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Last month, we asked you, our readers, to tell us the top three issues that are motivating you to vote in November. We received over 150 responses on a broad range of topics.
Once we landed on the six that were most mentioned — abortion, gun control, caregiving, climate, Israel and Palestine, and health care — we asked our reporters to write about the policy positions of both presidential candidates on each topic.
Here’s a look at the positions of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Abortion | Gun control | Caregiving | Climate | Israel and Palestine | Health care
Abortion
Harris
Kamala Harris has emphasized reproductive rights both as vice president and on the campaign trail. Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, she has become the White House’s most prominent advocate for abortion rights, touring the country to speak about the issue and, in March, becoming the first sitting president or vice president to visit an abortion clinic. As California’s attorney general, Harris worked to tighten regulations for anti-abortion centers, which are non-medical facilities that discourage people from terminating their pregnancies and face little government scrutiny.
As a presidential candidate, Harris has said she would protect abortion rights by working with Congress to sign a law codifying the federal protections that existed under Roe v. Wade. Under that standard, states could restrict abortion only after fetal viability, which typically occurs between 23 and 25 weeks. But enacting that kind of law would require not only a Harris White House, but Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress — an uphill battle for the party.
Harris is also likely to continue efforts made under President Joe Biden’s administration to challenge individual state abortion bans and to defend the legal availability of mifepristone, a medication used in most abortions.
Beyond abortion, Harris has said she would defend Americans’ rights to access contraception and fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization, both of which have come under fire from some sectors of the anti-abortion movement. When asked in mid-August by The 19th, her campaign did not explain how she might do that.
Trump
As president, Donald Trump was a reliable ally for the anti-abortion movement, appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. Even now on the campaign trail, Trump regularly takes credit for Roe’s fall.
Beyond judicial appointments, Trump’s administration worked to undercut access to abortion. His Health and Human Services department excluded health centers from the federal Title X program — which supports family planning services for low-income people — if those clinics referred patients for abortion. More than 1,000 clinics lost funding as a result. The administration also sought to block minors who were detained in immigration facilities from getting abortions. Trump was the first sitting president to address the March for Life, a major anti-abortion gathering.
After campaigning in 2016 and 2020 on abortion restrictions, Trump has been less clear in 2024 about how he would approach abortion if granted a second term. Though he reportedly considered embracing a national 16-week ban, he has lately argued that abortion law should be left up to individual states — a stance polling shows most women oppose. Former Trump advisers have endorsed leveraging an anti-obscenity law from the 1800s to bar the mailing of abortion pills. That could block patients in states with abortion bans from one of their few options for care and undercut access in states where abortion is legal. Trump recently said he would not seek to enforce the law if elected. But others in his orbit — including his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance — have endorsed that approach.
Even though Trump recently criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban, he said he opposes a state ballot measure that would codify Roe’s protections in the state, where he is a voter. Trump’s opposition came after heavy pressure from anti-abortion advocates, who anticipate having far greater influence with a Trump administration than a Harris one.
Gun control
Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris has made the “freedom to live safe from gun violence” a key part of her presidential campaign. As the head of the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Harris has spearheaded the current administration’s work on gun safety, including the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The most substantive piece of federal gun safety legislation in over 30 years, it included record funding for school-based mental health services. The Biden-Harris administration also issued an executive action to close the “gun show loophole,” in which people who know they cannot pass a background check turn to unlicensed sellers, and worked to further regulate gun dealers and tighten background check requirements.
This spring, Harris announced the launch of a National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center. Operated by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and paid for with a Justice Department grant, the center helps state and local governments optimize the use of local red flag laws, which allow for the temporary seizure of firearms from a person who may be a danger to themselves or others.
Harris’ history as an advocate for gun safety pre-dates her time in the White House. As the first woman to serve as San Francisco’s district attorney, she prioritized prosecuting domestic violence cases. There is a 500 percent increase in deaths when a firearm is present during a domestic violence incident, and 70 women are fatally shot each month in the United States in domestic violence incidents.
As California’s Attorney General, Harris championed the state’s own “red flag,” law; California became the third state to implement one. And as a U.S. senator, Harris co-sponsored the Disarm Hate Act to prohibit individuals convicted of violent hate crimes from purchasing and possessing firearms. She also pushed legislation to regulate ghost guns, large-capacity magazines, 3D-printed guns and bump stocks; close the “boyfriend loophole” and prohibit stalkers from purchasing firearms; and provide protections for survivors of domestic violence and help survivors of gun violence access resources. Throughout her political career, she has called for a reinstatement of the federal assault rifle ban.
Trump
Speaking to the National Rifle Association (NRA) in February, former President Donald Trump asserted that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” should he win back the presidency. Since then, Trump has routinely vowed to roll back the gun safety measures enacted by the Biden administration as soon as he takes office. But Trump’s own presidential record on gun safety has been mixed: While he supported measures to loosen restrictions on hunting on public lands and to classify gun stores, shooting ranges and weapons’ manufacturers as “essential services” during the COVID-19 pandemic, he also occasionally faced heat from the NRA.
