(NewsNation) — Vice President Kamala Harris has shaken the 2024 election, putting pressure on her Republican opponent since she entered the race in July.
Since replacing President Joe Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket, Harris has quickly gained momentum, posing a threat to the healthy lead former President Donald Trump held over Biden, both nationally and in swing states.
Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, who himself has since extinguished any Democratic doubts during his performance at the Democratic National Convention (DNC).
Ohio Sen. JD Vance‘s nomination as Trump’s vice president pits him against Walz.
Ahead of the 2024 election, NewsNation is committed to covering the issues that matter most to voters so they can make the most informed choices possible at the polls. Here is how the leading candidates’ policies compare on key voter issues. You can also read specific policy breakdowns for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
- Abortion
- Border crisis
- Climate change
- Crime
- Fentanyl crisis and opioid epidemic
- Inflation
- Israel-Palestine conflict
- Policing and gun safety
- Project 2025
- Social Security
- War in Ukraine
Abortion
Trump
- During the September debate, Trump falsely said Democrats support abortions in the third trimester and after birth. No state in the country allows termination after birth.
- He refused to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban. When asked directly if he would veto a ban, Trump indicated Congress wouldn’t need to pass one.
- The former president wouldn’t initially say during a town hall whether he supports a federal abortion ban.
- He called the overturning of the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade “a great victory” during a CNN town hall.
- In April 2024, he said on his social media platform Truth Social that it’d be best if states handled abortion the way their constituents want, adding he’s in favor of exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
- Also said on Truth Social that he “strongly” supports fertility treatments and that he “has never and will never” advocate for restricting birth control and other contraceptives.
Harris
- Harris said women do not want abortion bans, speaking about women who are miscarrying and denied care because doctors are afraid to go to jail and young teens who are incest victims being forced to give birth.
- She committed to signing a bill to protect the right to abortion across the U.S.
- Harris is aligned with Biden in her view on abortion and said “everything is at stake” regarding women’s reproductive rights.
- The vice president is in favor of ensuring all American women have access to legal abortions.
- “Every person of whatever gender should understand that, if such a fundamental freedom such as the right to make decisions about your own body can be taken, be aware of what other freedoms may be at stake,” Harris said in a joint MSNBC interview with Hadley Duvall, an abortion rights advocate from Kentucky who was raped by her stepfather as a child.
- Harris falsely wrote on X that Trump would ban abortion nationwide. She then added: “President Joe Biden and I will do everything in our power to stop him and restore women’s reproductive freedom.”
- Harris also visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota in March, describing the banning or heavy restriction of abortions as “immoral.”
- “How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need,” Harris said at the time. “We have to be a nation that trusts women.”
Border crisis
Trump
- Trump and his allies have falsely accused Haitian immigrants in the small Ohio town of Springfield of abducting and eating pets. There’s no evidence that the community is doing that, officials told The Associated Press.
- The former president would launch the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, paid for with redirected military funds, Reuters reported.
- He would restore his 2019 “Remain in Mexico” program, which required asylum-seekers at the U.S. border to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed.
- Trump said he would end what he called “catch and release” and instead detain all migrants who are caught entering the United States without authorization or violating other immigration laws.
- He’d also deputize the U.S. National Guard and local law enforcement to help with rapid deportations, according to Reuters.
- The former president said he would enact travel bans denying entry to people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and “anywhere else that threatens our security.”
- Block communists, Marxists and socialists from entering the U.S. and send deportation officers to “pro-Hamas” protests.
- End “birthright” citizenship for children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents.
- End Biden’s immigration parole program and roll back Temporary Protected Status designations.
- Try again to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, commonly referred to as DACA.
- While he was president, about 450 miles of barriers were built along the Southwest border, according to the Associated Press.
Harris
- Among Republicans, Harris has the ironic moniker of “border czar,” owing to her work wherein she oversaw diplomacy with Mexico and the Northern Triangle as a means of addressing “root causes” of migration.
- Biden gave her the responsibility of manning everything immigration along the southern border in 2021, with her role, according to the White House at the time, to stem the arrival of “irregular migrants.”
- Republicans heavily criticized the Biden-Harris approach to the border, a hot-button issue this election cycle.
- Under the Biden-Harris administration, migrants crossing into the US from Mexico hit record highs at the end of 2023.
- Close to 250,000 crossed during December 2023, surpassing the previous high of 224,000 encounters in May of 2022, also under the Biden-Harris watch.
