A series of Democratic emissaries to the business world laid out a case at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that a President Kamala Harris will be good for business — in spite of unanswered questions about her economic agenda and the unpopularity of some of her ideas in C-suites.

The message came from Harris herself as well as an array of business-friendly allies.

"I will bring together labor, and workers, and small business owners, and entrepreneurs, and American companies to create jobs," the freshly minted Democratic nominee promised Thursday as she accepted her party's nod.

"She'll fight for you; she'll fight for all of us," added Tony West, a senior vice president and chief legal officer at Uber (UBER), of his sister-in-law in his own speech Wednesday night.

The most direct business case came Tuesday from former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault.

He talked about Harris helping businesses through the lens of democracy and overall stability, saying, "As a business leader, I have seen firsthand why democracy is so important: It provides the foundation upon which American business and our economy depend."

"Kamala Harris understands that," he added.

Yet this outreach to the business world has clearly been complicated by certain Harris proposals, including elements of a recently released cost-of-living plan.

Her idea for a ban on food price gouging has been particularly controversial with many comparing it to price controls.

Another idea sure to be unpopular in the business world was the news that Harris is on board with raising the corporate income tax rate to 28%. Big businesses currently pay a federal rate of 21%.

"What you're seeing is the left's version of economic populism," noted RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas in a recent Yahoo Finance appearance, saying many of these ideas are unlikely to happen even if she wins.

But Brusuelas added that there are some ideas in her proposals for the business community to like, including efforts to use tax incentives to build 3 million new homes.

The lineup of speakers this past week in Chicago included Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, former investment banker (and current Maryland Governor) Wes Moore, and others.

They often returned to a nuanced case based partly on what they say is Harris's potential to improve the US business climate along with a giant dollop of criticism of what Donald Trump would bring if he wins instead.

One subject came up again and again: Deeply unpopular ideas (among businesses at least) from Trump to push historically high tariffs even higher.

Trump and his campaign responded by arguing Harris is so anti-business that the only question is whether she's a socialist or a communist.

Trump himself has begun calling her "comrade Kamala," including at an event Monday intended to highlight economic issues and make America "wealthy again."

A case from Harris

Commerce Secretary Raimondo is the Biden administration's most direct contact for many CEOs.

She has leveraged her previous career in venture capitalism and record as an economy-minded governor of Rhode Island to earn a certain amount of credibility in C-suites in recent years.

When it was her turn to speak Monday, she tried to pass along some of that standing to Harris.

"We turned it around with a pro-business, pro-worker agenda," Raimondo said of changing the business climate in Rhode Island, adding: "Kamala Harris has that same agenda."

Raimondo argued that Harris's economic vision would reward entrepreneurs, "and she's going to forge an economy with fair competition free from monopolies, monopolies that crush workers and small businesses and startups."

A similar case was made away from the campaign stage.

Harris aides told Bloomberg, for example, that the vice president would support measures to expand the crypto industry.

They also highlighted some of the positive reactions to Harris's discussion of housing in her recent cost-of-living plan. One Washington Post essay from Jim Parrott of the Urban Institute and Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics was particularly touted.

The two economists wrote that the Harris housing plan could "change the economics" of the sector and would amount to "the most aggressive supply-side push since the national investment in housing that followed World War II."

But any business-friendly message remained perhaps an odd fit at times within a Democratic gathering that more often featured speakers eager to slam business leaders.

Perhaps the sharpest contrast came Tuesday night when Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont first offered his message that "we need an economy that works for all of us, not just the billionaire class."

But the very next speaker was J.B. Pritzker, a wealthy businessman and member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain.

The message from the now-Illinois Governor was, to say the least, an extreme contrast.

"Donald Trump thinks we should trust him on the economy because he claims to be very rich, but take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing — stupidity," Pritzker said.

"Let's be clear: It's not woke that limits economic growth," he added "It's weird."

Drawing a contrast to Donald Trump

The message from these speakers also leaned heavily on Trump — specifically his tariff plans.

Trump "wants a sales tax that's going to supercharge inflation," said Raimondo, one of many speakers who likened Trump's push for 60% duties on China and 10%-20% on other trading partners as akin to a sales tax.

An estimate from Brendan Duke of the left-leaning Center for American Progress found that the maximum version of the Trump plan (a 20% blanket tariff combined with 60% on Chinese goods) could mean additional annual costs of $3,900 for a typical middle-class family.

The researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics found a slightly lower figure of $2,600 a year. But, perhaps predictably, the higher figure was the one being cited again and again this week.

"He intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax, call it a Trump tax, that would raise prices on middle class families by almost $4,000 a year," Harris said Thursday night.

And it showed up in numerous other speeches and in a new video from the Harris-Walz campaign.

Whether this business-friendly message picks up momentum in the weeks ahead remains to be seen, but the Democratic party was clearly trying to emphasize that a Harris administration would care about both business leaders and their employees.

"She understands it's possible, in fact necessary, for a president to be both pro-business and pro-worker," Chenault said in his speech.

It was just, he added, that "she knows the way not to do it is to give people like me a tax cut."

This post has been updated with additional information.

Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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