The criticism followed the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, when Trump called for the passage of red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders. The Trump administration had already antagonized the NRA following the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco submitted for a rule change that would allow the agency to create a federal rule banning bump stocks, circumventing the need for congressional approval.
Trump himself issued an executive memorandum urging the U.S. attorney general to expedite the rule change, though it took over a year after the shooting for the administration to actually implement this change. This summer, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority — including Trump appointees Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — ruled that a federal bump stock ban was unconstitutional.
This year, at a campaign rally held just days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump urged victims of a January school shooting in the state “to get over it” and “move forward.” A sixth-grade child was killed during the shooting and seven others at the school were injured. One month later, he told NRA members that he was “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House.”
Caregiving
Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris’ approach to economic and family policy places caregiving and caregivers at the center. It’s a position informed by her own upbringing: She was raised by a single mother with the help of a neighbor, who was also a child care worker and became like a second mother to her. Later, Harris became a caregiver for the final years of her mom’s life. A decade ago, she became a step-parent to her husband’s children, Ella and Cole.
During her presidential run, she has proposed expanding the child tax credit to as much as $3,600 from $2,000. She also wants to introduce a new tax credit that would be available during the first year of a child’s life, worth up to $6,000 for middle- and low-income families.
As vice president, Harris was the face of the Biden administration’s initiative to cap child care copayments for the lowest-income families at no more than 7 percent of their income. As a senator, she was the first to propose the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which would grant employment protections to care workers who face significant wage theft, discrimination or sexual harassment.
When she ran for president in 2019, she proposed a six-month paid family and medical leave at the federal level — one of the most ambitious policies Democrats have ever put forward. The United States is one of a handful of nations that doesn’t have such a policy. As of early September, Harris had not yet announced what her paid leave policy would be if elected this year.
She also has not said how her proposals would be financed. The child tax credit expansion alone is estimated to cost more than $1.2 trillion over 10 years, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan organization.
Trump
During his administration, former President Donald Trump addressed caregiving policy several times with the support of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, who was a vocal advocate. In 2019, she convened more than a dozen legislators and governors — Republicans and Democrats — for a summit on child care and paid leave. The nation had a “historic chance” to pass paid family leave and child care reform, she said at the time. But that didn’t lead to any policy changes.
As a candidate, Trump has not addressed child care or paid leave, nor has he laid out what his policy approach would be. He dodged the question during the debate with then-candidate Joe Biden. During an economic event in September, he said it was a “very important issue,” but that relative to tariffs and other issues, child care is “not very expensive.” Trump did not respond to a question asking what child care policy he’d advance as president.
His running mate, Sen. JD Vance, has called universal child care, or free care subsidized by the government, a “massive subsidy to the lifestyle preferences of the affluent over the preferences of the middle and working class” and a “class war against normal people.” He has argued that this is not what most “normal Americans” would prefer, but rather that one parent should care for children while the other works. Vance, who has three young children, is in favor of policies that would support grandparents who want to care for grandchildren and cut back on what he considers unnecessary child care regulation.
Trump’s greatest caregiving achievement came in 2017 with the expansion of the child tax credit as part of his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He doubled the credit to $2,000 and increased the portion of it that was available for the lowest-income families. That expansion expires in 2025, when Congress will decide whether to keep the credit the same, reduce it or expand it.
Trump has indicated that he supports keeping the credit and is interested in expanding it, but hasn’t committed to a specific dollar value. For his part, Vance has floated raising the credit to $5,000.
Climate
Harris
During her time as a U.S. senator, Kamala Harris introduced several pieces of legislation addressing environmental injustices and promoting climate action. These included co-sponsoring the Green New Deal, a resolution championed by youth climate activists that called for creating well-paying jobs for marginalized communities as part of a clean energy transition. While it did not pass, it cemented her reputation as a progressive politician on climate.
As vice president, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which earmarked $369 billion to expand clean energy, incentivize the manufacturing of electric cars and reduce carbon emissions. Last year, she was the highest-ranking U.S. official to attend COP 28, an annual climate summit, in Dubai.
While most activists see the Inflation Reduction Act as a big climate win, they also point out that the Biden-Harris administration made some compromises to the oil and gas industries at a time when the country urgently needs to curb its fossil fuel emissions. Last year, the administration approved a permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia and the controversial Willow Project in Alaska.
Harris has also switched her position on the topic of fracking, or extracting oil and gas from rock. During her first run for president in 2019, she stated she would support a national ban on fracking. But over the last few years, she has said she no longer supports one.
In a recent interview with CNN, she affirmed her commitment to addressing climate change, calling it a “real” and “urgent” crisis.
Trump
When Donald Trump was president, he rolled back over 100 environmental regulations. Some weakened the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to lower fossil fuel emissions from polluting industries. Others made it easier for the Department of the Interior to issue permits and leases for oil and gas production. He also withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, an international agreement signed by nearly 200 countries that aims to reduce global warming.
