adminA week after announcing her run for president, Kamala Harris has yet to tell voters how she will address the key issues facing the nation.
The vice president’s platform will likely be in the same vein as that of President Joe Biden, whom she has supported for the past four years.
But Harris is expected to put her own stamp and style on matters ranging from abortion to the economy to immigration. Also, she’ll have to walk a fine line of taking credit for the administration’s accomplishments while not being jointly blamed by voters for its shortcomings.
Her initial presidential campaign speeches offer some insights into her priorities, though she’s mainly voiced general talking points and not more nuanced plans. Like Biden, she intends to contrast her vision for America with that of former President Donald Trump.
“In this moment, I believe we face a choice between two different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, the other focused on the past,” she told members of the historically Black sorority Zeta Phi Beta at an event in Indianapolis on Wednesday. “And with your support, I am fighting for our nation’s future.”
That path forward focuses on lifting up working and middle-class Americans, enabling them to join unions, retire with dignity, live without the fear of gun violence and obtain affordable health care, she said. Harris has also touted the Biden administration’s efforts to lower drug costs, reduce child poverty, forgive student loan debt and remove medical debt from credit reports.
Here’s what we know about Harris’ views:
Harris took on the lead role of championing abortion rights for the administration after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022. This past January, she started a “reproductive freedoms tour” to multiple states, including a stop in Minnesota thought to be the first by a sitting US president or vice president at an abortion clinic.
On abortion access, Harris embraced more progressive policies than Biden in the 2020 campaign, as a candidate criticizing his previous support for the Hyde Amendment, a measure that blocks federal funds from being used for most abortions.
Policy experts suggested that although Harris’ current policies on abortion and reproductive rights may not differ significantly from Biden’s, as a result of her national tour and her own focus on maternal health, she may be a stronger messenger.
High prices are a top concern for many Americans who are struggling to afford the cost of living after a spell of steep inflation. Many voters give Biden poor marks for his handling of the economy, and Harris may also face their wrath.
In her early campaign speeches, Harris has echoed many of the same themes as Biden, saying she wants to give Americans more opportunities to get ahead. She’s particularly concerned about making care – health care, child care, elder care and family leave – more affordable and available.
A look at her 2020 campaign promises reveals a more progressive bent than Biden.
As a senator and 2020 presidential candidate, Harris proposed providing middle-class and working families with a refundable tax credit of up to $6,000 a year (per couple) to help keep up with living expenses. Titled the LIFT the Middle Class Act, or Livable Incomes for Families Today, the measure would have cost at the time an estimated $3 trillion over 10 years.
Unlike a typical tax credit, the bill would allow taxpayers to receive the benefit – up to $500 – on a monthly basis so families don’t have to turn to payday loans with very high interest rates.
As a presidential candidate, Harris also advocated for raising the corporate income tax rate to 35%, where it was before the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump and congressional Republicans pushed through Congress reduced the rate to 21%. That’s higher than the 28% Biden has proposed.
Affordable housing was also on Harris’ radar. As a senator, she introduced the Rent Relief Act, which would establish a refundable tax credit for renters who annually spend more than 30% of their gross income on rent and utilities. The amount of the credit would range from 25% to 100% of the excess rent, depending on the renter’s income.
Harris called housing a human right and said in a 2019 news release on the bill that every American deserves to have basic security and dignity in their own home.
Hefty student debt loads are also an area of interest to Harris. As vice president, she has promoted the Biden administration’s initiatives on student debt, which have so far forgiven more than $168 billion for nearly 4.8 million borrowers. In mid-July, Harris said in a post on X that “nearly 950,000 public servants have benefitted” from student debt forgiveness, compared with only 7,000 when Biden was inaugurated.
A potential Harris administration could keep that momentum going – though some of Biden’s efforts have gotten tangled up in litigation, such as a program aimed at cutting monthly student loan payments for roughly 3 million borrowers enrolled in a repayment plan the administration implemented last year.
Harris advocated for shifting the US to a government-backed health insurance system but stopped short of wanting to completely eliminate private insurance during her 2020 campaign. The measure called for transitioning to a Medicare-for-All-type system over 10 years but continuing to allow private insurance companies to offer Medicare plans.
