During the first and only 2024 presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump critiqued Harris’ role as second-in-command to President Joe Biden. “[If] she’s gonna do all these wonderful things,” Trump said. “Why hasn’t she done [them]?”
Despite the position of vice president often being more passive than the president, Harris took on multiple issues during her time in office.
Throughout the 2024 Presidential campaign, Harris continues to make a name for herself as a leader whose policies are separate from but allied with Biden’s. Many question Harris’ policies and how they will impact the United States if she takes office this coming January.
Jonathan Weisman, a politics reporter at The New York Times, noted that one of Harris’ most supported points in the debate is her policy on abortion.
“Her policy, as I understand it, is to support and sign a federal bill returning law across the country to what it was before Dobbs,” Stanford Law Professor Henry Greely said in an interview with The Urban Legend.
Greely refers to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, where the Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act. The law bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies and fetal abnormalities. In June 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the Mississippi law and overturned Roe v. Wade, which ended the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.
“The chance that [Harris’ policy] would happen in my lifetime is very small, since not only would she need a majority of the House of Representatives, but she would need 60 votes in the Senate, which she is not going to have. So it’s mainly a policy that has political value,” Greely said.
Greely cited that a Blue Wave — a term used when the Democratic Party makes significant gains from elections — could possibly prompt Roe’s resurgence. “Should there be a Blue Wave across the Senate this time or next time, [Roe] might come into play,” he said.
Immigration is a major topic in both Harris’ and Trump’s respective campaigns. Under the Biden administration, Harris supported the president’s immigration policies.
One distinct part of Harris’ campaign includes a proposed border compromise to strengthen border security and put restrictions on asylum. “The original border bill was tied to foreign aid funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan,” Jastram said in an interview with the Urban Legend. “But it’s not part of a foreign aid bill anymore. It’s a standalone, ‘let’s crack down on the border,’ kind of bill.”
Some policies from the Biden administration that limit people’s ability to seek asylum at the southwest border are also part of Harris’ plan for presidency. “[Compared to Biden], there might be some advocacy agenda and more scope from the Harris administration to address the backlogs in immigration court and at the asylum office, which is part of [Harris’] border bill,” said Jastram.
Although Harris’ economic agenda remained unclear for some time, her campaign handed out an 82-page booklet detailing proposals on housing, health and taxes to supporters gathered at an event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Sept. 25.
When it comes to climate policy, Biden and Harris agree in their beliefs about climate change in the United States, as well as its effect on small, underfunded communities. “She mentions continuing the Biden administration’s goal of putting resources into under-resourced communities to make them capable of accessing … the benefits of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act,” Columbia Law Professor Camille Pannu said in an interview with The Urban Legend.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, enacted in Nov. 2021, invests in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, delivering clean drinking water to families who have lead service lines. In Aug. 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, which largely invests in domestic energy production while promoting clean energy. Harris helped pass both laws into the national legislature, casting the tie-breaking vote in a divided Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act.
“She’s also talked a lot about capacity-building, which is ensuring that folks have access to the resources they need and hiring technical experts to apply for federal grants,” Pannu said. “In terms of climate policy for communities that have historically been excluded, it seems like she feels like there’s a very strong economic justice, racial justice and geographic need to continue to focus on areas that are experiencing overwhelming environmental harms.”
According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a method used to extract natural gas and oil from deep rock formations. Many environmentalists oppose fracking, as it creates wastewater and emits greenhouse gasses such as methane. Harris’ stance on the environment currently advocates for fracking, despite her policies for climate change.
“You can’t just go cold turkey on renewable energy, and she sees fracking as a necessary part of any energy transition. … I think this is a place where there are generational differences over how urgent people think climate change is as an existential threat,” Pannu said. “Younger generations want more radical change and older generations tell us it’s not politically possible.”
Including moderate policies could help Harris reach more voter demographics. “To get effective climate policies passed, Harris needs to be in office. Being pro-fracking and being seen as less radical may just be a step to get there,” Green Team Co-Leader Laurel Socolow ‘25 said.
But Harris’ progressive policies in her campaign go beyond her climate plans. “People are unhappy with a lot of what the Biden administration has done, but in the Harris administration, there’s definitely a feeling of difference,” said Jastram. “Harris can be talked to and be reasoned with advocacy, whereas with the Trump administration, you can’t talk to them at all.”
Harris’ abortion policy may make the biggest difference to voters. “In California, we feel protected in that the government will protect our reproductive rights,” SWEAR Co-Leader Raelynn Smith ‘27 said. “But if Harris doesn’t win, it’s possible that an abortion ban could take over the entire country. We would no longer be in our bubble.”
