Compare the Candidates

Vice President Harris champions efforts to increase funding for public education. In her role as President of the Senate, she cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the American Rescue plan—the single largest investment in public education in U.S. history. The plan increases educator pay, modernizes buildings, and ensures students have access to the internet and technology at home.

Vice President Harris is an advocate for providing students and educators with the mental health resources they need. The Biden-Harris administration has made major investments in mental health services through the American Rescue Plan and Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Harris recently announced that the administration will provide $285 million to hire around 14,000 mental health professionals to provide school-based support for children and families, with a focus on underserved communities.

Vice President Harris leads the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, tightening background checks and keeping guns away from domestic abusers. Harris is committed to protecting students, schools, and communities by expanding background checks, closing the gun show loophole, and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Vice President Harris has championed student loan forgiveness, helping cancel debt for over 940,000 educators and public service workers through Public Service Loan Forgiveness reforms. She’s increased the maximum Pell Grant by $900—the largest increase in more than a decade—and invested in community colleges to make higher education more affordable. Also, as Attorney General, Harris took on for-profit colleges that were defrauding students and won.

As co-chair of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, Harris directed federal agencies to strengthen partnerships with unions, making it easier to grow membership and organize. “When unions are strong, America is strong,” she said. Harris vows to sign landmark pro-union legislation, including the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, to protect workers’ rights to organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions.

Harris criticizes groups like Moms for Liberty for “attacking the freedom to learn” and supports teaching accurate U.S. history, including racism and LGBTQ+ topics. In 2023, the Biden-Harris administration appointed a “book czar” to fight censorship. “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books. Can you imagine?” she told educators.

Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are advocates for better opportunities for working Americans. They support raising the minimum wage, and providing paid leave, and have vowed to never raise taxes on households earning under $400,000. The Harris-Walz plan could deliver tax cuts to over 100 million working and middle-class Americans by restoring the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit. Harris also proposes ensuring the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations pay what they owe by rolling back Trump’s tax cuts for the rich, implementing a billionaire minimum tax, and increasing taxes on stock buybacks.

While in the Senate, Harris opposed the Trump administration’s drastic changes to Title IX, which narrowed the definition of sexual harassment, made it harder for victims to come forward, and reduced schools’ liability. The Biden-Harris administration has since updated Title IX to cover discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and discrimination against pregnant students and educators.