Vice President Kamala Harris is using excessive on a wave of favorable polls and energetic rallies within the days main as much as the Democratic Nationwide Conference. However good vibes apart, the place does the Democratic presidential candidate stand on key points?
Though she has but to launch a full platform, her expertise as a California senator and prosecutor, her 2020 presidential marketing campaign and her tenure within the White Home as vice chairman trace at the place Ms. Harris will stand on quite a lot of insurance policies.
A few of her stances have modified over time, and a few say she has struggled to outline herself.
To higher perceive her coverage agenda now, BBC Information reviewed Ms. Harris’s current speeches and public statements as a 2024 candidate, her document as vice chairman, and her time as a 2020 presidential candidate, California senator, and prosecutor official.
Ms Harris’s marketing campaign informed the BBC that the candidate’s current statements finest mirrored her intentions as president.
“Vice President Harris will construct on the Biden-Harris administration’s historic agenda that defeated main… pharmaceutical corporations, created almost 16 million jobs, and enacted the primary bipartisan gun security laws in three a long time.
Listed below are Ms. Harris’ positions on 10 key points.
economic system
As a senator, Ms. Harris championed a spread of progressive insurance policies, together with paid household go away, inexpensive housing and free tuition for low- and moderate-income households.
As vice chairman, she has been Mr. Biden’s associate in passing main financial laws, also known as “Bidenomics,” together with main investments in infrastructure and inexperienced vitality.
However as inflation and excessive rates of interest proceed to weigh on Individuals’ wallets, polls present the economic system stays the highest concern for a lot of voters.
on Friday, Ms Harris unveils her economic planThey embody mortgage help for first-time homebuyers, tax credit for brand new mother and father and a ban on worth gouging in grocery shops to assist management inflation.
Like her opponent, former US President Trump, she additionally spoke out towards the tax proposal.
“As president, I’ll deal with creating alternative for the center class and selling their financial safety, stability and dignity. Collectively we are going to construct what I name a possibility economic system,” she stated Friday.
migrant
Ms. Harris’s stance on border points has modified from when she first ran for workplace. In 2020, whereas working for the Democratic presidential nomination, she held pretty progressive positions, corresponding to pledging to shut immigration detention facilities.
In 2021, Biden requested Ms. Harris to supervise diplomatic efforts to deal with immigration on the U.S. southern border.
She isn’t a “border czar” as many Republicans describe her, however is working with Central American international locations to search out the “root causes” of why folks there are fleeing to the US.
As a part of that effort, she introduced in 2023 that she had helped elevate about $3 billion, principally from non-public corporations, to put money into communities throughout the area, hoping to supply alternatives that may make immigrating to the US much less engaging.
Earlier this 12 months, she helped go a tricky bipartisan border safety deal that included a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} for border wall building.
But Trump helped kill the dealaccusing Biden’s border insurance policies of inflicting “dying, destruction and chaos in each American neighborhood.”
Her marketing campaign stated she would proceed to work on “bipartisan options to strengthen border safety” if elected president.
abortion
Ms. Harris has lengthy supported a girl’s proper to have an abortion.
She performed a key function within the Biden marketing campaign’s efforts to make abortion rights a centerpiece of the 2024 election, and she or he has lengthy been an advocate for laws that may assure reproductive rights nationwide.
This place has not modified.
“When Congress passes a regulation that restores reproductive freedom, as President of the US, I’ll signal it into regulation,” she stated at a 2024 marketing campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia.
She was the primary vice chairman to go to an abortion clinic and toured the nation after the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 to speak about America’s rising abortion bans – typically taking the difficulty personally Query freedom.
Highly effective reproductive rights advocacy teams like Emily’s Record and Reproductive Freedom for All have formally endorsed Ms. Harris since she started her marketing campaign for president.
NATO and Ukraine help
Whereas a lot of her early profession was centered in California, Ms. Harris has turn into extra concerned on the worldwide stage since heading to Washington as a senator in 2017.
As a senator, she visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Israel.
As Vice President, she met with 150 world leaders and visited 21 international locations.
She attended the Munich Safety Convention final 12 months and spoke in help of NATO, denounced isolationism and vowed to help Ukraine “so long as wanted.” She additionally represented the US at Ukraine’s “peace convention” in Switzerland in June, the place she reiterated U.S. help for Kyiv.
Inside 48 hours of her candidacy being made public, 350 main U.S. overseas coverage and nationwide safety specialists, most of them Democrats, issued a letter endorsing her as “probably the most certified individual to steer the US on worldwide affairs.” ”.
