Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Hendrick Center for Automotive Excellence on the Scott Northern Wake Campus of Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, N.C., Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
By the time most presidential nominees reach the stage at their parties’ national conventions, they’ve usually spent months hammering out their policy priorities.
But Vice President Harris only began her race on July 21, when President Biden stepped aside and passed her the torch.
While Democrats have been thrilled with the fresh energy Harris has brought to the race, her campaign speeches to date have been long on vibes and short on actual platforms. Many of her positions are based on proposals originally made by Biden that he and Democrats were unable to get through Congress.
As the Democratic National Convention gets underway this week, here are some highlights of what she’s said so far about what she would do if she wins in November.
Harris gave her first major policy speech on what she would do to address the high costs of housing, groceries, health care and raising kids. Her proposals include:
In other campaign speeches, Harris has said she would:
So far, there have been few details on:
The Harris campaign told Politico that she would not raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 per year.
After the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, Harris became the administration’s leading voice on restoring protections for abortion rights. She has urged Congress to pass legislation to codify Roe protections and said she would sign it into law.
Harris has backed Biden administration efforts to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors on Medicare. She has said she would accelerate those talks with pharmaceutical companies. Like Biden, Harris has vowed to try to:
Harris has said she backs comprehensive immigration reform with “an earned pathway to citizenship” but she has not spelled out the details.
Her campaign ads say Harris would hire thousands of border agents, use technology to crack down on fentanyl and increase funding to stop human trafficking.
She has said she would urge the Senate to revive a bipartisan border security bill that Republicans balked at earlier this year at the urging of former President Donald Trump. That bill would give her the power to shut the border to migrants under certain conditions and would establish changes to the asylum process.
Harris has not yet given a major foreign policy address. But she gave extensive remarks after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, where she said she would “not be silent” about the toll Israel’s war on Hamas has taken on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, even as she made clear she supports Israel’s right to defend itself.
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