The political positions of Kamala Harris are reflected by her United States Senate voting record, public speeches, and interviews. Harris served as the junior senator from California from 2017 to 2021. On August 11, 2020, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden selected her as his running mate in the 2020 United States presidential election, running against incumbent U.S. president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence. With Biden's victory, Harris became vice president. She announced her candidacy in the 2024 United States presidential election after Biden chose not to run for reelection on July 21, 2024.
Political orientation Harris's politics are widely seen as consistent with Biden's. In 2020, The New York Times called her a "pragmatic moderate", with policy positions that broadly mirror Biden's. CNN called her voting record in the Senate "certainly one of the most liberal", but noted that her record before her Senate tenure was more moderate on some issues. The nonpartisan GovTrack listed Harris as the fourth-most liberal senator from 2017 to 2019, based on a number of factors, including the bills she co-sponsored, and the second-most liberal from 2019 to 2021. The Atlantic wrote in 2024 that "during her 2020 presidential bid, she took some positions to the left of her prior record—several of which she's now walked back in her current bid for president."
Social issues
Abortion Harris supports abortion rights, and reproductive health care was central to her presidential campaign. She has been called "the Biden administration's voice for reproductive rights" and "the White House's voice of unflinching support for reproductive health rights". Several abortion rights and women's organizations supported her after Biden withdrew from the race, with Reproductive Freedom for All saying "there is nobody who has fought as hard [as Harris] for abortion rights and access" and EMILY's List calling her "our most powerful advocate and messenger" on reproductive rights.
As of 2020, Harris had a 100% rating from the abortion rights advocacy group Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and a 0% rating from the anti-abortion group National Right to Life Committee. EMILY's List endorsed her in 2015, during her senatorial campaign.
Affirmative action Harris opposed California's ban on affirmative action and filed an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas (2016), asking that the Court "reaffirm its decision that public colleges and universities may consider race as one factor in admissions decisions".
Capital punishment Harris opposes the death penalty, but has said that she would review each case individually. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said she has "a mixed record".
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. This decision was controversial and criticized by Senator Dianne Feinstein. As California attorney general, Harris was criticized for appealing a federal court ruling that might have resulted in the abolition of the death penalty in the state for not supporting two ballot initiatives that would have banned the death penalty there. But in July 2019, as U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced the federal government's resumption of capital punishment after nearly 20 years without executing a federal inmate, Harris called the move "misguided", "immoral", and "a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars". As a senator, she also co-sponsored a 2019 bill that would have banned the death penalty.
Criminal justice In December 2018, Harris voted for the First Step Act, legislation aimed at reducing recidivism rates among federal prisoners by expanding job training and other programs, in addition to forming an expansion of early release programs and modifications on sentencing laws such as mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, "to more equitably punish drug offenders".
In March 2020, Harris was one of 15 senators to sign a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and private prison companies GEO Group, CoreCivic, and Management and Training Corporation requesting information on their strategy to address the COVID-19 pandemic, asserting that it was "critical that [you] have a plan to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, along with their families and loved ones, and provide treatment to incarcerated individuals and staff who become infected."
In June 2020, after a campaign by a coalition of community groups, including Black Lives Matter, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Los Angeles Police Department budget cuts of $150 million. Harris supported the decision:
In 2020 Harris tweeted in support of donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a bail fund assisting those arrested in the George Floyd protests, though she did not donate to the fund herself.
Harris's criminal justice record has been seen as mixed, with critics calling her "tough on crime" despite her calling herself a "progressive prosecutor", citing her reluctance to release prisoners and anti-truancy policies. In her 2009 book, Harris criticized liberals for what she called "biases against law enforcement".
Drugs Harris did not initially support legalization of recreational cannabis, but later moved to support it. In 2010, while San Francisco District Attorney and campaigning for Attorney General of California, she opposed Proposition 19, the first attempt to legalize recreational cannabis in California, arguing that selling drugs harms communities. In 2015, she called for an end to the federal prohibition of medical cannabis.
