What does Kamala Harris think about issues like the economy?

Vice President Kamala Harris is riding high on a wave of favorable polls and energetic rallies in the days leading up to the Democratic National Convention. But good vibes aside, where does the Democratic presidential candidate stand on key issues?

Although she has yet to release a full platform, her experience as a California senator and prosecutor, her 2020 presidential campaign and her tenure in the White House as vice president hint at where Ms. Harris will stand on a number of policies.

Some of her stances have changed over the years, and some say she has struggled to define herself.

To better understand her policy agenda now, BBC News reviewed Ms. Harris’s recent speeches and public statements as a 2024 candidate, her record as vice president, and her time as a 2020 presidential candidate, California senator, and prosecutor official.

Ms Harris’s campaign told the BBC that the candidate’s recent statements best reflected her intentions as president.

“Vice President Harris will build on the Biden-Harris administration’s historic agenda that defeated major… pharmaceutical companies, created nearly 16 million jobs, and enacted the first bipartisan gun safety legislation in three decades.

Here are Ms. Harris’ positions on 10 key issues.

As a senator, Ms. Harris championed a range of progressive policies, including paid family leave, affordable housing and free tuition for low- and moderate-income families.

As vice president, she has been Mr. Biden’s partner in passing major economic legislation, often referred to as “Bidenomics,” including major investments in infrastructure and green energy.

But as inflation and high interest rates continue to weigh on Americans’ wallets, polls show the economy remains the top concern for many voters.

on Friday, Ms Harris unveils her economic planThey include mortgage assistance for first-time homebuyers, tax credits for new parents and a ban on price gouging in grocery stores to help control inflation.

Like her opponent, former US President Trump, she also spoke out against the tax proposal.

“As president, I will focus on creating opportunity for the middle class and promoting their economic security, stability and dignity. Together we will build what I call an opportunity economy,” she said Friday.

Ms. Harris’s stance on border issues has changed from when she first ran for office. In 2020, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, she held fairly progressive positions, such as pledging to close immigration detention centers.

In 2021, Biden asked Ms. Harris to oversee diplomatic efforts to address immigration at the U.S. southern border.

She is not a “border czar” as many Republicans describe her, but is working with Central American countries to find the “root causes” of why people there are fleeing to the United States.

As part of that effort, she announced in 2023 that she had helped raise about $3 billion, mostly from private companies, to invest in communities across the region, hoping to provide opportunities that would make immigrating to the United States less attractive.

Earlier this year, she helped pass a tough bipartisan border security deal that included hundreds of millions of dollars for border wall construction.

But Trump helped kill the dealaccusing Biden’s border policies of causing “death, destruction and chaos in every American community.”

Her campaign said she would continue working on “bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security” if elected president.

Ms. Harris has long supported a woman’s right to have an abortion.

She played a key role in the Biden campaign’s efforts to make abortion rights a centerpiece of the 2024 election, and she has long been an advocate for legislation that would guarantee reproductive rights nationwide.

This position has not changed.

“When Congress passes a law that restores reproductive freedom, as President of the United States, I will sign it into law,” she said at a 2024 campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia.

She was the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic and toured the country after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 to talk about America’s growing abortion bans – often taking the issue personally Question freedom.

Powerful reproductive rights advocacy groups like Emily’s List and Reproductive Freedom for All have officially endorsed Ms. Harris since she began her campaign for president.

While much of her early career was centered in California, Ms. Harris has become more involved on the global stage since heading to Washington as a senator in 2017.

As a senator, she visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Israel.

As Vice President, she met with 150 world leaders and visited 21 countries.

She attended the Munich Security Conference last year and spoke in support of NATO, denounced isolationism and vowed to support Ukraine “as long as needed.” She also represented the United States at Ukraine’s “peace conference” in Switzerland in June, where she reiterated U.S. support for Kyiv.

Within 48 hours of her candidacy being made public, 350 leading U.S. foreign policy and national security experts, most of them Democrats, issued a letter endorsing her as “the most qualified person to lead the United States on international affairs.” ”.

Ms. Harris has long advocated for a two-state solution.

As vice president, she was more willing than Biden to criticize Israel in the Israel-Gaza war.

She was one of the first members of the government to call for an “immediate ceasefire”, expressing concern about the “humanitarian catastrophe for the Palestinians” and blaming Israel for an end to the conflict.

She held what she called “candid and constructive” talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Washington in July.

As the Democratic candidate, she said she told Netanyahu that she was “gravely concerned” about the casualties in Gaza and that the way Israel defended itself was important.

“It’s time to end this war,” she said after face-to-face talks at the White House.

However, she does not support an arms embargo on Israel, as some on the American left have called for.

Her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, said on

In 2017, Ms. Harris supported a number of progressive tax plans during her time as a senator, co-sponsoring a bill with Bernie Sanders to expand Social Security for seniors by raising investment tax rates.

As a 2019 presidential candidate, she supported raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 35%.

This is more radical than President Biden’s proposal to increase the ratio to 28%, which she also supports.

A campaign official told the BBC that the vice president will continue to support President Biden’s proposal not to raise taxes on low- and middle-income Americans earning less than $400,000 (£310,000).

As California’s attorney general, Ms. Harris and her office frequently used antitrust laws to prevent insurance companies, hospitals and drug companies from raising costs for customers.

When she became a U.S. senator and then a 2020 presidential candidate, she held more progressive views than Biden, supporting expansion of Medicare and publicly funded health care programs.

Her campaign told the BBC that as president she would not push for a single-payer system.

During her tenure as vice president, the White House lowered prescription drug costs, capped insulin prices at $35, allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices and limited out-of-pocket costs for Medicare drug coverage.

Ms. Harris began her legal career prosecuting child abusers and sex traffickers and was later elected as San Francisco District Attorney and later California Attorney General.

Her office has improved conviction rates, especially for violent offenders, although that history has drawn criticism from the progressive left, who sometimes refer to her as a “cop.”

Meanwhile, the right accuses her of being soft on crime, despite her contradictory record. As a prosecutor, she refused to seek the death penalty for police killers, but as California’s attorney general, she fought for the state’s right to continue using the death penalty.

Ms. Harris also used her experience as a prosecutor to draw a sharp contrast with her opponent, who was convicted on 34 counts of a hush-money scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election.

“Kamala Harris is a pragmatic prosecutor who successfully takes on predators, fraudsters and con men like Donald Trump,” said her campaign spokesman James Singer.

Ms Harris has long advocated tough laws to protect the environment.

As a prosecutor, Ms. Harris defended California’s climate laws and sued oil companies for environmental damage. She also called for climate change policies through a “Green New Deal” during the 2020 presidential campaign, some of which have already yielded results under the current administration.

During the 2019 CNN presidential debate, she said “There is no doubt that I am in favor of banning fracking,” but she has changed her stance since entering the 2024 presidential race.

As vice president, she helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which has injected hundreds of billions of dollars into renewable energy and electric vehicle tax credit and rebate programs.

Last year, she noted in a speech that this was the “largest climate investment in our country’s history” and stressed the need to protect against extreme weather.

Ms. Harris has supported gun safety regulations throughout her political career, and she successfully defended California’s gun laws when they faced legal challenges as the state’s attorney general.

As vice president, she oversaw the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and earlier this year announced the creation of a resource center to support enforcement of red flag laws aimed at preventing gun possession by those who could harm themselves and others.

She also encouraged states to take advantage of the $750 million in federal funding provided by the Biden-Harris administration for crisis intervention programs.