How inflation will shape the Harris campaign

Vice President Kamala Harris is positioning herself for a face-off against former President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. However, with inflation concerns still lingering, her challenge lies in convincing voters of the economic progress made during the Biden administration.

Yahoo Finance senior columnist Rick Newman analyzes the political landscape, discussing how Harris needs to convince voters she is the right person to lead the economy.

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This post was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

Vice President Harris is ready to take on former President Trump in the upcoming election.

But as the economy continues to improve, can Harris get Americans more pumped up about a solid economy than President Biden can more.

Let's welcome in Yahoo.

Finance's very own, Rick Rick.

Hey guys.

Well, we got more good economic news this week and as usual Americans seem unimpressed uh if not even dour.

So we got good GDP numbers for the second quarter uh for the umpteenth time in the Biden administration.

GDP was better than economists forecasts.

We got good news about uh inflation today looks like the Federal Reserve may be cutting interest rates soon.

And uh the Michigan consumer sentiment survey showed that went down in July, not up.

And that survey was taken before the sell off we've seen in the stock market uh during the last few days.

So, I mean, this is, this has become a familiar uh if somewhat baffling story.

Uh The economy is doing well and continues to improve and yet there's just not much sign that that consumers are buying it.

So uh we get to have a little experiment here.

We get to see now that the torch has passed from President Biden to Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate, is she going to be more effective at talking up the economy and the things that are good about the economy?

And I have no idea if she will be better at it or not.

But um you know, there are early signs that there's a lot more enthusiasm for Kamala Harris than there than there has been for President Biden.

She's doing better in some of the early polls than, than Biden did.

There are some signs that young voters are awakening to her candidacy.

So in coming weeks, we get to see if she can do a better job of talking up the economy than Biden did.

And it really matters because how people feel about the economy in September and October is going to determine how a lot of them vote in the election.

Well, Rick, as we have been talking about this for the past, you know, however long it has been now, the thing has been, it doesn't matter what President Biden says, as long as inflation remains anything, I guess, remains increasing at all.

Uh but it has gotten a lot better, right.

So, you know, I, I guess the question is not just whether she's going to be able to communicate it differently, but whether she'll be able to capitalize on what have been actual improving numbers, right?

And at a more fundamental level, Julie I think the the question is, is the, is the messenger part of the problem here is, is the message the problem or is uh is our economic conditions really that difficult for that many people that they don't care that the rate of inflation has come down by a lot and is basically back to normal levels.

They don't care that the job market has been super strong and basically anybody who wants a job can get a job.

Um So, and I don't, I don't know the answer.

I mean, there have been all kinds of efforts to explain why Americans are so gloomy uh when the economy is doing well and perhaps even more important than the, than the base level of where the economy stands is the direction of the economy that it is going in the right direction.

I mean, uh we are getting to the point where we're going to have interest rate.

I mean, we're really getting to a soft landing scenario.

I mean, we're going to have interest rate cuts.

Nobody really is forecasting a recession at this point.

There is going to be, there already is a little bit of slow down in the labor market, but that's good that that's the kind of cooling that allows the fed to cut interest rates.

And this is just not registering yet in any, um any of the um confidence surveys which show that people are much gloomier than they were before COVID So, um I don't know the answer, but I'm very interested to see if a younger candidate who frankly is more energized than President Biden.

Um, and is generating more enthusiasm for now, can get people out of their funk.

Well, I'm sure we're going to keep talking about it.

Rick.

Thanks a lot.

Appreciate it anyway.

Yes, we'll both be talking about it.

Thanks.