Israel-Gaza Warfare
Ms. Harris has lengthy advocated for a two-state answer.
As vice chairman, she was extra prepared than Biden to criticize Israel within the Israel-Gaza conflict.
She was one of many first members of the federal government to name for an “instant ceasefire”, expressing concern in regards to the “humanitarian disaster for the Palestinians” and blaming Israel for an finish to the battle.
She held what she referred to as “candid and constructive” talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Washington in July.
Because the Democratic candidate, she stated she informed Netanyahu that she was “gravely involved” in regards to the casualties in Gaza and that the best way Israel defended itself was necessary.
“It is time to finish this conflict,” she stated after face-to-face talks on the White Home.
Nevertheless, she doesn’t help an arms embargo on Israel, as some on the American left have referred to as for.
Her nationwide safety adviser, Phil Gordon, stated on
tax
In 2017, Ms. Harris supported quite a lot of progressive tax plans throughout her time as a senator, co-sponsoring a invoice with Bernie Sanders to increase Social Safety for seniors by elevating funding tax charges.
As a 2019 presidential candidate, she supported elevating the company tax charge from 21% to 35%.
That is extra radical than President Biden’s proposal to extend the ratio to twenty-eight%, which she additionally helps.
A marketing campaign official informed the BBC that the vice chairman will proceed to help President Biden’s proposal to not elevate taxes on low- and middle-income Individuals incomes lower than $400,000 (£310,000).
well being care
As California’s lawyer normal, Ms. Harris and her workplace steadily used antitrust legal guidelines to forestall insurance coverage corporations, hospitals and drug corporations from elevating prices for purchasers.
When she grew to become a U.S. senator after which a 2020 presidential candidate, she held extra progressive views than Biden, supporting growth of Medicare and publicly funded well being care applications.
Her marketing campaign informed the BBC that as president she wouldn’t push for a single-payer system.
Throughout her tenure as vice chairman, the White Home lowered prescription drug prices, capped insulin costs at $35, allowed Medicare to barter drug costs and restricted out-of-pocket prices for Medicare drug protection.
crime
Ms. Harris started her authorized profession prosecuting youngster abusers and intercourse traffickers and was later elected as San Francisco District Lawyer and later California Lawyer Normal.
Her workplace has improved conviction charges, particularly for violent offenders, though that historical past has drawn criticism from the progressive left, who typically consult with her as a “cop.”
In the meantime, the precise accuses her of being tender on crime, regardless of her contradictory document. As a prosecutor, she refused to hunt the dying penalty for police killers, however as California’s lawyer normal, she fought for the state’s proper to proceed utilizing the dying penalty.
Ms. Harris additionally drew on her expertise as a prosecutor to distinction her opponent, who was convicted on 34 counts of a hush-money scheme to illegally affect the 2016 election.
“Kamala Harris is a practical prosecutor who efficiently takes on predators, fraudsters and con males like Donald Trump,” stated her marketing campaign spokesman James Singer.
local weather
Ms Harris has lengthy advocated powerful legal guidelines to guard the setting.
As a prosecutor, Ms. Harris defended California’s local weather legal guidelines and sued oil corporations for environmental injury. She additionally referred to as for local weather change insurance policies by a “Inexperienced New Deal” through the 2020 presidential marketing campaign, a few of which have already yielded outcomes beneath the present administration.
In the course of the 2019 CNN presidential debate, she stated “There is no such thing as a doubt that I’m in favor of banning fracking,” however she has modified her stance since coming into the 2024 presidential race.
As vice chairman, she helped go the Inflation Discount Act, which has injected a whole lot of billions of {dollars} into renewable vitality and electrical automobile tax credit score and rebate applications.
Final 12 months, she famous in a speech that this was the “largest local weather funding in our nation’s historical past” and burdened the necessity to shield towards excessive climate.
gun legal guidelines
Ms. Harris has supported gun security laws all through her political profession, and she or he efficiently defended California’s gun legal guidelines once they confronted authorized challenges because the state’s lawyer normal.
As vice chairman, she oversaw the White Home Workplace of Gun Violence Prevention and earlier this 12 months introduced the creation of a useful resource middle to help enforcement of pink flag legal guidelines aimed toward stopping gun possession by those that may hurt themselves and others.
She additionally inspired states to reap the benefits of the $750 million in federal funding offered by the Biden-Harris administration for disaster intervention applications.