Russia-Ukraine 

Kamala Harris: The current vice president said at the Democratic convention in August that she "will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies." She has accused Russia of committing crimes against humanity. On Harris's campaign website, it states that she has "helped mobilize a global response of more than 50 countries to help Ukraine defend itself against Vladimir Putin's brutal aggression."

Donald Trump: The former Republican president said that he would "encourage" Russia to attack any NATO member that didn't meet its financial obligations to the bloc instead of defending "delinquent" member nations. He later softened that stance slightly but has also spoken of pulling out of NATO if members don't increase defense spending. Trump has said that were he to be elected on November 5, he would end the war in Ukraine before his inauguration in January 2025. He has not supplied specifics about how he would achieve this goal. "I can't give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I'm not going to be able to use them," he said in a podcast interview in September. "They'll be unsuccessful. Part of it's surprise."

Israel-Hamas 

Harris, just like current President Joe Biden, supports Israel in its ongoing war against the Islamist militant group Hamas and says that the US will continue to help Israel defend its right to exist if she becomes president. But she has been more open than Biden in calling out the suffering in Gaza and emphasizing that it must stop. She is advocating for a cease-fire, the release of the hostages by Hamas and a two-state solution. In July 2024, she skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to US Congress but later met with him in private while he was in Washington.

Trump said in April 2024 that Israel needs to get its offensive in Gaza over with quickly because it's "absolutely losing the PR war." He encourages the country to "get it over with, and let's get back to peace and stop killing people." However, Trump has also said he stands with Netanyahu, with whom he was closely allied during his time as president. In the TV debate, Trump said he would "get [the war] settled, and fast," again without giving details about his plan.

Abortion 

Harris is a staunch defender of reproductive rights. She has said that if she becomes president, she will fight to reinstitute the nationwide right to choose and not leave the legal status of abortion up to individual US states. States have been able to make their own laws about the contentious issue since the Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, a landmark ruling from 1973 that protected the right to have an abortion nationwide. On her campaign website, it states that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz "trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and not have the government tell them what to do."

During Trump's time in the White House, he appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, cementing the conservative majority that ended Roe vs. Wade. In 2020, he was the first sitting president to speak at the large anti-abortion "March for Life" protest in Washington DC. Anti-abortion Evangelical Americans are also a crucial voter base for Trump. He has not spoken out in favor of a national abortion ban but supports states' rights to determine their own laws on the matter. 

Economy 

Harris has made championing the middle class a central issue of her campaign. She promises to "create an Opportunity Economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed." Going into more detail, her campaign website states that Harris plans to fight to "cut taxes for more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans while lowering the costs of everyday needs like health care, housing, and groceries." She also wants to make rent more affordable, enable more Americans to fulfill their dream of home ownership and support small businesses.

Trump blames high inflation in the US on Biden's high spending. His campaign website says his "vision" for the US economy includes "lower taxes, bigger paychecks and more jobs for American workers." Trump has promised to extend the tax cuts he instituted during his time as president that benefited corporations and wealthy households. He also wants fewer government regulations on the economy. 

Immigration 

As vice president, Harris was put in charge of immigration and border security by President Biden. She has been criticized for not doing enough to stem irregular migration. If she were to become president, Harris has said she would sign the bipartisan border security bill into law that was killed by Republicans in Congress under pressure from Trump. The legislation would "deploy more detection technology to intercept fentanyl and other drugs and [add] 1,500 border security agents to protect [the US] border," according to Harris's campaign website. Republicans blocked it, saying the bill didn't go far enough.

Trump has promised the largest deportation operation in US history if he is elected. He wants to reimpose strict immigration regulations he instituted during his time in office, like a travel ban on citizens from certain majority-Muslim countries like Iran, Syria, Somalia and Yemen. In addition, Trump wants to move "thousands of troops currently stationed overseas to [the US's] southern border," as stated in his "Agenda 47," available through his campaign website (Harris or Trump will be the 47th president of the United States). 

Climate 

Harris plans to "hold polluters accountable to secure clean air and water for all," according to her campaign website. Under her presidency, the US would remain in the Paris Climate Agreement. She wants to increase the country's resilience to extreme weather and climate disasters and wants to build "a thriving clean energy economy."

Trump has vowed that under him, the US would once again exit the Paris Climate Agreement, a step he took when he was president that Biden reversed. He'd stop wind energy subsidies and increase oil drilling in the US, and he wants the US to become energy independent. His campaign website states that "Republicans will unleash energy production from all sources, including nuclear, to immediately slash inflation."

LGBTQ+ rights 

Harris, 20 years ago in 2004, officiated some of the first same-sex weddings in the country as then-district attorney of San Francisco. On her campaign website, she states that she will "fight to pass the Equality Act to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing [and] education." The Biden-Harris administration has blocked anti-trans legislation in several states and reversed Trump's ban on transgender people in the military.

Trump wants to reinstitute that ban. He rejects transgender rights and, if reelected, plans to "cease all [federal] programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age." Furthermore, he wants to keep transgender women out of women's sports and introduce a law stating that "the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female — and they are assigned at birth."   

Edited by: Rob Mudge