through every day.”
Stacey Hinton, a Wake County voter, came out to the Harris event because “all of her policies just speak to me,” Hinton says. As a mother to a college-aged daughter, and a proud homeowner who grew up in poverty, Hinton is excited to vote for Harris.
So is Amelia Wilder, a self-described progressive Gen Z voter who lives in Cary and is voting this election cycle with her future children in mind. She references affordable housing, childcare, and access to higher education as the main issues influencing her vote.
“Knowing Vice President Harris supports all of these policies that would…make the world a better place for us and for our future children, that’s really important to me,” Wilder says.
India, a Raleigh voter, was touched by a story Harris shared of how her mother, a single parent, saved money for more than a decade to buy her first house when Harris was a teenager.
“She said exactly what I wanted to hear. She told my story about taking a decade to be able to save up enough money to buy a house,” India says. “I’m a single mom, one income, taking care of three children. It should not take me 10 years to save up money to buy a house.”
Former District 38 state representative Yvonne Holley attended Harris’s speech with her friends Mamie Byrd and Stanley Byrd. All three are alumni of Howard University, Harris’s alma mater. Holley says she’s excited about the practicality and positivity Harris is bringing to the campaign trail.
“Here we got substance, and it’s doable,” Holley says. “There wasn’t anything she mentioned that was not doable.”
State Senator Jay Chaudhuri, who represents Wake County, agrees.
“Today’s message is absolutely going to resonate with people in North Carolina, it’s absolutely going to resonate with the people of Wake County, given the real challenges we have with affordable housing,” Chaudhuri says.
“What I really appreciated about today’s economic message is there were specific ideas that tackle everyday cost of living, prices that middle class Americans face. Just as importantly, she provided her economic message as a stark contrast to what Donald Trump would do.”
Reach Reporter Chloe Courtney Bohl at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].
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