Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris

Diffen › Politics › U.S. Politics

This is an unbiased comparison of the policy and political positions of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, candidates in the 2024 presidential race from the Democratic and Republican parties respectively.

For the most part, the candidates' views conform with the political platform of their party — Harris is "pro-choice" on abortion rights, Trump is "pro-life"; Harris supports the DREAM Act and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, while Trump wants to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall on the Mexican border; Harris wants to expand gun control legislation, Trump does not; Harris wants to raise taxes on businesses and so-called "high-income" households while the Trump administration (2017-2020) cut taxes for individuals in all income brackets, as well as all corporations.

Comparison chart

Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris comparison chart
	Donald Trump	Kamala Harris
Political Party	Republican	Democratic
Alma Mater	Fordham University, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School	University of California, Hastings College of the Law, Howard University
Website	www.donaldjtrump.com	kamalaharris.com
Date of birth	June 19, 1946 (age 78)	October 20, 1964 (age 59)
Career	Real estate developer, businessman, media (reality TV), US President from Jan 2017 - Jan 2021.	Prosecutor, serving as District Attorney of San Francisco and later Attorney General of California. She then entered national politics, becoming a U.S. Senator from California in 2017 and US Vice President in 2021.
Position on Healthcare	Get rid of Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare; Let insurance be sold across state lines. Premiums should be tax deductible. Allow HSAs for individuals. Block grants to states for Medicaid instead of cost sharing	Expand Affordable Care Act. Remove medical debt from credit reports. Put $35 cap on insulin and $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending for all Americans.
Position on Abortion	Changed stance. Now in favor of outlawing abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or life of mother. Supportive of non-abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood. Believes abortion is a state issue.	Staunch supporter of women's right to choose to abort. Believes abortions should be legal nationally and not be a state by state issue.
Position on Immigration	Build wall on Mexican border; triple number of ICE officers; deport all "criminal" aliens; defund sanctuary cities; end birthright citizenship; issue green cards to high-skilled college graduates.	Harris supports providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Under the Biden-Harris administration, illegal border crossings surged to historic levels.
Position on Global Warming	Trump has tweeted "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." He has said he would renegotiate America’s role and obligations under the U.N. global climate accord.	Global warming is real and the cause is human activity.
Place of Birth	Queens, New York City	Oakland, CA
Position on Iraq	Trump claims he opposed Iraq war before the invasion. However, is on record for hesitatingly supporting it in Sep '12. Expressed early concerns about the cost and direction of the war a few months after it started.	Dick Cheney, the driving force behind the disastrous Iraq war, has endorsed Kamala Harris. Harris herself was not active in national politics during the early 2000s when the Iraq invasion occurred.
Books Authored	The Art of the Deal (1987), Never Give Up (2008), Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life (2007); Trump 101: The Way to Success (2007); Why We Want You to Be Rich (2006); Think Like a Billionaire (2004); and others	Smart on Crime (2009), The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019), Superheroes Are Everywhere (2019)
Religion	Protestant (Presbyterian)	Baptist
Children	Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, Barron Trump	Two step children - Cole and Ella Emhoff.
Spouse(s)	Melania Trump (m. 2005), Marla Maples (m. 1993–1999), Ivana Trump (m. 1977–1992)	Doug Emhoff
Position on Gun Rights	Supports 2nd amendment rights; opposes new gun-control laws; "Enforce existing laws"; "fix our broken mental health system"; "defend rights of law-abiding gun owners";"allow military personnel to carry weapons on military bases & recruitment centers"	Supports an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and "red-flag laws" to allow people to apply to a judge to confiscate another person's gun if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves or others.
Position on Death Penalty	Supports the death penalty; and advocates mandatory death sentences for those who kill police officers.	As the district attorney of San Francisco, Harris opposed the death penalty, refusing to request it for a man charged with the murder of a police officer.
Running mate	JD Vance (2024), Mike Pence (2016)	Tim Walz
Tax Policies	New federal income tax brackets: 0% (< $25K individual/$50K couple), 10%, 20%, 25%; eliminate AMT; Lower corporate tax rate to 15%; Trump's tax plan would cost the federal government $9.5 trillion.	Increase corporate income tax rate from 21% to 28%. Increase top individual income tax rate from 37% to 39.6%. Increase NIIT (net investment income tax) and additional Medicare tax to 5%. Limit 1031 like-kind exchanges to $500,000 in gains.
Economic Policies	Declare China a currency manipulator. A one-time repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at 10% tax rate, followed by an end to the deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad.	Higher taxes on businesses as well as individuals, especially those with annual income over $250,000. Use taxpayer money to forgive college loans for people who haven't repaid them yet. Subsidies for first time home buyers.