In April 2018, after reports that the Justice Department was blocking the Drug Enforcement Administration from taking action on over two dozen requests to grow cannabis for use in research, Harris and Senator Orrin Hatch sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions asserting the necessity of cannabis research "for evidence-based decision making" and "to resolve critical questions of public health and safety, such as learning the impacts of marijuana on developing brains and formulating methods to test marijuana impairment in drivers".
In May 2018, Harris co-sponsored the Marijuana Justice Act (originally introduced by Senator Cory Booker in August 2017), which, if passed, would have legalized cannabis at the federal level by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act. The bill would have also required federal courts to automatically expunge earlier federal marijuana convictions related to use or possession and would have penalized states that enforce cannabis laws disproportionately against minority or low-income people. In February 2019, as she reintroduced the Marijuana Justice Act, Harris asserted that the U.S. had not equally applied cannabis laws and "criminalized marijuana use in a way that has led to the disproportionate incarceration of young men of color".
In July 2019, Harris and Representative Jerry Nadler introduced the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which, like the 2018 bill, would have legalized cannabis on the federal level and expunged low-level cannabis possession convictions, and would have authorized grants to members of communities of color as part of an effort to reverse decades of damage cannabis criminalization had inflicted on that community. "MORE Act of 2019" In a statement, Harris cited the need to regulate cannabis and ensure "everyone—especially communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs—has a real opportunity to participate in this growing industry."
Education Harris has argued for treating "habitual and chronic truancy" among children in elementary school as a crime committed by the parents of truant children. She argues that there is a direct connection between habitual truancy in elementary school and crime later in life. In 2010, her California attorney general campaign website said she had been endorsed by the California Federation of Teachers.
Harris supports busing to desegregate public schools, saying, "the schools of America are as segregated, if not more segregated, today than when I was in elementary school." She views busing as an option to be considered by school districts, rather than the federal government's responsibility.
Harris supports the creation of a government funding program to pay tuition and fees for students attending public colleges and universities for dependent students whose parents have income of $125,000 or less and independent students with incomes of $125,000 or less. The program would be funded by a 0.5% fee per stock trade on Wall Street firms. Harris proposed having up to $20,000 in student debt forgiven for Pell Grant recipients who start a business and operate it for at least three years in a disadvantaged community. Eligible students would also have loans deferred interest-free for a business formation period of up to three years.
Election security On December 21, 2017, Harris was one of six senators to introduce the "Secure Elections Act", legislation authorizing block grants for states that would update outdated voting technology. The bill would have also created a program for an independent panel of experts to develop cybersecurity guidelines for election systems that states could adopt if they choose, and offered states resources to implement the recommendations.
In March 2019, Harris told Jimmy Kimmel that she was open to discussing abolishing the Electoral College given that there was "no question that the popular vote has been diminished in terms of making the final decision about who's the president of the United States and we need to deal with that."
In May 2019, Harris co-sponsored the Protecting American Votes and Elections (PAVE) Act, legislation that would have granted the United States Department of Homeland Security the authority "to set minimum cybersecurity standards for U.S. voting machines, authorized a one-time $500 million grant program for states to buy ballot-scanning machines to count paper ballots, and required states to conduct risk-limiting audits of all federal elections in order to detect any cyber hacks".
Gun control Harris has consistently supported gun control and has received an "F" rating from the pro-gun NRA Political Victory Fund. As district attorney in San Francisco, Harris, along with other district attorneys, filed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller arguing the Washington, D.C. gun law at issue did not violate the Second Amendment.
During her 2016 campaign for Senate, Harris was endorsed by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, founder of the Giffords Center for Violence Intervention, endorsed her in 2016 and 2024, saying at an event on July 25, 2024, that the upcoming election was a "choice between Harris, who would sign a ban on assault weapons, and more gun violence under Trump, who gun-rights groups back." In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Harris supported the call for more gun control. Saying thoughts and prayers are an inadequate answer to the shooting, she said, "we must also commit ourselves to action. Another moment of silence won't suffice."
In November 2017, Harris co-sponsored the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would have established a charge of Domestic Violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulated that convictions would have to be reported within three days to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from buying firearms in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers can do so.