Where Kamala Harris Stands on Key Policy Issues

The vice president’s new policy platform is emerging as one much closer to the center than it was five years ago.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Eau Claire, Wis., on Aug. 7, 2024. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Since becoming the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris is defining her political platform in real time.

Having entered the presidential race late and with no written platform, she is curating her positions through public statements. Sometimes those positions align with President Joe Biden’s, sometimes they diverge, and often they differ from her previously held positions.

“I think the one advantage that Harris may have is that there’s less than 100 days to go,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told The Epoch Times. Given that brief window may be easier for her to introduce her policy positions than for her political opponents to define her.

Here is a summary of her current views on major questions compared with both her prior statements and Biden’s policies.

Abortion

Harris has made abortion access a centerpiece of her campaign, often contrasting herself with former President Donald Trump, who appointed three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Like Biden, Harris favors federal legislation to reinstate the nationwide protection of abortion access that Roe v. Wade had provided.

“When Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law,” Harris told rally-goers in Atlanta on June 30.

As a U.S. senator for California, Harris co-sponsored legislation to ban states from imposing restrictions on abortion and voted against a bill that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

In 2019, she advocated requiring “states and localities with a history of violating Roe v. Wade” to obtain Justice Department approval before enacting any abortion laws or practices.

US Border

Harris’s position on the border has changed compared to 2020. During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris said the country should “think about starting from scratch” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for investigating and deporting illegal immigrants, a position she now rejects.

“Immigrants are part of the fabric of America,” she wrote in 2019, vowing to pass immigration reform.

In June 2021, she told migrants in Guatemala, “Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.”

Now Harris, like Biden, considers the influx of illegal immigrants part of a global migration crisis and a humanitarian issue.

A caravan of migrants from Latin America heading to the U.S.–Mexico border arrive in Huixtla, Mexico, on June 7, 2022. (Isaac Guzman/AFP via Getty Images)

Yet she has begun to differentiate herself by speaking more about border enforcement.

Referring to her tenure as attorney general of California, she said in July, “In that job, I walked underground tunnels between the United States and Mexico on that border with law enforcement officers. I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels, and human traffickers that came into our country illegally.”

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Harris went on to criticize Trump for speaking against a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, which subsequently failed twice in the Senate. She promised to resurrect that legislation if elected.

Harris’s vice presidential record on the border has been the subject of recent controversy, particularly over the extent of her role in securing the border.

Biden appointed Harris in March 2021 as the unofficial border czar to “address the underlying causes of migration through a strategy to confront the instability, violence, and economic insecurity that currently drives migrants from their homes.”

Later that year, Harris announced public and private funding of $115 million to reduce global migration by alleviating economic insecurity, fighting corruption, promoting human rights, countering gang activity, and reducing sexual, gender-based, and domestic violence.

Israel–Hamas War

Harris has repeatedly affirmed her support for Israel and denounced Hamas and its Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Both Biden and Harris favor a two-state solution in the region.

However, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 25, she said that while Israel should always be able to defend itself, “how it does so matters.”

“I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians,” Harris said, reiterating remarks from December 2023 that Israel “must do more to protect innocent civilians.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrive for a meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office building in Washington on July 25, 2024. (Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

Harris appears to be more willing to challenge Israel on its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

“She was willing to criticize Netanyahu’s policies while he was in the room. So I’m thinking that she’s willing to risk maybe taking a different approach for that policy,” Patricia Crouse, professor of political science at the University of New Haven, told The Epoch Times.

Ukraine–Russia War

Biden favors ongoing military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine for its war with Russia, seeing this as critical for preventing further aggression against allies in Europe. The president entered an agreement with NATO allies in June to support Ukraine “until it prevails,” providing military support into the next decade.

Harris has not contradicted that position.

During a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, Harris said it is in the “strategic interest of the United States to continue our support.”

In June, she announced more than $1.5 billion in U.S. aid to “bolster Ukraine’s energy sector, address humanitarian needs, and strengthen civilian security.”

Supreme Court

Harris favors Supreme Court reform but has changed her position since 2020.

During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris appeared receptive to the idea of expanding the Supreme Court. “Everything is on the table” to address the “crisis of confidence” in the court, she told Politico in March 2019.

Two months later, she said she was open to the “conversation” of increasing the number of justices, according to Bloomberg.

However, Harris issued a statement in agreement with Biden’s recent proposed court reforms, which include 18-year term limits and a judicial code of ethics that would be enforceable under law. The proposal doesn’t include increasing the number of justices.

“There is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court as its fairness has been called into question after numerous ethics scandals and decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent,” Harris said in a July 29 statement.

She said the reforms are needed to restore public confidence in the court.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris walks to board Air Force Two at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas on Aug. 10, 2024. (Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images)

Policing

As San Francisco district attorney, Harris called for tough sentences for gun violence offenders, seeking a minimum 90-day jail time for possession of a concealed or loaded weapon, vowing “no tolerance.”

Harris’s views on policing shifted in 2020. During an interview on the “Ebro in the Morning” radio program, Ms. Harris said the “defund the police” movement “rightly” called out the funds spent on police departments instead of community services, including education, housing, and health care.

After joining the Biden campaign later that year, she rejected the concept of defunding the police.

During the vice presidential debate in October 2020, she called for criminal justice reform, a ban on police use of chokeholds and carotid holds, a national registry for police officers who break the law, and decriminalizing marijuana.

Gun Rights

Harris has made “freedom from gun violence” a consistent focus in campaign speeches.

During an April 11 press call, Ms. Harris said she supports the Second Amendment but wants “reasonable gun safety laws.”

She has since defined that as a ban on the sale of so-called assault weapons to civilians, universal background checks, and the enactment of red flag laws.

The Biden administration also favors requiring safe gun storage and ending the prosecution immunity for gun manufacturers. Harris has not contradicted those positions so far.

In 2019 Harris supported a mandatory buyback program for military-style assault weapons, according to Bloomberg, a measure she no longer publicly advocates.

A Los Angeles Police Department officer shows recovered guns from residents turning in firearms at a Gun Buy Back event in Los Angeles on Dec. 5, 2020. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

Taxes

Harris and Biden both favor increased taxes on large corporations and Americans making more than $400,000 per year.

The president advocates raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from its current rate of 21 percent, while Harris supports the 35 percent corporate tax rate in place before the Trump-era tax cuts.

Harris co-sponsored the LIFT the Middle-Class Act as a senator, which died in committee, but would have established a “refundable middle-class tax credit of up to $3,000 for individuals and up to $6,000 for married individuals filing joint returns.”

Health Care

Harris wants to make health care more affordable and, at a minimum, protect the Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare.

Both Harris and Biden have said health care should be considered a right in America. The president, however, expressed doubt in 2020 that universal health coverage is affordable.

Harris’s 2019 “Medicare for All” plan would have extended Medicare to all Americans while retaining private insurance. She briefly supported eliminating private insurance in early 2019, The New York Times reported.

Her plan would have been funded by a 4 percent tax increase on those who earned more than $100,000 a year.

Protesters supporting Medicare for All hold a rally outside Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America headquarters in Washington on April 29, 2019. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)