Where Kamala Harris stands on 10 key issues, from immigration to guns
- Published
Vice-President Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's nominee for president relatively late in the 2024 contest - having replaced Joe Biden - and she then selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
She released a detailed policy guide, external in early September offering voters a sense of what a Harris-Walz administration might look like.
This focuses on her economic and foreign policy agenda, and highlights her most urgent priority to tackle the cost of living.
Here are her key policy pledges.
Economy
As vice-president, Ms Harris worked with President Biden to pass major economic legislation - regularly labelled "Bidenomics" - which included major investments in infrastructure and green energy.
Growth and jobs creation have been strong but inflation and high interest rates continue to hit American wallets.
In her convention acceptance speech, the vice-president promised mortgage assistance for first-time homebuyers, a tax credit for parents of newborns and bans on price gouging at the grocery store to help target inflation.
She added that her plans would create "an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed".
In her first interview as the Democratic nominee with CNN, Ms Harris said that one of her highest priorities was "to support and strengthen the middle class", a theme she has repeated on the campaign trail.
Taxes
In 2017, while a senator, Ms Harris supported a number of progressive tax programmes. She co-sponsored a bill with former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to expand social security for the elderly by increasing the tax rate on investments.
As a presidential candidate in 2019, she supported a corporate tax rate of 35%, up from 21%.
This was more aggressive than President Biden's proposal, which she also backed, to increase the rate to 28%.
During her acceptance speech after being confirmed as the Democratic candidate, she said she would "pass a middle class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans".
This refers to the restoration of the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit would give families with newborn children a $6,000 (£4,630) tax cut.
A campaign official also told the BBC that the vice-president would continue to back President Biden's proposal to not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 (£310,000).
Abortion
Ms Harris has long supported abortion rights.
She was the first vice-president to visit an abortion clinic, and toured the country after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 to address state abortion bans - often framing the issue as a matter of personal freedom.
She has made abortion central to her campaign, and continues to advocate for legislation that would safeguard reproductive rights nationwide.
“When Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law,” she said at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia.
She has reiterated that commitment several times, including during the ABC News debate with Donald Trump.
Immigration
Ms Harris's position on the border has become more moderate over time.
On the campaign trail, she has reiterated her continued support for the cross-party border security bill that would have included hundreds of millions of dollars for border wall construction.
It was torpedoed by congressional Republicans in February 2024 at Trump's urging.
It would have fast-tracked decisions on asylum cases, limited humanitarian parole, and expanded the authority to deport migrants.
The vice-president says she would revive the bill and sign it into law.
She has also said there "should be consequences" for people who cross the US border unlawfully, though she previously supported a more lenient approach.
As vice-president, she was tasked with tackling the root causes of the record numbers of Central American migrants crossing the southern border. Those numbers spiked during the Biden administration, but have declined in recent months.
She helped raise $3bn - largely from private companies - to fund regional investments designed to encourage residents to remain in their home countries.
Nato and Ukraine aid
Ms Harris's early career focused largely on domestic issues and those affecting the state of California, but she has become more involved in foreign policy since being elected to the US Senate.
As vice-president, she has met 150 world leaders and visited 21 countries.
She attended the Munich Security Conference in February 2024, where she spoke in support of western security alliance Nato and denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Ms Harris has vowed to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, and represented the US at Kyiv's “peace conference” in Switzerland in June 2024.
In her speech at the Democratic convention, she said she warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about Russian aggression five days before the invasion, and had "helped mobilise a global response" after the war began.
The vice-president has also pledged, if elected, to reject isolationism and ensure that "America - not China - wins the competition for the 21st Century".
Israel-Gaza War
Ms Harris has been a long-time advocate for a two-state solution in the region, and has called for an end to the war in Gaza.
In her convention acceptance speech, she pledged as president to ensure "that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination".
As vice-president, she was one of the first people in the Biden administration to call for an "immediate ceasefire", raise concerns over the "humanitarian catastrophe for Palestinians" and charge Israel with ending the conflict.
She raised these issues in what she called "frank and constructive" talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Washington in July.
However, she has not supported the arms embargo on Israel which some on the US left want.
At the party convention, she said she would "always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself".
She reiterated her support for the country during the debate with Trump, saying "I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people".
In her CNN interview, Ms Harris indicated that she would focus on securing a ceasefire deal, which was President Biden's approach.
Healthcare
Earlier in her career, Ms Harris supported expanding publicly-funded healthcare programmes that cover the elderly, youth with disabilities and poor.
This included backing Medicare-for-All, a progressive policy that would make all healthcare publicly funded. She later softened her support for this.
Her campaign told the BBC that she would not push for a single-payer system if elected to the White House.
During her vice-presidency, the White House has had health care successes. It reduced prescription drug costs, capped insulin prices at $35, allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices and capped out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare drug coverage.
On the campaign trail, she has said that she wants to erase billions of dollars in medical debt for Americans and would work with states on the issue.
Details remain thin, but when she was the California attorney general, Ms Harris regularly used anti-trust laws to put pressure on insurers, hospitals and drug companies to address costs.
Crime
Ms Harris started her legal career prosecuting child abusers and sex traffickers before being elected district attorney of San Francisco, and then serving as California's attorney general.
She was criticised by the progressive left for increasing conviction rates - particularly of violent criminals - and was at times labelled "a cop" - though the right has also accused her of being soft on crime.
Ms Harris has also used her past as a prosecutor to serve as a major contrast with her opponent, who was convicted on 34 charges in a hush-money scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election.
She mentioned Mr Trump's conviction - and that he had been found liable for committing sexual abuse - in her Democratic party conference acceptance speech.
Gun laws
Ms Harris has a history of backing gun safety regulations throughout her political career. While California's attorney general, she successfully defended the state's gun laws when they faced legal challenges.
As vice-president, she has overseen the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Earlier this year, she announced resources to support the implementation of red-flag laws, which are designed to deny firearms to those who may harm themselves and others.
She also encouraged states to tap into $750m in federal funds that the Biden-Harris administration made available for crisis intervention programmes.
Her policy platform includes a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines as well as a requirement for universal background checks.
During the debate she noted that both she and her vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz are gun owners.
Climate and fracking
As a prosecutor, Ms Harris defended California's climate laws and sued oil companies for environmental damage. She also called for climate change policies via a "Green New Deal" during her 2020 presidential campaign - some of which came to fruition under the current administration.
During a CNN town hall in 2019, she said that "there is no question I'm in favour of banning fracking", which is a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock that can be damaging to the environment.
But she has since changed her stance. During the presidential debate, she said she cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act - which opened up new leases for fracking companies - in addition to funnelling hundreds of billions of dollars to renewable energy and electric vehicle tax credit and rebate programs.
"My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil," she said.
Ms Harris said she will protect public lands and public health, lower household energy costs and hold polluters accountable to secure clear air and water if elected in November, according to her policy document.
