Vice President Kamala Harris has used her first days as the Democrats' likely nominee for president to make it clear that she'll pursue big — and expensive — parts of Joe Biden's domestic agenda that never made it across the finish line, Axios' Hans Nichols writes.

• Why it matters: Harris is signaling that even as Democrats play defense on Biden's mixed economic record, she's eager to go on offense for the next four years.

Her plans include pushing for nearly $2 trillion to establish universal pre-K education and improve elderly care and child care — as well as a permanent tax cut for working-class families.

• Her instincts are to go further than Biden's attempt to raise corporate taxes to 28%, according to people familiar with the matter who recall that Harris backed raising them to 35% in 2020.

💥 Driving the news: Harris previewed her economic priorities when she dropped by her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., on Monday, and then again at her rally in the Milwaukee area yesterday.

• "We believe in a future where no child has to grow up in poverty," she said in Wilmington. "And where every person has access to paid family leave and affordable child care."
• That's music — and code — to progressives' ears.

Zoom out: In the 2020 Democratic primary, Harris campaigned as a progressive. She supported Medicare for All, before she was against it. She supported a fracking ban before walking back on that position once she was Biden's running mate.

• "She's a classic progressive who is skeptical of trade but doesn't want to go as far as Trump in terms of imposing blanket tariffs," a former Biden administration official said.

🔭 Between the lines: Weeks into her term as vice president, she called JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan to press them to issue more loans to minority and low-income communities under the Paycheck Protection Program.

• Her message was clear: We're willing to work with you, but we're also watching you.

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The campaigns are focusing on three key groups as they scramble to figure out how Vice President Kamala Harris is shaking up the race — young voters, Hispanics and Black men, Axios' Erin Doherty and Hans Nichols write.

• Why it matters: To beat Donald Trump, Harris will likely need to win all three "Blue Wall" states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin) — without "Scranton Joe."

Republicans are bracing for a little Harris bump, or a "Honeymoon," as Trump's pollster Tony Fabrizio wrote yesterday.

• His prediction proved prescient: Reuters/Ipsos later gave Harris a 2-point lead: 44%-42%.

Yahoo showed the head-to-head race tied: 46%-46%.

• NPR/Marist had Trump up by 1 point: 46%-45%.

In a four-page "Path to Victory" memo out this morning, the Harris campaign argues that she's positioned to expand Biden's winning coalition from 2020.

• "Her net favorability is 19 points higher than Trump's among white, college-educated voters, and 18 points higher than Trump's among voters over 65," the Harris campaign writes.
• It also claims that the roughly 7% of voters who remain undecided are "disproportionately Black, Latino and under 30."

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Vice President Kamala Harris is quickly galvanizing a massive and politically powerful network of Black women who have long been described as the "backbone" of the Democratic Party, Axios' Kristal Dixon and Justin L. Mack write.

Why it matters: About 93% of Black women who voted in 2020 supported Biden, according to an AP survey of 110,000 voters.

• But this marks the first time the top of the ticket reflects the important demographic — and Harris is already benefiting from Black women's organizing power.

Case in point: Within hours of Sunday's bombshell, 90,000+ tuned into a call organized by #WinWithBlackWomen to support Harris. Organizers said they raised $1.5 million in three hours.

• A similar call by Win With Black Men on Monday drew 232,000 participants and raised $1.3 million within hours, per organizers.

👀 What we're watching: Harris will speak at Zeta Phi Beta's national convention in Indianapolis today.

• Keep reading.

Go deeper: How the Divine Nine — a group of Black fraternities and sororities — is boosting Harris, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Just days before the Summer Olympics open on Friday, the City of Love resembles a ghost town, Axios' Ina Fried writes in a postcard from Paris.

• Why it matters: A large swath of the city along the Seine — where the Opening Ceremony will be staged— is closed to all but those with permission or Olympics credentials.

The only people I encountered were a few workers putting finishing touches on stands for Friday's festivities, and an array of police on foot and in boats.

Even outside the security zone, the city is eerily quiet, with an unexpected drizzle adding to the malaise. There was plenty of room at the city's many cafés, which would normally be packed.

An exception: The Musée d'Orsay. I was told that while I could visit for free, I still needed a reservation — part of the city's crowd control.

• I headed instead to the Rodin Museum — also far from crowded.
• Vehicle traffic, though, was still heavy: Cars and taxis had to navigate restrictions even more stringent than those on pedestrians.

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Sunday was Earth's hottest day on record, Axios' Andrew Freedman writes from Copernicus Climate Change Service data.

• Why it matters: The record came in the middle of the planet's hottest year since the pre-industrial era — and likely at least 100,000 years before that.

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The real-life drama surrounding the 2024 presidential election — and some stunning fictional similarities — are driving a 353% viewership spike for HBO's "Veep," Axios' Kelly Tyko writes from Luminate data.

• Why it matters: The "Veep" bump follows a similar surge in sales of J.D. Vance's memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" and viewers for the Netflix adaptation.

"Hillbilly Elegy" was No. 5 on Netflix yesterday. The paperback version of Vance's book was the No. 1 best seller on Amazon.

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Peggy Noonan — the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Declarations" columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and renowned speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan — will be out Nov. 12 (the week after the election) with "A Certain Idea of America," a collection that ranges from Ulysses S. Grant to Taylor Swift.

• Why it matters: Noonan's publisher calls it a "master class in how to eloquently see and love our country," and bills Noonan as a "moral compass for Americans who value character, love of country, and civility."

Topics include: The greats (Billy Graham, Queen Elizabeth, the Pilgrim), defining issues (COVID, #MeToo, pronouns), what could do us in (nuclear war and AI) — plus Donald Trump and Joe Biden (both in Chapter 5: "It Appears He Didn't Take My Advice").

Peggy tells me the title "comes from a rewriting of Charles de Gaulle — 'All my life I have had a certain idea of France' — and came about when we went through my work and saw a consistent and similar theme of a certain idea, but of this country":

"The book contains heroes and villains and controversies and the great daily tugging this way and that that eventually yields up: history. It's about the greatness of Tom Wolfe and Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, it's about what it is to take a political stand in America, and as a woman, in the current communications reality. It's about taking a stick to bad entertainment in [a column called] 'The Uglification of Everything.' ... It's about my great Aunt JaneJane, [an] Irish immigrant to America ... It's about why Bob Dylan is a genius."

Peggy gives us a tour of her wall (photo at top): "The LINCOLN COLLAGE was made by me in the 1970s. It includes my most admired figures: old Abe, Eugene O'Neill, Carson McCullers and Marlon Brando, heroes all. Also, a 1972 telegram from Mademoiselle magazine telling me I'd be chosen as a guest editor. And my CBS page badge from the 1970s!"

• "To the left: Me and Margaret Thatcher ... Also on the wall: pictures of my 12-year-old son with Ronald Reagan and Nancy ... Joe DiMaggio and Dwight Eisenhower ... my Presidential Commission."

Noonan is represented by Robert Barnett of Williams & Connolly.

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The Wolf Spritzer is Washington's drink of the summer — and we've got the recipe, Axios D.C.'s Anna Spiegel writes.

• Why it matters: No other cocktail embodies summer 2024 like a refreshing spritz mixed with a sense of excitement and dread.

If you're wondering why it's trending, CNN's Wolf Blitzer posted a photo sampling his namesake cocktail at El Presidente on Sunday almost exactly an hour before President Biden dropped out.

• Shortly after, Blitzer was on air sans spritzer.

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