As we enter the last few weeks of campaigning before Election Day on November 5, some voters are concerned that they don’t know enough about Kamala Harris or her policies. The Harris campaign rolled out a policy platform shortly before the first and only debate between Harris and former president Donald Trump in September. There’s some good stuff in there for young voters when it comes to the affordable housing crisis and the care economy. Here are four of Harris’s most crucial policy proposals…and two platform issues that many young people might find lacking.
Are you registered to vote? Check your voter registration here.
Harris is focusing on affordable housing
Voters under 30 have said that the cost of living is one of their top policy concerns, particularly when it comes to the cost of housing. According to an NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z poll released in September, 84% of young voters say that owning a home is harder to achieve for them than it was for their parents, and with rents rising faster than wages across the country, finding any affordable housing can be difficult for young people nationwide. The proposed Harris-Walz housing plan tackles the affordable housing crisis on multiple fronts. First, the plan calls for the construction of three million new housing units, of which 1.2 million are stipulated as affordable, over the next four years for renters and owners. According to a USA Today report that cites Census data, about 5.5 million new housing units were built between 2020 and 2023, so the addition of a federal housing initiative on top of that baseline would increase the new housing supply by about 50%. The housing plan also emphasizes limiting Wall Street's influence on the housing market, calling on Congress to pass the Stop Predatory Investing Act, which would take away tax benefits for corporate landlords who buy up single-family homes and jack up the rental prices.
Another Harris housing proposal making waves is her plan to give first-time homebuyers who’ve paid their rent on time for two years up to $25,000 to help with their down payments, with even more financial assistance available for first-generation homeowners. There’s some criticism that this plan might result in altogether higher home prices, although that may depend on how it’s ultimately implemented.
She's called to expand the Child Tax Credit
The cost of childcare has skyrocketed across the country, and while this might not interest most young Americans just yet, it has real implications for whether or not young people will be able to afford to have a family in the future. Harris’s tax proposals call for the expansion of the Child Tax Credit to provide a $6,000 tax cut for families with new babies. In 2021, a one-year, pandemic-era expansion of the credit from $2,000 per child to up to $3,600 per child under 6, and $3,000 per child ages 6 to 17 helped to cut child poverty nearly in half, from 9.7 % to 5.2%. (Child poverty rates soared when Congress let the expansion lapse in 2022.) Though Harris’s proposed expansion would only be for people with newborns, it could significantly help middle- and low-income families with childcare costs.
In addition to the proposed tax credit expansion, Harris has also proposed capping childcare costs at 7% of a family’s income, though the specifics of that proposal are not entirely clear and it is not included in her policy platform. (The Biden administration’s 2021 American Rescue Plan did support thousands of childcare programs, but those funds expired last year.)
Protecting and expanding abortion rights is a priority
Harris’s outspoken support for abortion rights is probably the most stark difference between her candidacy and Biden’s (well, that and the fact that she’s a Black woman more than 20 years his junior). As a lifelong Catholic, Biden once opposed abortion and has always seemed uncomfortable voicing support for it even as it became one of the Democrats’ central political battles. Harris, meanwhile, has been a far more effective messenger in the fight for reproductive access. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, only an act of Congress can restore reproductive rights nationwide, so there’s not so much Harris can do as president. However, in her policy platform she promises to 1) sign such an act should Congress pass it and 2) never allow a national abortion ban to become law, something Trump has waffled on since appointing the Supreme Court majority responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. (He now claims he’ll veto a federal abortion ban, but that probably depends on how the political winds blow if he’s reelected.)
Not included in the Harris-Walz platform, but of note: Harris recently said that she supports overturning the filibuster in the Senate to bring back federal protections for abortion. Currently, the filibuster rule requires at least 60 Senate votes to pass most legislation, which makes it incredibly difficult to get bills through Congress. "I've been very clear: I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do," Harris told WPR in September.
It’s also worth noting that a Harris presidency could change the makeup of the Supreme Court, depending on what happens in the next four to eight years as two of the most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, are well into their 70s. Replacing them with younger, liberal justices and restoring the Court’s liberal majority could protect reproductive rights and other freedoms—something that would take decades if Thomas and Alito are replaced by younger conservative justices during a Trump presidency.
She wants to address the high cost of groceries
The cost of goods increased sharply over the last few years even as inflation has waned, all while some food companies are enjoying record profits. Harris has proposed cracking down on businesses that illegally jack up the cost of goods for their own benefit, particularly when it comes to groceries, and while some economists are mixed on how helpful that proposal might ultimately be, any attempt to combat high food costs sounds pretty good right now. That said, Harris seems to have walked back some of this since publishing her online platform. In an interview with MSNBC in late September, she said that this would apply only after emergencies, which is in line with laws in a large majority of states. We’ll see how this shakes out if she’s elected.
Where Harris will have to be pushed:
Her immigration proposals are really not it
Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton ran on one of the most progressive immigration platforms in history, as Trump touted deportation, the end of birthright citizenship, and building a massive wall on the Mexican border. Now, after an increase in migration at the southern border during much of the Biden administration, both parties appear to have moved right on immigration even though border crossings have sharply declined in the last year. Trump’s plan includes mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, possibly including migrants with Temporary Protected Status. Harris’s proposals aren’t quite as draconian, but she’s been trying to combat her GOP branding as Biden’s “border czar” with some tough-on-the-border talk that includes backing the bipartisan border security bill that GOP senators blocked in May. That bill was one of the most conservative border security bills in recent history and would make it far more difficult for asylum-seekers to cross into the United States. Harris’s support of the bill and general tough talk on immigration are sure to be a target for immigration advocates if she wins in November.
She wants to continue funding Israel's military
When Harris first became the nominee, there was some speculation she might break with President Biden when it came to the United States’s logistical and financial backing of Israel’s military amid the ongoing assault on Gaza. So far, that hasn’t come to pass and Harris has stuck to the Biden administration’s line about supporting Israel while working toward a ceasefire. There’s not much time to move Harris in the waning days of the campaign and it’s unclear whether she’ll change her position once she’s no longer working in Biden’s administration. If she is elected, this will likely be an ongoing fight for activists.
Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take