- Harris announced in March that $5.2 billion in pledges from private companies had been made to prop up Central American communities to deter illegal entry to the U.S. under her guidance.
- “The problems, of course, did not occur overnight, and the solutions will not be achieved overnight,” Harris said of the border at the time.
Climate change
Trump
- During the September debate, Trump falsely claimed that under Harris there would “be no fossil fuels” and the country would “go back to windmills.” At one point, Trump called himself a “fan” of solar but then criticized solar farms that take up large plots of land.
- Claimed he will end the “Green New Deal atrocities” on his first day if reelected. The measure was never signed into law.
- Said he would free up stores of liquid gold for energy development.
- Vowed to speed up approval of natural gas pipelines into the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York.
- Exit the Paris Climate Agreement again. Trump previously pulled the U.S. from the agreement, but Biden rejoined upon taking office.
- Said he would fight litigation from environmentalists.
Harris
- During the September debate, Harris also called for investment in “diverse” sources of energy, “So we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”
- Harris has backed the Biden administration’s climate initiatives, including legislation providing billions in tax credits for renewable energy and electric vehicles, the New York Times reported.
- “The clock is not just ticking, it is banging,” she said last year, referencing climate change-driven disasters. She noted the administration made “the largest climate investment in America’s history.”
- During her 2020 presidential bid, Harris emphasized environmental justice, addressing climate change’s effects on poor and minority communities. She’s continued this focus as vice president.
- In 2019, as a senator, Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., proposed legislation to evaluate environmental rules’ impact on low-income communities. It would have created an Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability and climate justice advisers in federal agencies. Harris introduced a broader version in 2020. Neither bill passed, The New York Times reported.
Crime
Trump
- Said he would move homeless encampments out of cities.
- Vowed to give police more authority, deploy the military to fight the nation’s drug problem and impose the death penalty for convicted drug dealers.
- Promised to deliver record funding to hire and retrain police officers, strengthen qualified immunity and increase penalties for assaults on law enforcement.
- Said he would send federal prosecutors and the National Guard into high-crime communities, according to his campaign website.
- As president, Trump granted pardons to 73 people and commuted the sentences of an additional 70. That includes former staff members and advisers such as Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Stephen K. Bannon and George Papadopoulos.
Harris
- Harris, in April, hosted reality television star Kim Kardashian at the White House to discuss criminal justice reform after the Biden administration granted clemency to people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.
- The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country. About 1 in 5 of those 1.9 million people are behind bars for a drug-related offense. Black and Latino people are disproportionately incarcerated, and drug law reform has the broadest support among young voters. Black, Latino and young voters tend to favor Democrats.
- “Everybody makes mistakes, and for some, that might rise to the level of being a crime,” Harris said at the White House. “But is it not the sign of a civil society that we allow people a way to earn their way back and give them the support and the resources they need to do that?”
- Harris’ record as California attorney general, however, drew the ire of many progressives during her 2020 bid for the presidency.
- During her seven years as a district attorney and then six as attorney general, she defended the cash bail system in a pair of federal court cases, shifting course only weeks before she entered the Senate.
- As a presidential candidate in 2020, she pledged a wholesale overhaul of the country’s criminal justice system, arguing for marijuana legalization, bail reform and a moratorium on the death penalty.
Fentanyl crisis and opioid epidemic
Trump
- Said he would “impose a total naval embargo on cartels.”
- Vowed to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
- Promised to order the Department of Defense to “inflict maximum damage” on cartel leadership and operations.
- Said he would seek death penalty eligibility for cartel members and traffickers.
- Said he would permanently designate fentanyl as a federally controlled substance.
- Promised to threaten China with “a steep price” unless it works to end the export of fentanyl’s chemical precursors.
- Vowed to create partnerships to encourage companies to provide job opportunities and skills training to people recovering from addiction.
- Said he would expand federal support for faith-based counseling, treatment and recovery programs.
- Promised family leave to care for relatives trying to overcome addiction.
Harris
- In May 2024, the Biden-Harris administration announced the approval of over $1.5 billion in state or tribal opioid response funding to address the overdose crisis.
- Harris gathered state attorneys general from across the country at the White House in July 2023 to discuss fentanyl and illicit drugs in America.
- “We each recognize and have joined together today because we are facing a public health crisis, and it also, therefore, is an issue that must have a response that addresses the underlying public health concerns that are both about addiction and treatment,” Harris said.
- Harris wants to increase access to and the affordability of naloxone, which reverses overdoses, with the vice president calling it “the difference between life or death.”
