Former President Donald Trump made the economy and immigration a focal point during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July, yet Vice President Kamala Harris barely brushed on the topics when she accepted her party’s nomination on Thursday, according to a New York Times analysis.
Trump referenced the “economy,” “businesses,” “jobs,” “taxes” and “inflation” over 70 times when he accepted the Republican nomination, while Harris mentioned those same terms just 15 times during her speech, according to the New York Times analysis. Trump also cited the terms “border,” “immigration,” “invasion” and “illegal aliens” 43 times, while the “Border Czar” spoke about those same issues just nine times when she accepted the Democratic nomination.
“This will be the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump said during his acceptance speech. “Under the current administration, we are indeed a nation in decline. We have an inflation crisis that is making life unaffordable, ravaging the incomes of working and low-income families and crushing, just simply crushing our people like never before.”
“We also have an illegal immigration crisis, and it’s taking place right now as we sit here in this beautiful arena,” Trump continued. “It’s a massive Invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease and destruction to communities all across our land. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
Inflation and prices remain a top issue for nearly a quarter of voters going into November, according to an Economist/YouGov poll from August. The job and the economy are the second most important issue, with 13% of respondents saying it is a priority in the upcoming election.
Harris didn’t mention inflation once during her acceptance speech.
Some experts point to the Biden-Harris administration’s exorbitant spending as a leading cause for skyrocketing inflation that has burdened average Americans over the last three and a half years. The Biden-Harris administration approved several spending initiatives such as the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act which have hiked the national debt up to $35 trillion for the first time in American history.
The American Rescue Plan was passed in March of 2021 with a hefty $1.9 trillion price tag. The Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed in August of 2022, billed taxpayers a grand total of $750 billion.
Harris was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate that sent the Inflation Reduction Act to the White House where Biden gave his stamp of approval.
Immigration ranked as the third most important issue right behind the economy and inflation with 12% of voters reporting it as a priority in November, according to the Economist/YouGov poll.
“I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system,” Harris said during her acceptance speech. “We can create a pathway to citizenship and secure our border.”
Some politicians, like Trump’s running mate and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have speculated that this campaign promise could have already been acted on while she served in public office in various capacities.
“She had control over a lot of our border policy at a time when they were suspending deportations,” Vance said during a recent interview with Jonathan Karl. “They stopped Donald Trump’s remain in Mexico policy, and they re-instituted catch and release.”
The Biden-Harris administration oversaw record surges of illegal immigration in the last three and a half years. Since the “Border Czar” stepped into office, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has encountered over 10 million migrants, with over 100,000 encounters along the southern border in July alone, according to CBP data.
“They basically threw open the gates of our country,” Vance continued in the interview.