Differences in Economic Policy

In this video PBS contributors discuss and compare parts of Trump and Harris's economic policies:

Taxes

In 2017, the Trump administration enacted tax cuts that lowered the tax rate on corporations from 35% to 20%. Notable changes for individuals were:

Roughly doubled the standard deduction: from $6,350 to $12,000 for single taxpayers and from $12,700 to $24,000 for married filers
New limitations on itemized deductions:
Lower federal income tax rates (details)
Reduced the amount of home mortgage debt that itemizers can deduct interest on from $1 million to $750,000
Capped the allowable deduction for state and local taxes paid (SALT) to $10,000. Previously, individuals could deduct the entire amount paid for either state individual income tax or state sales tax, but not both, along with any state and local property taxes paid.
Increased the phaseout of the exemption from AMT (alternative minimum tax) from $160,900 to $1 million for joint filers.
Eliminated the personal exemption and expanded the child tax credit.

While the tax cut for corporations was permanent, the tax cuts for individuals are set to expire at the end of 2025. Supporters of the tax cuts point to:

Increase in standard deduction simplified filing because fewer people needed to itemize their deductions. Before the tax cuts, about 47 million tax returns contained itemized deductions. This number dropped to 18 million.^[1]
Lower taxes on individuals and families helps put more money in the pocket of consumers and stimulates the economy.
The personal exemption reduces taxable income so its benefit depends upon the marginal tax rate of the filer. A child tax credit lower tax liability directly so all income brackets benefit equally.

Detractors point to the following problems:

Tax cuts disproportionately benefited people in higher income brackets.
Tax cuts for companies did not result in more investment and hiring. Instead, companies used the extra profits to buy back stock or pay dividends, benefiting shareholders who typically tend to be higher income.^[2]
Tax cuts for companies benefit shareholders, who could be foreign investors.
Limiting SALT deductions was seen as a move against blue states like California and New Jersey, which have high state income tax rates.

Key features of Kamala Harris's tax plan are:

increase the income tax rate for the top bracket from 37% to 39.6%
raise taxes on families earning more than $450,000 and individuals earning more than $400,000
cap the value of itemized deductions at 28%.
Raise the corporate rate from 21% to 28%
Increase the Child and Dependent Tax Credit from $3,000 to $6,000 for the first year of a child's life.

Student loan forgiveness

The Biden-Harris administration has tried several initiatives to forgive, reduce or pause payments on student loan debt. While people who have student loans outstanding are obviously in favor of these policies, critics have pointed out that this policy is unfair because

all taxpayers -- including those who did not attend college because they could not afford it -- end up paying for the debt forgiveness. So the policy helps college-educated people at the expense of others such as tradespeople (plumbers, electricians, landscapers, construction workers) who did not go to college. Debt is not cancelled, it is paid by taxpayers.
it is unfair to those who have already repaid their student loans.

In June 2023, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Biden v. Nebraska that the Biden administration did not have the authority to forgive student loans. In 2024, the administration tried again with a different legal angle. The cost of the new debt forgiveness program is estimated to be $559 billion. When the University of Pennsylvania analyzed the impact of this program (full research report here), they found

President Biden’s recently announced “New Plans” to provide relief to student borrowers will cost $84 billion, in addition to the $475 billion that we previously estimated for President Biden’s SAVE plan. Moreover, some debt relief in the New Plans accrues to borrowers in [750,000] households with income more than the SAVE plan coverage [average income of $312,000].