Inflation and economy
Trump
- Promised “lower taxes, bigger paychecks, and more jobs for American workers” by enacting universal baseline tariffs that “reward domestic production” and tax foreign companies.
- Said he would lower interest rates.
- Claimed to have achieved the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years — 3.5% with 6.4 million added jobs before the pandemic.
- During his presidency, federal debt held by the public rose from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion, influenced by Trump’s tax cuts, particularly his slashes to the corporate tax rate, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck project.
- Trump is proposing tax cuts for big businesses and the wealthy to spur investment.
- He said his tax cuts would garner 3% growth, a milestone he did not reach in his first term.
- Trump has proposed broad tariffs to encourage domestic manufacturing.
- He has proposed no taxes on tips or Social Security income.
Harris
- Shortly after taking office as vice president for Biden, the administration signed the American Rescue Plan, a $2 trillion stimulus package that delivered checks to Americans, boosted unemployment insurance benefits and expanded the child tax credit.
- Inflation peaked at a four-decade high of 9% in summer 2022 but has since receded to around 3.5%.
- Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, which invested in clean energy that the White House estimates created 117,000 jobs and will reduce Americans’ energy costs by as much as 9% by 2030.
- Harris has said inflation was a high priority for the administration. “The President and our administration’s probably highest priority is bringing down the price of gas and cost of living,” Harris said.
- During her time as a senator, Harris tried to get a bill passed where tax credits up to $6,000 would be available for middle- and low-income households.
- Harris has also been a strong proponent of forgiving student debt, spearheading the Biden administration’s move to abolish debt for several hundred thousand students at Corinthian Colleges.
- In 2017, she co-sponsored Bernie Sanders’ proposal for free college for middle-class students at four-year public schools and all who attended two-year institutions.
- Harris wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and big businesses to fund investments in housing and tax credits for parents.
- She has proposed more financial assistance for first-time homebuyers and expanded tax credits for parents.
- She also wants to cut taxes for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
- Harris wants to remove taxes on tips.
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Israel-Palestine conflict
Trump
- Said Israel should “finish the problem” in Gaza, but warned that Israel is losing the public relations battle
- Was critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack
- Told Time Magazine in April that Netanyahu “rightfully has been criticized for what took place”
- Trump has said Israel should “finish the problem” in Gaza, though he has warned that the Israelis are losing the public relations battle.
- Trump has been critical of Netanyahu in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack
- Told Time Magazine in April that the prime minister “rightfully has been criticized for what took place”
- Said during an October Fox News interview, “We need to protect Israel, there is no choice”
- Told Israel’s intelligence agencies to “step up their game”
Harris
- When asked how to handle the war in the Middle East, Harris said that Israel has a right to defend itself, citing the Oct. 7 attacks, while also saying that too many Palestinian civilians have been killed during fighting in Gaza.
- She said the war must end, there must be a cease-fire deal, and the hostages must be released by Hamas.
- Harris called for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza in March, describing the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe,” the New York Times reported.
- She said Hamas’ threat to Israel “must be eliminated” but added that “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
- She opposed an Israeli invasion of Rafah, southern Gaza, where over a million people had fled. “I have studied the maps. There’s nowhere for those folks to go,” she said, noting about 1.5 million people were there after being told to go.
- Harris has repeatedly expressed support for a two-state solution.
Policing and gun safety
Trump
- During his first presidential campaign, Trump positioned himself as a defender of the Second Amendment.
- A Trump-era ban on bump stocks was overturned by the Supreme Court in June 2024, which said the Trump administration overstepped when it banned the rapid-fire gun attachments.
- After the May 24, 2022, Uvalde, Texas, shooting at Robb Elementary School, Trump called for “drastically” changing the nation’s approach to mental health and “a top-to-bottom security overhaul. at schools across this country” but dismissed calls for further firearm restrictions, AP reported.
- Trump vowed at an event sponsored by the National Rifle Association (NRA) in February to undo Biden-era gun restrictions if reelected.
Harris
- Harris said during the September debate that she’s a gun owner
- She has called for implementing universal background checks and expanding red flag laws to take away guns from people who are deemed dangerous or unstable.
- She also wants to ban so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
- Harris took a tough stand on policing in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police. She co-sponsored legislation in the Senate that would’ve banned police from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, set a national use-of-force standard and created a national police misconduct registry, among other things. It would have also reformed the qualified immunity system that shields officers from liability.
