In other times, an official event on pharmaceutical spending cuts would have gone almost unnoticed. In other times, just a month ago, US President Joe Biden would not have gathered a crowd at such an event. In other times, thousands of people would not have queued for hours in the sun to crowd into a school hall in the hope of seeing Vice President Kamala Harris in the flesh.
But those days are no longer. Now a wave of optimism is sweeping through the Democratic ranks, excited by their new presidential candidate and a series of polls that show the vice president tied, or even ahead, of her Republican rival, Donald Trump. And thousands of people have queued for more than two hours outside Prince George Community College in Largo, Maryland, just outside Washington, to attend, vociferously, an event promoting cuts in drug costs, the first in which Harris and Biden have appeared together since the president, three and a half weeks ago, gave up running for re-election in the elections next November.
If nominally it was an act of promotion of the agreement between the Government and the pharmaceutical companies — a reduction in the prices of a dozen of the most expensive and most prescribed drugs in the United States starting in 2026 — it quickly became a tribute to Biden and his legacy. And a show of Harris’ energy, received with applause and cries of “We love you!”
“Few leaders in our country have done more on so many things, including expanding health care coverage,” his vice president praised him. “Thank you, Joe! Thank you, Joe!” the crowd chanted repeatedly.
Bath of crowds
But above all, Harris, the great attraction of the event, was the one who drew the crowds. “She’s going to be an amazing president,” said the American president, after his replacement at the head of the Democratic ticket left the stage to give him the floor and the spotlight. “Forty-eight! Forty-eight!” shouted the crowd, referring to the number Harris would occupy on the list of American presidents if she wins.
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The venue was smaller than the ones Harris has packed on her road trip with her No. 2, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, which have drawn more than 12,000 people each time. The school’s arena was more in keeping with the kind of smaller events Biden favored while he led the Democratic ticket. But the crowd — a diverse mix of mothers, retirees and even workers taking their lunch breaks — was as loud or louder than at the larger events.
What Biden and Harris said was of little importance. The goal was to maintain the wave of hope. To show off electoral muscle. To maintain the energy among voters. To show that the Democrats are the ones who currently have the keys to the White House. And to show off unity after the abrupt change of power on July 21.
The rally was intended to defuse protests from Trump, who has described Biden’s replacement by Harris as a “coup” and has denounced the change as “unconstitutional,” and leaks about Biden’s displeasure with the Democratic hierarchy — particularly former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — for pressuring him to resign.
With the event, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party also sought to boast about their economic policy. In these elections — as in almost all — the state of the economy is the main concern of voters. And one of the areas in which Republicans are gaining an advantage over their opponents: polls consider Trump more competent when it comes to managing the economy than the current occupants of the White House.
Although even in this area some polls show positive results for the Democrats: this weekend, a survey published by the Financial Times indicated for the first time that voters view Harris as more capable of managing the country’s economy.
And the Democrats want to take advantage of that momentum and distance themselves. They want to present themselves as the party that truly defends the middle class, with measures such as these pharmaceutical cuts. The vice president, who in her campaign events has been very careful to defend her roots, and those of her number two Tim Walz, middle class, plans to present this Friday, at a rally in North Carolina, her economic platform with which to appeal to American families.
“My entire career I have fought to hold bad managers accountable and to lower the cost of prescription drugs,” Harris said at the rally. “We can use the power of (federal health programs) to take on Big Pharma and negotiate lower prices.”
The presentation will come on the heels of official inflation data this week, which indicate that inflation is beginning to come under control after three years in which it has been the biggest problem facing the US economy. For the first time in that time, it has fallen below 3%, standing at 2.9%.
According to Harris’ campaign, the vice president plans to propose a federal ban on stores being able to raise food prices excessively, especially for meat, which she believes is one of the major factors in the rise in grocery bills that Americans have experienced in recent years.
Despite lower inflation, families are still facing high food prices, paying 21% more than they did three years ago. This is a fact that Trump and the Republicans keep repeating at their rallies.
The vice president, who will formally accept her nomination as the Democratic candidate next week at the party’s convention that opens on Monday in Chicago, also wants to defend measures such as tax breaks for minor children for low-income families. This weekend she proposed exempting tips from taxes, a measure very popular in the service sector. That proposal has raised the ire of Trump, who has complained that he has been advocating the same step for some time.
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