The vice president’s new policy platform is emerging as one much closer to the center than it was five years ago.
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. Topics covered include Abortion, US Border, Israel–Hamas War, Ukraine–Russia War, Supreme Court, Policing, Gun Rights, Taxes, and Health Care.
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.