- The list in the legislation included practices Harris did not vocally fight to reform while leading California’s Department of Justice. And while she now wants independent investigations of police shootings, she didn’t support a 2015 California bill that would have required her office to take on such cases.
- In June, as vice president, Harris said that more needed to be done at the federal level to prevent gun violence during a campaign stop in Maryland.
- Harris, after high-profile shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, called for a ban on assault-style weapons.
Project 2025
Trump
- At the September debate, Trump pushed back claims he’s tied to plan, saying, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely.”
- Trump has previously disavowed the controversial project, posting on his social media site that he has “no idea” who is behind Project 2025 and knows “nothing” about it, but dozens of people who worked closely with him and helped shape his administration are involved in the plan.
- “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” he wrote. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
- Trump’s campaign has previously said he sets his own priorities and that outside groups don’t speak for him.
- However, Trump’s running mate, Vance, appears to have close ties with the people who had a hand in writing the conservative policy playbook.
Harris
- One of Harris’ main points of attack on the Republican ticket is Project 2025, which she warns will go into effect should Trump get reelected. Harris has seized on the plan, linking it directly to Trump.
- At the September debate, Harris alleged Trump would sign a national abortion ban, referencing Project 2025. She said Americans believe the government should not control the freedom to make decisions about their body.
- Harris has pushed back against Trump’s denials, saying he will implement the conservative plan “hatched by people who used to work for Donald Trump that focuses on the first 180 days” on her campaign website.
- Harris has spoken about Project 2025 numerous times both while campaigning for Biden and after she became the Democratic nominee for president.
- Her campaign website has a page dedicated to Project 2025 calling it “Trump’s plan to take your power, your control and your money.” “Donald Trump’s plans for a full government takeover have been exposed,” it reads, adding “his Project 2025 agenda would strip away our freedoms.”
- At a campaign rally in Wisconsin, Harris said Project 2025 was a “plan to weaken the middle class.”
- Harris’ running mate, Walz, also has spoken out against the conservative guidebook. “Don’t believe him when he’s playing dumb about this Project 2025,” Walz said at a Glendale, Arizona, rally. “He knows exactly what it will do. They are not playing. They wrote their plan out.”
- Harris has presented a diametrically opposite position on the issues Project 2025 aims to restructure.
Social Security
Trump
- Told Republicans in Congress not to cut “a single penny” from Medicare or Social Security.
- Later made comments suggesting he was open to cuts to Medicare and Social Security; his team walked these back and claimed the remarks were taken out of context.
- Encouraged Republicans to focus their funding cuts on areas of “waste, fraud and abuse” in addition to programs dealing with foreign aid, immigration, climate change and LGBTQ rights, Reuters reported.
- Said in a campaign statement he would reduce the cost of prescription drugs and health insurance premiums.
Harris
- When she was a U.S. senator for California, she supported the Social Security Expansion Act, which is now championed by leaders including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., CNBC reported.
- As vice president, in Biden’s 2024 budget proposal, the administration called for “protecting and strengthening” Social Security but offered few specifics on reforms to the program, CNBC reported.
- During the 2020 campaign, the administration proposed raising taxes on those making more than $400,000 to shore up Social Security but largely dropped the idea after taking office, Politico reported.
- The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare has endorsed Democrats’ Social Security plans, which call for applying additional taxes on wealthy individuals with incomes over $400,000, CNBC reported.
War in Ukraine
Trump
- Spoke heatedly at September’s debate about wanting Russia’s war in Ukraine to be over — but twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted U.S. ally Ukraine to win.
- Falsely claimed that the war had killed “millions” since Russia invaded Ukraine 2 1/2 years ago, while the United Nations says 11,700 civilian deaths have been verified.
- Called for a cease-fire in an official campaign statement.
- Said he could “solve the conflict in a single day.”
- Trump: “Every day this proxy battle in Ukraine continues, we risk global war.”
- More generally suggests overhauling the State Department, the “defense bureaucracy” and intelligence services to fire who he called members of a “deep state.”
Harris
- Harris praised American and NATO support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion so far — and called for it to continue.
- Harris announced that the U.S. would donate over $1.5 billion to Ukraine, with funds coming from the State Department and USAID.
- The financial assistance will aid infrastructure, security, energy and refugee assistance.
- Harris has been in lockstep with Biden about helping Ukraine amid its war with Russia.
- During the June summit regarding peace in Ukraine, Harris spoke about the American commitment to the Eastern European nation.
NewsNation partner The Hill contributed to this report.