Senator Bernie Sanders is calling for Vice President Kamala Harris to adopt a robust working-class agenda in her 2024 presidential campaign. While labor unions, advocacy groups, and progressive lawmakers have quickly rallied around Harris, Sanders has held off on formally endorsing her, emphasizing the necessity for her campaign to prioritize the economic needs of working Americans.
Harris has swiftly garnered the backing of Democratic delegates following President Joe Biden’s decision to exit the 2024 race and endorse her. Sanders, who competed against Harris and Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, remains a significant figure in the Democratic Party, having influenced Biden’s campaign to incorporate several progressive priorities.
In recent interviews with CBS News and CNN, Sanders underscored his concerns. Speaking with CBS’ Robert Costa, Sanders expressed confidence in Harris’s ability to defeat Donald Trump if she campaigns on an agenda that addresses the struggles of the working class. “The issue that concerns me is that for too long, Democrats have kind of turned their backs on the pain that millions of working-class people, people who are elderly, children, lower-income people are experiencing,” Sanders said.
Sanders emphasized the dire economic realities many Americans face, noting, “It is not acceptable that 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck while the billionaire class has never, ever had it so good.” He highlighted the lack of access to essential services like dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses for millions of seniors, and criticized the high rate of childhood poverty in the United States.
Among Sanders’s key policy recommendations for Harris’s campaign are the permanent expansion of the child tax credit and an increase in the federal minimum wage. “I just want to make sure that her campaign understands that for too many people in this country, when they look at Washington, D.C., they feel ignored,” Sanders told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Life expectancy for working-class people is 10 years shorter than it is for the rich. And working-class people want a government that represents them and not corporate America.”
Harris’s campaign has been swift to respond to these challenges. In a statement, Harris outlined her vision for the future, emphasizing a commitment to democracy, reproductive freedom, and economic opportunity. “This election will present a clear choice between two different visions,” Harris said. “Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights. I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom, and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.”
Despite broad support from the Democratic establishment and congressional progressives, some have raised concerns about Harris’s corporate ties and her record as a U.S. senator and California’s attorney general. Harris has strong connections to the tech industry, having been close to figures like LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs. She recently brought in attorney Karen Dunn as an adviser, who has represented major corporations like Google and Uber. Tony West, Harris’s brother-in-law and chief legal officer at Uber, has also been assisting in her transition to a presidential campaign.
Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, stressed the importance of keeping Harris’s campaign focused on the needs of working Americans. “It’s incredibly important that Senator Sanders and others keep pushing this campaign to reflect the needs of working Americans, not corporate America,” Hepner said.
Sanders has had a significant influence on shaping progressive policies within the Democratic Party, as evidenced by his role in Biden’s administration. His advocacy led to the inclusion of medical debt forgiveness and expansions of Medicare and Social Security benefits in Biden’s campaign. Sanders seeks a similar commitment from Harris, urging her to champion economic justice and policies that directly impact working families.
Harris’s ability to appeal to working-class and young voters is seen as crucial for the upcoming election. Sanders’s allies believe that adopting progressive policies can bolster her campaign. “The views of working-class voters of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin are just so fundamental to the course of this election cycle,” a Sanders ally stated. “Right now, you look at where her standing is with a lot of working-class voters, and there’s a ton of room for Kamala to improve her standing.”
The 2024 election presents an opportunity for Harris to differentiate her campaign from Biden’s by addressing the economic pain many Americans feel. Public figures and media have also played a role in highlighting these issues, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging and addressing economic challenges faced by voters.
Elizabeth Warren, a leading Senate progressive and former presidential candidate, defended Harris’s commitment to economic justice. “I’ve known Kamala Harris for nearly 15 years, when she was attorney general in California and I was setting up the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.] She and I were fighting shoulder to shoulder against the giant banks that were trying to cheat homeowners,” Warren said. “She has worked since then on student loan debt, price gouging, and hundreds of ways in which giant corporations cheat people. This is a huge part of both her resume and her deep personal commitment. I don’t have any doubts about who she is and what she’ll fight for.”
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