The American people lacked any concrete policy positions from the presumptive, and then official, Democratic presidential candidate for seven weeks following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race.
Despite the absence of clarity on key issues, Vice President Kamala Harris quickly rose in the polls compared to Biden. Former President Donald Trump went from leading by 3% in national polls, including by at least 2% in every swing state, to trailing his Democratic opponent by over 1% in national polls, and at a slight disadvantage, or tied, in swing states.
The Trump campaign repeatedly attacked Harris for avoiding interviews with the media and for not having a policy tab on her website. That changed this week. Harris has still only sat down for one interview since her nomination; Trump, on the other hand, has appeared on multiple hours-long podcasts. But on Sunday, Harris’ campaign added a new “issues” section on her website with 19 policy goals.
Here’s how they compare to Trump’s 20 “core promises to make America great again” listed on his website.
Where does Harris stand on the issues?
Harris’ “A new way forward” attempts to build on the policies of the Biden administration while simultaneously reframing herself as someone ready to take a fresh approach to addressing the country’s biggest problems.
Harris’ issues page references bipartisan legislation signed into law under Biden, including the CHIPS and Science Act, a $280 billion industrial policy program to attract microchip manufacturing to the U.S.; the Inflation Reduction Act, an $800 billion package subsidizing clean energy projects; the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a $1.2 trillion investment in water, internet and transportation infrastructure; and the America Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion infusion of COVID-19 funding.
With a heavy focus on the economy, Harris’ online policy platform proposes a second administration characterized by big-government solutions.
If promoted to the Oval Office, Harris — who, if elected, could be working in divided government with a Republican Senate — says she would implement a plan to increase housing supply by cutting regulatory red tape, subsidizing first-time homebuyers and implementing rent controls. Harris also says she would place government restrictions on grocery “price gouging” and would implement price controls on medications.
In contrast to Trump’s policy agenda, Harris said she would protect abortion access, ban assault weapons, strengthen NATO and reform the Supreme Court.
Where does Trump stand on the issues?
The 45th president’s “Agenda 47″ is a list of familiar one-sentence phrases, in all caps, that have come to define Trump’s America First message, including an emphasis on aggressive immigration policy. The GOP nominee promises to “seal the border” and to conduct the “largest deportation program” in U.S. history.
Details for these and other, sometimes vague, claims are found in the national Republican Party’s 2024 platform, which was recently updated to mirror Trump’s campaign messaging. The platform says that Trump will finish a wall along the border, relocate thousands of military service members to “stop the invasion,” reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum processing and send migrants who are in the country illegally “back home.”
Trump’s campaign promises and the GOP’s platform lay out Republicans’ vision for a revived American economy based on bringing down inflation. Following his first-term playbook, Trump promises to encourage energy innovation, free up fossil fuel extraction, eliminate federal regulations, preserve his 2017 tax cuts and increase tariffs on foreign-made goods.
The 20 policy commitments make multiple mentions of measures to increase Americans’ sense of safety — including by deporting pro-Hamas protesters, defending local law enforcement and increasing penalties for “violent offenders.” It also hits on culture-war themes like prohibiting biological men from playing in women’s sports and defunding schools that teach “woke” ideologies like critical race theory.
Where do Harris and Trump agree?
Despite their stark differences — such as on elections, where Trump calls for same-day, paper-ballot, voter-ID elections; and Harris calls for early, mail-in ballot, nationally uniform elections — Trump and Harris share some planks in common.
Both candidates promise to preserve Social Security and Medicare in their current form. These two programs are the principal drivers of the country’s $2 trillion deficits and $35 trillion debt. Unless they change to reflect an older population or unless tax revenue increases dramatically, both programs will go bankrupt within a decade and will be forced to significantly reduce their payouts.
Harris says she will “strengthen” Social Security and Medicare by increasing taxes on “millionaires and billionaires.” Trump says he will “restore” the “long-term sustainability” of both programs by eliminating earmarks for pet projects and prohibiting immigrants from enrolling in government healthcare programs.
While Trump and Harris disagree on allowing Trump’s corporate tax cuts to expire, Harris vows to keep, or expand, Trump-era tax cuts for low income families with children. After weeks of Trump campaigning on eliminating taxes on tips, Harris also adopted this policy.
Harris is also trying to take a tougher stance on immigration. In addition to saying there should be an “earned pathway to citizenship,” Harris’ platform says she will “secure the border” by signing a bipartisan border bill that increases funding for Border Patrol agents and asylum processing. Trump urged lawmakers to reject the deal before it was released in February, saying its passage would have been a political victory for Biden on an important GOP issue in a contentious election year.
Harris and Trump will appear together for the first, and likely only, debate on Tuesday in Philadelphia.