Can Harris win on good vibes alone?: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, Washington correspondent. Yamiche Alcindor previews Vice President Kamala Harris' history-making convention speech. Plus, senior national political reporter Jonathan Allen examines whether Democrats can ride good vibes all the way to victory this fall.

Programming note: Stay tuned for a special edition of the From the Politics Desk newsletter after the Democratic National Convention tonight, bringing you all the latest news and analysis from our team in Chicago.

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CHICAGO — For now, Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is running on vibes, and many Democrats hope she can ride them to victory on Election Day. 

That may mean she will try to avoid laying out a comprehensive policy plan for the country. Whether she can do that and still win remains an open question.

In the month since President Joe Biden stepped aside, Harris has offered a ton of talk about joy, vision and values, but very little in the way of detailed plans. The Democratic Party’s platform, released Sunday, didn’t change as a result of the switch at the top of the ticket. 

On the campaign trail, Harris has unveiled a handful of proposals that are largely retreads or souped-up versions of items on Biden’s wish list — among them, a 28% corporate tax rate, a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers, an expanded tax credit of up to $6,000 for the first year of a child’s life. The latter two could create inflationary pressures at a time when Harris is promising to keep prices low.

But Harris and her campaign team aren’t saying anything about a broader plan to bolster the economy or national security.

At a roundtable with reporters this week, hosted by Bloomberg News, Harris policy adviser Brian Nelson repeatedly said he didn’t want to “get ahead of the vice president” when pressed for details of her agenda.

“I think, you know, fundamentally she’s going to continue to do sort of more specific policy initiatives with a lot of detail behind them as she builds out this picture for her vision of the future both in the economy and domestic policy,” Nelson said.

At the same event, longtime Harris policy adviser Rohini Kosoglu suggested that the Harris campaign would rather draw contrasts with former President Donald Trump and the “Project 2025” agenda he has disavowed than put down its own map of her plans.

“The questions about even what voters want to hear in terms of her work over her career, her time as vice president and then moving forward may sound a little bit different than our traditional sort of longer-term campaigns that have had, you know, these huge apparatuses,” Kosoglu said. “On the opposing side, there’s a Project 2025 out there, and people also need to understand what’s in those 900 pages. What does it mean for their everyday life?”

Harris campaign aides have said that she will not propose a single-payer, universal health insurance program — “Medicare for All” — as she once did and that she now opposes a fracking ban she once supported. 

Harris has yet to sit down for a major interview since she became the Democratic standard-bearer, so it may be some time before she is pushed to fill in her vision with more specifics — and do so in her own words, rather than through statements issued by campaign aides. 

There are risks to offering too few details and to offering too many of them. Democrats have tried to make Project 2025 an anchor on Trump. But given a short window to get to know Harris better, voters may not be willing to hold their breaths and hope that she will deliver what they want if she’s not willing to make hard promises on policy.

Only time will tell whether she feels compelled to do that — and whether she will be rewarded or rejected if she doesn’t.

CHICAGO — Harris is set to deliver what is arguably the biggest speech of her life Thursday night, when she will make history as the first Black woman and first Asian American person to accept a major party’s nomination for president. 

Harris intends to focus her speech on three areas: sharing her personal and professional background, contrasting her vision for America with the one offered by former President Donald Trump and rooting her vision in “a deep and abiding sense of patriotism,” according to a campaign official, who requested anonymity to share details about the remarks.

The speech will be one of her most significant opportunities to define herself since she took over the top of the ticket from Biden last month. She has been crafting the speech over the past two weeks, making trips to Howard University in Washington, D.C. — her alma mater — for both debate preparation and speechwriting sessions, two sources familiar with her preparations said. 

One person familiar with the speech preparations said Harris plans to dedicate the early part of her speech to praising Biden.

Harris also plans to connect her policy proposals with her middle-class upbringing, including talking about plans for issues like taking on price gouging, lowering rent and helping first-time homebuyers, the two sources familiar with the speech said.

A former aide familiar with the speech preparations said Harris’ team has also been cautious about how they will incorporate talking about race and gender while understanding that it will be important to acknowledge the history-making position Harris is in. The speech will focus on why Harris is qualified to be president, detailing, among other areas, her time as a lawyer and the types of cases she handled.

Read more from Yamiche →

🎙️The lineup: Prior to Harris, several other prominent Democrats are slated to speak on the fourth and final night of the convention.

They include: Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords; Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Roy Cooper of North Carolina; Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; Rep. Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida; former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; and state Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, also known as the “Tennessee Three.”

In addition, Democratic candidates in key Senate races are on the schedule: Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; and Reps. Colin Allred of Texas, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. 

But as Henry J. Gomez and Bridget Bowman note, the party’s two most vulnerable Senate Democrats — Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio — are skipping the convention.

Alex Seitz-Wald also reports that a number of progressive lawmakers and officials, as well the United Auto Workers, have called on Democrats to reverse their decision not to give a Palestinian American a speaking slot.

🎶 Musical guests: Pop singer Pink and country trio The Chicks are expected to perform, per Monica Alba, Jonathan Allen and Summer Concepcion. 

📱Trump’s plans: Trump said that he will do a “live play by play” of Harris’ speech on Truth Social.

Follow along with tonight’s speeches on our live blog →

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. — Trump on Thursday said the cost to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is justified and would not rule out separating families that are compromised of citizens and immigrants. 

“It’ll cost trillions of dollars to keep these people, and I’m talking about in particular, starting with the criminals,” Trump told NBC News in an interview during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. “That’s costing us a lot more than deporting. But we have no choice, regardless, we have no choice, we’re going to have to deport.”

When pressed, Trump provided no details on how he would pay for his plan, which could cost billions of dollars to implement at scale. Trump spent much of his first term fighting with Congress to give him money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, an expensive undertaking that the legislative branch never agreed to fund. Ultimately, he took the money from other parts of the Pentagon budget.

Asked whether he would deport undocumented immigrants who are part of mixed-status families, like those married to American citizens or those who are parents to American citizens, Trump said: “Provisions will be made, but we have to get the criminals out.”

Read more →

That’s all from the Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com

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