WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is using a New Hampshire campaign stop on Wednesday to propose an expansion of tax incentives for small businesses — presenting a pro-entrepreneur plan that may soften her previous calls for wealthy Americans and large corporations to pay higher taxes.

She wants to expand from $5,000 to $50,000 tax incentives for small business startup expenses, with the goal of eventually spurring 25 million new small business applications over four years. Harris is making the announcement while visiting the Portsmouth area, across the Piscataqua River from Maine.

New Hampshire has been reliably blue in recent presidential elections, but the trip could also have some benefit across state lines since Maine splits its electoral votes, allowing candidates to win some without carrying the full state. Still, it marks a rare deviation from Harris spending most of her time visiting a tight group of Midwest and Sun Belt battlegrounds likely to decide November’s election.

Since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Harris, the vice president has focused on the “ blue wall ” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that have been the centerpiece of successful Democratic campaigns.

She’s also frequently visited Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, all of which Biden narrowly won in 2020, and North Carolina, which she’s still hoping to flip from Republican former President Donald Trump.

Wednesday’s stop comes after Harris marked Labor Day with Monday rallies in Detroit and Pittsburgh and before she heads back to Pittsburgh on Friday — marking her 10th visit to Pennsylvania in 2024. By contrast, Wednesday is her first visit to New Hampshire in years.

Trump has called for lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% — a break with Biden who in his budget proposal in March suggested setting the corporate tax rate at 28%. Harris has released relatively few major policy proposals in the roughly six weeks since taking over the top of the Democratic ticket, but has not suggested she’s planning to deviate greatly from his administration on tax policy.

The small business plan Harris is presenting Wednesday has lots of facets that many in the business community would like. But that contrasts another proposal Harris unveiled last month, where she promised to help fight inflation by working to combat “price gouging” from food producers that she suggests have driven grocery store prices up unnecessarily.

Harris has built her campaign around calls to grow and strengthen the nation’s middle class — and suggested that rich Americans and large corporations should “pay their fair share” in higher taxes.

Biden, who similarly built his campaign around promoting the middle class, won New Hampshire by 7 percentage points in 2020, but Trump came much closer to winning it against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Still, the Harris campaign notes that it has 17 field offices operating in coordination with the state Democratic party across New Hampshire, compared to one for Trump’s campaign.

Some of the state’s Democrats were angry that Biden directed the Democratic National Committee to make South Carolina the first state to vote in the party’s presidential primary this year — displacing Iowa’s caucus and a first-in-the-nation primary New Hampshire held for more than a century.

Despite that, New Hampshire pressed ahead with an unsanctioned primary. Though Biden didn’t campaign in it, or appear on the ballot, he still easily won via a write-in drive.

Trump is nonetheless hoping to use what happened to his advantage, posting on his social media account that Harris “sees there are problems for her campaign in New Hampshire because of the fact that they disrespected it in their primary and never showed up.”

“Additionally, the cost of living in New Hampshire is through the roof, their energy bills are some of highest in the country, and their housing market is the most unaffordable in history,” the former president wrote. “I protected New Hampshire’s First-In-The-Nation Primary and ALWAYS will.”

PORTSMOUTH — Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to speak to supporters at Throwback Brewery in North Hampton Wednesday, a campaign official confirmed, bringing her 2024 presidential campaign to New Hampshire for the first time.

The campaign official said the time of the event was not yet being made public. The event is ticketed and at capacity.

Harris is expected to propose a tax break intended to help entrepreneurs offset the costs of starting a small business. She also plans to outline how she intends to pay for the proposal.

Harris is coming to New Hampshire after a Labor Day weekend campaign blitz visiting toss-up states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. 

It is her first visit to the Granite State since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, as well as her first since April 2021, when she came to promote bipartisan jobs and infrastructure legislation. Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, visited the state on July 31 to take part in a rally promoting reproductive freedom.

Harris last visited the Seacoast in February 2019, drawing an overflow crowd to Portsmouth’s South Church as a candidate in the New Hampshire presidential primary. That year, her early popularity faded and she dropped out of the contest in December.

Now, she returns as the favorite to win the state, leading former president Donald Trump by seven points in the two latest New Hampshire polls. The state’s four electoral college votes could be important in what is expected to be a tight election in November.

More: Harris to propose $50K tax break for small business in economic plan

Trump weighs in ahead of Harris visit to NH

Trump responded to Harris’ planned visit to the state on Truth Social, posting Harris “sees there are problems for her campaign in New Hampshire because of the fact that they disrespected it in their primary and never showed up.” Neither Harris nor Biden visited the state prior to the January presidential primary due to a dispute between New Hampshire and the Democratic National Committee regarding the state’s place in the presidential primary calendar.

“I protected New Hampshire’s First-In-The-Nation Primary and ALWAYS will!” Trump stated.

Trump last visited the state in January before the presidential primary. However, the Boston Globe reported this week Trump’s campaign is shifting its attention elsewhere because it no longer views New Hampshire as a battleground state.

A mistrial was declared Tuesday in the first criminal trial linked to New Hampshire’s sprawling child abuse scandal after a jury deadlocked in the case of a former youth detention facility staffer charged with raping a teenage girl.

Victor Malavet, 62, was one of nine men charged in the 5-year-old investigation into abuse allegations at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, though unlike the others, he worked at a separate state-run facility in Concord.

After a four-day trial and roughly 11 hours of deliberations over three days, jurors said they were deadlocked on the 12 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, and the judge declared a mistrial.

Malavet was accused of assaulting a resident of the youth detention services unit, where children were held awaiting court disposition of their cases.

Natasha Maunsell, who was 15 and 16 when she was held at the facility in 2001 and 2002, testified that Malavet frequently arranged to be alone with her in a candy storage room, the laundry room and other locations and repeatedly raped her.

Malavet’s attorneys argued that Maunsell made up the allegations to get money from a lawsuit.

Malavet did not testify, and his attorneys called no witnesses in his defense. But jurors heard him deny the allegations Thursday during the testimony of a state police officer who had been authorized to secretly record her interview with him in April 2021.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they’ve been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Maunsell has done. She is among more than 1,100 former residents of youth facilities who are suing the state over abuse allegations abuse spanning six decades.