Trump has previously called climate change a “hoax” and his official 2024 campaign agenda makes no mention of it. Instead, Trump’s agenda says he will ramp up energy production and “make America the dominant energy producer in the world.” He also promises to cut “costly and burdensome regulations” passed during the Biden administration that reduce vehicle emissions and incentivize the production of electric cars. The Republican platform linked on his website expands on some of his bullet points, stating, “We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL.” It also says that the party wants to “end market-distorting restrictions on Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal.”
The scientific consensus is that burning fossil fuels is causing climate change and that in order to avoid the worst outcomes, the world needs to curb those fuels’ consumption and transition to clean energy sources like solar and wind. In April, Trump told oil and gas executives that he “hates wind,” referring to offshore wind projects, and that he would once again speed up permitting for oil and gas projects.
Israel and Palestine
Harris
The Biden-Harris approach to Israel and Palestine largely aligns with the longstanding pro-Israel stance of previous administrations, though the issue took a back seat early on in President Joe Biden’s foreign policy priorities.
In 2021, while visiting George Mason University, Harris drew criticism for not challenging a student who described the conflict as “an ethnic genocide.” Harris’ team later clarified that she “strongly disagrees” with the student’s characterization and has been “unwavering in her commitment to Israel and to Israel’s security.”
Since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year that ignited the latest phase of the conflict, Harris has repeatedly stated that Israel has a right to defend itself and has not committed to withhold U.S. military aid to Israel. Her first notable remarks on the issue since launching her 2024 presidential campaign came from her speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination at the national convention.
“The scale of suffering is heartbreaking,” Harris said from the DNC stage. “President Biden and I are working to end this war such 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.”
Days later, in her first major interview as a 2024 candidate, Harris indicated that she would not deviate from the approach of the Biden White House.
When asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if there would be a policy change from the Biden administration, Harris replied, “No. I — we have to get a deal done.”
She added: “I remain committed — since I’ve been on October 8 — to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution where Israel is secure and in equal measure, the Palestinians have security and self-determination and dignity.”
Trump
Trump started his presidency by publicly criticizing Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, but over the years, he has cast himself as a loyal supporter of Israel. In December 2017, he fulfilled a campaign promise to declare Jerusalem Israel’s capital city and ordered that the U.S. embassy be relocated there from Tel Aviv. Trump’s order officially cemented a move that previous Democratic and Republican presidents supported but never acted on.
Both Palestinians and Israelis claim Jerusalem as their capital, and Palestinian officials condemned Trump’s decision, stating that it would disrupt efforts to broker peace. The new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem officially opened in May 2018.
In 2018, Trump stated his support for a two-state solution, a proposal to end the conflict that would allow Palestinians and Israelis to have their own territories. However this year, in an interview with TIME, he backtracked. “Most people thought it was going to be a two-state solution. I’m not sure a two-state solution anymore is gonna work,” he said.
Trump strengthened the White House’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following a strained dynamic under President Barack Obama. In January 2020, Trump unveiled a Middle East peace plan that would guarantee Israel control over Jerusalem and would maintain Israeli settlements in the West Bank, one of two Palestinian territories.
Since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Trump has spoken on the war, stating in an April interview that Netanyahu needs to “get it over with” and “get back to normalcy.” In the TIME interview weeks later, Trump did not commit to withholding American military assistance to Israel. Since October, more than 1,200 Israelis and more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to officials.
Health care
Harris
As a U.S. senator in 2019, Harris co-sponsored the Medicare for All bill, a piece of legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would have replaced private health insurance with a single government-run insurer for everyone.
Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, however, Harris has not been pushing for single-payer government health insurance anymore, but is focused on expanding access to reproductive rights and lowering prescription drug prices.
“Our plan will lower costs and save many middle class families thousands of dollars a year,” Harris said at a campaign event in Atlanta.
The 2024 Democratic National Committee’s platform supports Medicaid expansion and pushes Congress to allow millions to use coverage similar to Medicaid, even in states that haven’t expanded the program.
“We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare,” Harris said during her acceptance speech during the 2024 Democratic National Convention. “We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions.”
Trump
When Trump was president, his administration pushed the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the 2010 law that prohibited insurance companies from charging people more for pre-existing medical conditions and imposed federal standards on what health insurance had to cover.
The Trump administration issued regulations and changed the ACA to allow employees to deny birth control coverage if they had moral or religious objections and let some health insurance companies discriminate based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Trump also favored changing Medicaid to a block grant program, which means states would receive a fixed amount of money for their own programs and face fewer coverage requirements, and making it so that people would have to submit proof of employment in order to be eligible for Medicaid.
This year, as a presidential candidate, Trump appears to have softened his stance to repeal and replace the ACA, a position that proved to be unpopular in previous years. He has said he would “not cut one penny” from Medicare and Social Security, according to the Republican election platform released ahead of the party’s national convention in July. The platform outlines that there should be “no changes to the retirement age,” but does not mention Medicaid.
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Candice Norwood, Chabeli Carrazana, Jennifer Gerson, Jessica Kutz, Mariel Padilla and Shefali Luthra contributed reporting.
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