Spotlight on Harris while Biden faces pressure to drop out

Vice President Kamala Harris touted the nation’s domestic manufacturing resurgence under President Joe Biden on Thursday at a campaign stop in North Carolina, where the intense media interest reflected her status as the Democratic Party’s most likely presidential nominee in the event that Biden drops his reelection bid.

“The fact is, under Donald Trump, America lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. And more than 1,000 factories closed under his watch,” Harris said in Fayetteville. “Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and I have created nearly 800,000 new manufacturing jobs — so much so it’s been described as a manufacturing boom.”

The vice president’s remarks come amid intense pressure from top Democrats for Biden to drop out of the presidential race.

According to media reports, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have both told Biden that his bid for reelection could endanger the party’s electoral chances in both chambers of Congress.

Two sources familiar with former President Barack’s Obama’s thinking told NBC News that while he has “concerns” about Biden’s ability to stay at the top of the Democratic ticket, he also continues to see his main role as a sounding board and counselor to his two-term vice president.

And while Democratic megadonors pressure Biden to step aside, donor events that feature Harris have started to sell out.

Biden, who is currently self-isolating in Delaware after testing positive for Covid-19 Wednesday, has persistently rejected calls to drop out.

But his campaign has quietly begun assessing the viability of a Harris-led ticket, polling the vice president’s chances in a head-to-head race against former President Donald Trump, a source told NBC News last week.

A new national CBS/YouGov poll of likely voters shows the Republican presidential nominee with a 5-point lead over Biden, 52% to 47%, while in a hypothetical match-up, Trump leads Harris by 3 points, 51% to 48%. Both results of the poll, which was conducted after Saturday’s attempted assassination of Trump, are within the margin of error.

In her remarks Thursday, which were broadcast live by MSNBC, CNN and Fox News, Harris responded to Republican VP nominee JD Vance’s speech Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention.

“He did not talk about Project 2025, their 900-page blueprint for a second Trump term,” Harris said, referencing the policy plans developed by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “He did not talk about it because their plans are extreme, and they are divisive.”

“In recent days, they’ve been trying to portray themselves as the party of unity. Here’s the thing: If you claim to stand for unity, you need to do more than just use the word,” Harris said. “You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of Americans of basic freedoms, opportunity and dignity.”

Harris, who campaigned in Michigan on Wednesday, also touted the administration’s achievements including the insulin price cap, the expansion of the child tax credit and student debt relief.

“It is clear if Donald Trump were to win in November, he will continue to sell out working families, he will continue to attack reproductive freedom and he will continue to undermine our democracy,” Harris said.

It is the seventh time this year and the second time this month Harris has visited North Carolina — a battleground state Democrats are hoping to flip after a narrow loss to Trump in 2020.

Harris spoke at a campaign event in Greensboro on July 11, where she was joined by Gov. Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor who is not running for reelection. Cooper, who was the attorney general of North Carolina at the same time Harris was the attorney general of California, also spoke at Thursday’s rally.