The vice president, who replaced President Joe Biden atop the ticket last month, has been carried by surging enthusiasm, bolstered by new government figures this week showing inflation cooling.
More Americans now trust Harris to handle the economy than her Republican rival Donald Trump, according to a new University of Michigan poll, the first time in this election cycle that the former president has been behind on the issue.
But with the Democratic National Convention just days away, the 59-year-old vice president has been under increasing pressure to tell voters exactly what she stands for.
And while she has previewed a handful of policies, she has yet to settle on a concrete plan for governing, instead framing the sprint to the November 5 election in broad terms as a fight for the future.
Harris’s first economic proposal to not tax tips perplexed some Democrats, who mocked the proposal as a ploy” for votes after Trump first floated something similar.
She was on firmer ground on Thursday as she touted a likely vote-winning cut in medication costs for seniors and took part in her first joint public event with Biden since she replaced him amid concerns over his mental acuity.
In her widely anticipated speech in Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday, Harris is expected to call on Congress to pass the first federal ban on so-called “price-gouging” that will come with penalties on food companies that unfairly increase prices.
Harris will also draw a contrast with Trump’s economic vision, US media reported, arguing that his plan for tariffs of up to 20 percent on imports will drive up costs for food and other everyday items.