How Kamala Harris fits with a Democratic platform tailored for a Joe Biden presidency

When President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race on July 21 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s platform had already been locked in for five days.

So, a 92-page document that mentioned Biden 287 times, touting his first-term accomplishments and articulating goals for his second, is now the agenda of a campaign being run by Harris — who is referenced only 32 times.

Will that make a difference?

“Not really,” said Stephen Medvic, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, and an expert on elections. “I don’t think there’s anything different in the platform from what Harris has been saying, or what she herself did in the Biden administration.

“While she might emphasize certain points differently, Harris agrees with much of the agenda.”

The platform, which touches on issues such as abortion, the economy, jobs creation, climate change, the border, and criticism of former President Donald Trump — mentioned 150 times — will remain the Democrats’ worklist going forward, albeit with a new boss calling the shots.

Historically, while a platform is by no means binding, it offers the public a sense of its party’s principles and priorities in the upcoming election. Not a strategic plan with metrics, a platform — especially one for a second-term administration — presents past accomplishments as much, or more than, future goals, Medvic said.

A few of the Democratic platform’s major topics include:

Tapping the rich while cutting taxes for working families, Democrats say in the platform that by closing loopholes they’ll make billionaires pay a minimum income tax rate of 25%, raising $500 billion in 10 years.

The platform adds plans to “end preferential treatment for capital gains for millionaires, so they pay the same rate on investment income.” There will also be a “crackdown” on “junk fees” — hidden charges that airlines, internet providers, and hotels add to people’s bills without their knowledge.

Additionally, some 500,000 households, including those of low-income veterans and young people aging out of foster care, will receive rental assistance, according to the platform. The plan also calls for funding to help build or renovate 2 million homes nationwide.

A new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit will be introduced, the “first ever” to focus on creating affordable housing not just for renters, but for homeowners.

The platform references Americans’ coping with the high costs of food, housing, and health care. In remarks dovetailing with the Democratic plan, Harris recently unveiled an economic agenda, in which she focuses on such expenses.

One difference between Harris and the platform is that Harris proposes a $25,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers, versus a $10,000 credit stated in the Democratic document.

The next Democratic administration will “push Congress to provide the resources and authorities that we need to secure the border,” the platform states. This would include additional border patrol agents, immigration judges, asylum officers, cutting-edge inspection machines to help detect and stop the flow of fentanyl, and funding for cities and states that are sheltering migrants.

These planks appear to be a rebuttal to Trump’s constant refrain that the Democrats have fumbled all aspects of border control.

In the platform, the Biden administration criticizes Trump for using his influence to kill a bipartisan deal with Congress that “included the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border. It would have made our country safer and made our border more secure, while treating people fairly and humanely and expanding legal immigration, consistent with our values as a nation.”

The platform also calls for ways to expand legal immigration for those coming to the U.S. to escape violence. And it emphasizes ways to keep families together by supporting a pathway to citizenship for long-term undocumented individuals and securing the future of the DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), a policy that temporarily protects undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children from deportation.

The platform declares that Biden and Harris “believe a strong, secure, and democratic Israel is vital to the interests of the United States.”

It also says the administration supports a two-state solution that ensures Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state with recognized borders, and that it upholds the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own.

The war in Gaza has sharply divided the Democratic Party and the platform appears to be an effort to address concerns of the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinians factions within the party.

The platform expresses the intention to broker an “immediate and lasting cease-fire deal” that secures the return of hostages and addresses the “immense civilian pain and extreme suffering being caused by the conflict, including the displacement and death of so many innocent people in Gaza.”

Further, the platform says that Biden and Harris oppose settlement expansion, as well as any effort to “unfairly single out or delegitimize Israel.”

Aware of pro-Palestinian sentiments resonating throughout America and the Democratic Party, it seems that Harris “has spoken about the humanitarian toll in Gaza more than Biden has,” indicating a slight departure from the platform, according to Dan Mallinson, a professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg. “Protests have probably pushed her more on that.” Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago throughout the week.

In the platform, Democrats discuss how Biden and Harris have joined other like-minded Americans to “restore reproductive freedom for every woman in every state.”

Much of the document includes a summary of what the Biden administration has already done, including “challenging threats from Republicans to prosecute people who help women travel to different state for abortion care.”

The Biden administration has worked to safeguard the privacy of patients and providers, according to the platform, by strengthening federal health privacy protections, cracking down on the illegal sharing of personal information, and issuing guidance to protect student privacy.

Harris can use the platform to hit harder on abortion rights, Mallinson said.

The issue has grown more consequential this presidential election, the first since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the federal right to an abortion in 2022.

“Ideas in the platform like codifying Roe and increasing IVF access are consistent with Harris’ approach,” he added. “But I think it’s more central to her campaign than it was to Biden’s. He was where his party is on the issue, but her campaign talks about freedom, and this fits in well.

“Plus, she’s a much stronger messenger than Biden as a woman, and it’s easier for her to forcefully argue the issue. It’s a comfort thing for her.”

The Democratic platform brims with enmity toward Trump. Nearly every major category listed in the document includes an allegation of how the former president sits on the wrong side of an issue.

One of the main criticisms of Trump, the platform imparts, is that his view of the world is limited to “what he sees from his country club at Mar-a-Lago,” echoing a line that Biden used on the campaign trail.

In the platform, Trump is specifically criticized for: