Harris small enterprise tour launches in play for Latino, Black voters

Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks onstage during a campaign event, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., September 29, 2024.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Harris campaign surrogates are planning a series of stops 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 will not be attending these specific events herself. The campaign said “elected officials” and “community leaders” will go in her place, but did not specify who the surrogates will be.

The campaign tour, titled “Small Business for Harris-Walz,” is billed in part as an appeal to Black and Latino communities, key voter demographics that were essential to Democrats’ 2020 victory but have begun to slip in favor of Republican nominee Donald Trump this election cycle.

Trump has been working to capitalize on that momentum.

“If you’re Black or Hispanic, thank you very much, vote for Trump. You’ll be in good shape,” he said at a Georgia rally last Tuesday.

This week’s small business tour is the Harris campaign’s latest effort to quell Trump’s gains.

President Joe Biden ran a similar playbook when he was expected to be the Democratic presidential nominee before he dropped out of the race in July.

In December, for example, he touted the gains of Black-owned and Latino-owned small businesses under his administration as a way to highlight his efforts to close the racial wealth gap and to win back voters who felt nostalgic for the pre-pandemic economy that Trump oversaw.

Harris is adopting that argument for her own campaign, working to draw a similar contrast with her Republican opponent.

“Vice President Harris has proven that she will be a champion for small business,” Richard Garcia, the Harris campaign’s small business engagement director, wrote in a statement Tuesday. “Unlike Donald Trump who is only fighting for himself.”

Over the next week, the Harris campaign will extend that pitch specifically to small businesses in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The campaign plans to host a variety of organizing events, volunteer trainings and house parties.

So far, Harris has proposed giving small businesses a $50,000 tax deduction for their startup expenses, a tenfold expansion from the current $5,000 deduction. She has also floated a 28% tax on long-term capital gains, a lower rate than Biden’s 40% tax proposal in order to reward “investment in America’s innovators, founders and small businesses.”

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