The proposal would not have raised taxes on the middle class to pay for the coverage expansion. Instead, it would raise the needed funds by taxing Wall Street trades and transactions and changing the taxation of offshore corporate income.
When it comes to reducing drug costs, Harris previously proposed allowing the federal government to set “a fair price” for any drug sold at a cheaper price in any economically comparable country, including Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Japan or Australia. If manufacturers were found to be price gouging, the government could import their drugs from abroad or, in egregious cases, use its existing but never-used “march-in” authority to license a drug company’s patent to a rival that would produce the medication at a lower cost.
Harris has been a champion on climate and environmental justice for decades. As California’s attorney general, Harris sued big oil companies like BP and ConocoPhillips, and investigated Exxon Mobil for its role in climate change disinformation. While in the Senate, she sponsored the Green New Deal resolution. During her 2020 campaign, she supported a fracking ban but walked that back later when she became Biden’s running mate.
Biden has been the most pro-climate president in history, and climate advocates find Harris to be an exciting candidate in her own right. Democrats and climate activists are planning to campaign on the stark contrasts between Harris and Trump, who vowed to push America decisively back to fossil fuels, promising to unwind Biden’s climate and clean energy legacy and pull America out of its global climate commitments.
If elected, one of the biggest climate goals Harris would have to craft early in her administration is how much the US would reduce its climate pollution by 2035 – a requirement of the Paris climate agreement.
Biden tasked Harris with overseeing diplomatic efforts in Central America in March 2021. While Harris focused on long-term fixes, the Department of Homeland Security remained responsible for overseeing border security.
Harris has only occasionally talked about her efforts as the situation along the US-Mexico border became a political vulnerability for Biden. But she put her own stamp on the administration’s efforts, engaging the private sector.
Harris pulled together the Partnership for Central America, which has acted as a liaison between companies and the US government. Her team and the partnership are closely coordinating on initiatives that have led to job creation in the region. Harris has also engaged directly with foreign leaders in the region.
Experts credit Harris’ ability to secure private-sector investments as her most visible action in the region to date but have cautioned about the long-term durability of those investments.
The Israel-Hamas war is the most fraught foreign policy issue facing the country and has spurred a multitude of protests around the US since it began in October.
After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, Harris gave a forceful and notable speech about the situation in Gaza.
“We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent,” she said.
Harris echoed Biden’s repeated comments about the “ironclad support” and “unwavering commitment” to Israel. The country has a right to defend itself, she said, while noting, “how it does so, matters.”
However, the empathy she expressed regarding the Palestinian plight and suffering was far more forceful than what Biden has said on the matter in recent months. Harris mentioned twice the “serious concern” she expressed to Netanyahu about the civilian deaths in Gaza, the humanitarian situation and destruction she called “catastrophic” and “devastating.”
She went on to describe “the images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.”
Harris emphasized the need to get the Israeli hostages back from Hamas captivity, naming the eight Israeli-American hostages – three of whom have been killed.
But when describing the ceasefire deal in the works, she didn’t highlight the hostage for prisoner exchange or aid to be let into Gaza. Instead, she singled out the fact that the deal stipulates the withdrawal by the Israeli military from populated areas in the first phase before withdrawing “entirely” from Gaza before “a permanent end to the hostilities.”
Harris didn’t preside over Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday, instead choosing to stick with a prescheduled trip to a sorority event in Indiana.
Harris is committed to supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, having met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at least six times and announcing last month $1.5 billion for energy assistance, humanitarian needs and other aid for the war-torn country.
At the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, Harris said: “I will make clear President Joe Biden and I stand with Ukraine. In partnership with supportive, bipartisan majorities in both houses of the United States Congress, we will work to secure critical weapons and resources that Ukraine so badly needs. And let me be clear: The failure to do so would be a gift to Vladimir Putin.”
“More broadly, NATO is central to our approach to global security. For President Biden and me, our sacred commitment to NATO remains ironclad. And I do believe, as I have said before, NATO is the greatest military alliance the world has ever known,” she said.
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