Fiscal Policy

During the Covid pandemic, the Trump administration launched the following economic stimulus programs:

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (March 2020): This $2.2 trillion package provided direct payments to individuals and families, expanded unemployment benefits, and offered loans and grants to businesses.
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP): This $669 billion program provided loans to small businesses to help them keep employees on payroll during the pandemic.
Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program: This program provided loans to small businesses and nonprofits to help them cover operating costs during the pandemic.

The Trump administration's stimulus measures were generally seen as effective in preventing a deeper economic recession. The CARES Act, in particular, is credited with helping to keep millions of Americans afloat during the early months of the pandemic. However, the PPP program was criticized for being poorly designed and for disproportionately benefiting larger businesses.

The Biden-Harris administration launched the following economic stimulus programs:

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) (March 2021): This $1.9 trillion package provided additional direct payments to individuals and families, extended unemployment benefits, and funded state and local governments.
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (November 2021): This $1.2 trillion package invested in infrastructure projects, such as roads, bridges, and broadband.

The Biden administration's programs have been criticized for leading to very high inflation (see inflation chart below) because of continued stimulus well after it was needed. It is unclear to what extent Kamala Harris was involved in shaping these policies as vice president. She only took centerstage in 2024 after Biden's disastrous debate performance in June after which he was forced to step down and not seek the Democratic party nomination.

The Biden-Harris administration's track record on inflation is further complicated by efforts by the Federal Reserve (aka the Fed) to tame inflation. The Fed has hiked interest rates throughout 2022 and 2023 to try and lower inflation. While the rate of inflation has decreased, prices are still rising. Some macroeconomists have blamed the Biden administration's fiscal policies for high inflation because:

The Biden administration has increased federal government spending financed by the federal debt. When the government spends more, the demand for goods and services increases leading to inflation.
Policies such as deferring or pausing student loans makes more disposable income available to certain parts of the population, leading to an increase in demand for goods and services, leading to inflation.
Increasing pay for government workers similarly increases demand and leads to inflation.
Increasing Social Security payments to adjust for inflation in turn causes more inflation via the same mechanism of higher disposable income leading to higher demand. This is a difficult needle to thread because not increasing these payments to account for inflation could put some seniors in financial hardship.
Billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine ultimately is spend on American defense contractors and weapons manufacturers. Financing wars is usually inflationary.

Regulation

As a Republican, Trump favors less regulation in order to be more business-friendly. As an example, the Trump administration rolled back an Obama administration rule that required automotive fuel economy standards to grow by 5% per year from 2021 to 2026. In March 2020, the Trump administration lowered this requirement to 1.5% per year under the SAFE rule. Critics are concerned that this will lead to more pollution and carbon emissions, hurting the environment and causing pollution-related deaths. Supporters say relaxing the regulatory requirements will result in lower costs for new cars, which will take more older clunkers off the market. Even with less aggressive improvement requirements, new cars are safer and cause fewer emissions than the older cars they would replace.

Trump vs Harris Debates

2024 Trump-Harris Debates

First Debate

The first debate of the 2024 election between president Kamala Harris and previous president Donald Trump was hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia, PA on Sep 10, 2024. The full video is below:

The debate was marked by a poor performance by Trump who said that immigrants are eating pets (cats and dogs) of the people living in Springfield, Ohio. Neither Harris nor Trump directly answered the moderators' questions. Harris baited Trump by saying that people leave his rallies because they get bored and Trump, rather than stick to the issues, took the bait and responded to the untruthful jibe. Harris noted in the debate that she and her husband are both gun owners, which was a surprise since she has historically advocated tighter gun control.

Trump vs Harris in Opinion Polls

Over the course of 2024, Harris's lead over Trump in opinion polls has widened. A list of head-to-head match-ups for Harris and Trump in opinion polls can be found on Wikipedia.

From the BBC, poll tracker for support for Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris.

It should be noted that opinion polls can paint a misleading picture. In 2016, these same models and averages showed Clinton leading Trump by 3 to 4 percentage points. And although Trump lost the popular vote, he did win the electoral vote and therefore the presidency.