Vice President Kamala Harris took the White House’s jobs message north on Friday to New Hampshire, praising union workers and selling sweeping investments in national infrastructure during her first visit to the state since 2019.
The Biden administration’s $2.25 trillion “American Jobs Plan” includes $100 billion for workforce development programs, which Harris pitched during stops at an apprenticeship training center run by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union’s Local 490.
Following a demonstration of fire alarm technology, Harris praised the union workers who install the equipment as “brains and brawn.”
“More brains than brawn,” she added.
WHITE HOUSE WON’T SAY HOW MANY GREEN JOBS WILL BE CREATED BY INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN
The visit followed Harris’s speech at an electrical cooperative in Plymouth, where she pointed to $100 billion in the bill for broadband access as one critical measure.
The push, which President Joe Biden has billed as an effort to outcompete China, will also target green jobs, though the White House has not shared a projected number of how many will be created.
“We’re going to focus on putting the money in the jobs that are necessary to get the job done,” Harris said, stressing that the effort was critical beyond the national security implications.
As Americans, “we set the bar high,” she said. “The very nature of American aspiration is such that we always jump for it, and we do it. We said we were going to go to the moon, and then we planted a flag there.”
Harris continued: “That’s what the American jobs plan is about, and it is about, yes, roads and bridges, and then thinking about what families and working people need to get to work, but it’s also about an investment in our future.”
Republicans and some Democrats have criticized certain provisions in the package that the White House has billed under a broader definition of infrastructure than traditional physical projects.
To pass the bill in the evenly divided Senate, Biden may need to hew to a more typical infrastructure definition, forgoing provisions like the $400 billion for home and elder care workers. Some Senate Republicans have said they may support spending on roads, bridges, ports, and airports.
Harris kept her remarks tailored to this latter definition while urging support for the bill.
“We’re going to remind our friends in Washington, D.C., that the people who will benefit from this work, when they’re trying to drive to work over potholes, they’re not thinking about whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat,” Harris said. “They’re thinking about the fact that if they have to keep driving over those potholes, then they’re gonna be out of pocket probably at least a $400 unexpected expense to fix or replace those tires.”
It was the vice president’s second visit in a week to a closely watched state after swinging through battleground North Carolina on Monday.
Harris was greeted on the tarmac by members of the Democratic congressional delegation and Gov. Christopher Sununu, a Republican, but quickly ran into GOP criticism.
“Mexico — 2,254 mi,” read an arrow-shaped sign on the approach to a union hall where she was set to deliver remarks. Another told the vice president to “go visit Mexico.”
The New Hampshire GOP leveled a similar charge on social media, sarcastically welcoming Harris to the “#WrongBorder.”
Republicans have criticized Harris, whom Biden tasked with stemming the flow of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, for failing to visit the area amid a host of migration-related issues. A White House official said this week that she would travel to Central America in June to discuss the drivers of the crisis.
The issue has become a cudgel for the White House’s political opponents, who view the issue as a weak spot for the otherwise broadly popular Biden administration. While polls still trend along partisan lines on most issues, Biden’s handling of the border situation resonates poorly on all sides.
Democrats, too, have criticized the administration’s handling, while lawmakers representing southern border states have publicly voiced their concerns.
In New Hampshire, Harris appeared alongside another Democrat who faces a potentially challenging reelection next year, Sen. Maggie Hassan, lending her a boost.
But the vice president could benefit from the trip, too.
“It’s never too early to talk about the next race for the White House,” New Hampshire journalist Paul Steinhauser said during a Sirius XM appearance Friday.
On the surface, Harris’s visit has nothing to do with the next presidential race. But Harris’s campaign struggled in the state during the Democratic Party primary contest, despite pledging to spend “a lot of time” there.
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“She’s, of course, here to sell the Biden administration’s jobs and recovery plan that they’re hoping to push through Congress. But, you know, coming here, we all remember her failed effort in 2020 — didn’t do so well here in New Hampshire either, dropped out of the race before the primaries even started,” Steinhauser said.
Still, he added, casting an eye to 2024 makes sense should Biden decide not to run again, in which case “Harris would be the lead contender for the nomination.”
