Two Campaign Promises Kamala Harris Could Make Right Now to Call Out Trump And (Maybe) Regain Momentum

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster; AP Photo/Alex Brandon

As Democratic Party panic over Kamala Harris’s chances of beating Donald Trump ramps up ahead of Election Day, finger pointing on the left has already begun.

Axios reported last Friday on the turmoil within Harris’s ranks as both CNN and the The New York Times’s final polls before the election found the candidates in a dead heat nationally – a metric most observers believed Harris needed to be up at least two to three points in to win the race. “Top Democrats are already starting to point fingers at who’d be more responsible for a Harris loss — President [Joe] Biden for dragging his feet, or Harris herself,” reported Axios’s Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei.

While it may be too late in the campaign to right the ship, and pundits and naysayers are long going to debate if calling Trump a “fascist” was the right closing argument or not, here are two campaign promises Harris could make right now, both to the change the debate in the country and to put Trump on notice for a second term.

Promise not to hire any family members

Trump and Biden have both long been plagued by accusations that their children have profited off of their time in public office. Harris, if elected, would enter the White House without this stench of corruption hanging around her neck and she should absolutely lean into it, not only because it’s good politics, but most importantly, it’s actually good for the country.

While Hunter Biden never actually served in his father’s administration, his shady overseas deals have long been an albatross around Biden’s neck and have helped to keep the focus off of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s time in the White House.

Trump putting his son-in-law, whom he had to force through a security clearance, at the center of his administration will always reek of nepotism and corruption – even without mentioning the millions Kushner made while in office.

“A new analysis of their financial filings shows the couple disclosed up to $640 million in outside income while working in the White House. At the same time, the couple failed to entirely divest from their businesses. Put together, our analysis suggests that as former President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law decamped from the White House in January, they left a trail of ethical breaches in their wake,” wrote a member of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in February 2021.

Democratic pollster Blueprint found earlier this month that corruption in government actually ranks as a top issue among young male voters in the U.S. – a key voting bloc with which Harris has struggled. Promising both to not hire any close relatives and working with Congress to codify new ethics rules for the first family would go a long way to swaying some voters on this issue.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who led the charge against Hunter Biden, joined with progressive Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) in the late Spring and introduced The Presidential Ethics Reform Act – a bill requiring “presidents and vice presidents to disclose payments, transfers, or other items of value from foreign sources received by themselves or immediate family members within two years before taking office, during time in office, and for two years after leaving office.” Harris should endorse this legislation immediately, ask why Trump hasn’t, and continue to remind the public that neither Trump nor his running mate have made their tax returns public.

Promise to work toward a balanced budget

President Bill Clinton’s legacy will always be a contested one. From his actions in the Balkans to his affair with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton’s critics aren’t going anywhere soon, but one thing almost everyone can agree on is that his budget surpluses and balanced budgets are something to aspire to.

Harris and Trump have both already put out their economic plans with Trump promising to add more to the deficit. Axios reported in early October, “Former President Trump’s plans would add $7.5 trillion to cumulative deficits from 2026 to 2035, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, while Vice President Kamala Harris’ agenda would add $3.5 trillion to the tally.” While Harris is nowhere near a balanced budget, she does at least try to pay for some of her new spending promises by increasing government revenue.

With the national debt continuing to spiral out of control, especially due to the ever-increasing interest payments, both candidates should be at least talking about the issue. Instead, Trump is taking the party once most associated with “fiscal conservatism” off a financial cliff, which is something Harris should easily be able to call out while also finding some spending cuts herself.

Several prominent Republicans have already publicly made the case that Trump was an irresponsible president when it came to deficit spending and that inflation under Biden’s presidency began with Trump’s reckless spending.

“The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us. Our Republicans did this to us too. When they passed that $2.2 trillion Covid stimulus bill, they left us with 90 million people on Medicaid, 42 million people on food stamps,” Nikki Haley said during an August 2023 GOP primary debate. “Trump added 8 trillion to our debt and our kids are never gonna forgive us for this,” she added. Other deficit hawks, like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), have made clear that Trump’s $2.2 trillion CARES Act fueled inflation. “ I said it would cause inflation and shortages and a lot of long-term mal-effects to the economy. And here we are,” Massie said during a congressional meeting in December 2023.

While the deficit and corruption may not be the most pressing issues to many voters, finding common-sense policy positions to remind Americans of how irresponsibly Trump governed should have always been at the core of Harris’s campaign. Whether it is too late or not, Harris needs to do everything she can to peel off as many voters as possible and try and force Trump to defend some of his most indefensible past failings.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.