Vice President Kamala Harris has developed a crowd-pleasing line when campaigning against Project 2025, the 887-page policy agenda written for former President Trump by his Republican allies.
“I can’t believe they put that in writing,” he says at rallies, prompting laughter and applause.
The goal is to emphasize what she and other Democrats have described as Trump’s radical agenda, but it also reveals what has so far been Harris’ tendency: to campaign on broad themes about “freedom” and her contrast to Trump without exposing her own vision to the scrutiny that comes with detailed policy plans.
Harris has been at the top of the list of candidates in her race against Trump for less than a month. On Saturday, she told reporters that she would lay out more economic policies this week. But the combination of an abbreviated campaign and a desire to maintain positive political momentum has resulted in less detailed plans than most previous candidates.
Trump's proposals are often criticized as vague, extreme or incoherent, and he has tried to distance himself from Project 2025.
Harris has yet to create an issues section on her campaign website. Her campaign is largely based on her accomplishments with President Biden over the past three and a half years and her broad promises to work for the middle class, expand reproductive rights and forge a more balanced approach than Trump on immigration and other divisive issues where she is most politically vulnerable.
“Ours is a fight for the future and it is a fight for freedom,” he said at a rally in Arizona on Friday.
But pressure is mounting for him to win more, especially in areas where he may differ from Biden or has changed his stance since the 2020 Democratic primary, when he courted the progressive wing of his party.
“There are a lot of political observers who are now living off the euphoria of these last three weeks,” said Kevin Madden, who served as a spokesman for Republican Sen. Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. “That's quickly coming to an end.”
In addition to deciding who leads the country, campaigns are used to vet ideas and set national priorities, allowing candidates to set the terms of debate for the next four years. Biden and Harris used the 2020 slogan “Build Back Better” as the basis for landmark legislation that spent trillions of dollars on infrastructure, environmental and anti-poverty programs, using their campaign win as a mandate to help win approval through Congress.
Lanhee Chen, Romney's top political adviser in 2012, described a detailed policy process for his campaign that involved hours of debate, with aides developing competing proposals and challenging each other in front of Romney — a process intended to prepare the candidate and his inner circle for how they would set policy in the White House.
But detailed plans also pose political risks. And in the Trump era, Democrats have complained more aggressively that such traditions have become one-sided and blamed the media for complicity.
“There’s an expectation that Democrats must have a million plans and Republicans have no plans and all they do is focus on the Democrats’ plans,” said one person who is in contact with the campaign and requested anonymity to speak candidly.
That person and others in Harris’ orbit promised that next week’s Democratic convention in Chicago would reveal more details, including the Democratic platform that is now in draft form.
But current events are also likely to force Harris to respond, particularly the war between Israel and Hamas, which appears to be on the verge of escalating into a broader regional conflict.
“The avalanche of events we are witnessing — some of which are predictable, some of which are unpredictable — will force us to make a reckoning,” said Natasha Hall, a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Harris has been more forceful than Biden in calling on Israel to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would allow for the return of Israeli hostages, but she has not generated major policy differences, resisting, for example, calls from some progressive activists not to deliver U.S. weapons to Israel. The change in tone has won her goodwill from progressives and Palestinian activists (who were furious with Biden), but she may not be able to reach a deal until the election, Hall said.
Harris is likely to model much of her foreign policy after Biden’s. In response to questions from The Times, her campaign reiterated its support for a two-state solution. But “what everyone is watching is how her Middle East policy will be different,” Hall said.
Debates are playing out similarly on other political fronts. Harris has backed away from her partial support for a single-payer health plan she promoted in the 2020 campaign, and is now campaigning to protect the Affordable Care Act from Trump, who repeatedly tried to repeal it when he was president. Her campaign told the Times she wants to expand access to affordable health care and lower drug costs and premiums for patients, but did not provide a plan. Harris has also emphasized her record as a prosecutor — in contrast to her 2020 statement questioning police budget priorities — but has not put forth a criminal justice platform.
“They can make the race about Trump. The problem is Trump will make it about Harris,” said Chen, who ran unsuccessfully for California comptroller in 2022. “There are enough elements in her record that are to the left of where I think most Americans are.”
Progressive activists who were most critical of Biden are giving Harris room to maneuver — for now.
“A lot of people in our generation are feeling cautiously optimistic,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, communications director for the Sunrise Movement, a youth-focused climate advocacy group. “It was a big shift when President Biden dropped out of the campaign. I think a lot of young people are encouraged by the fact that politics actually works for once.”
O'Hanlon said Sunrise would campaign for Harris regardless of whether the group formally endorses her or not, but would like to see “some substance” in her climate plans.
The Rev. William Barber, an anti-poverty activist, said that “if you listen closely,” Harris “is talking about the things that every day, particularly poor and low-wage people, need to hear.” He cited her promise to put unions, a living wage and other issues she campaigned on with Biden in 2020 at the center of her 2024 campaign.
Dan Geldon, a top adviser to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 campaign who made her love of writing policy plans a slogan, said the context for Harris is different because she is running as a sitting vice president.
“She’s been giving speeches making it clear that from day one she’s going to stand up to price gouging, to junk tariffs and to banks, drug companies and landlords who deserve to be held accountable,” he said approvingly, alluding to promises including caps on rent increases and drug costs.
But without a comprehensive plan, it's harder to know how her promises would win approval in Congress, pay off or affect the economy — or to hold her accountable for delivering on them if she's elected.
For example, at a rally in Nevada on Saturday, Harris announced that she favored eliminating taxes on tipped wages, following a Trump proposal that has been criticized by many economists as an arbitrary giveaway to a class of workers that doesn’t take into account other measures of equity. Without specifics, there’s no way to accurately judge how much it would cost the government in lost revenue or how workers in different states and income levels would be affected.
Harris also laid out part of an immigration agenda during a rally in Arizona on Friday in which she emphasized her role in prosecuting human traffickers and smugglers during her tenure as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017. The tougher rhetoric matches an overall tougher line since her 2020 campaign, when she joined other progressives in criticizing the role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We know our immigration system is broken and we know what it will take to fix it,” he said in Arizona. “Comprehensive reform that includes strong border security and an earned path to citizenship.”
He criticized Trump for sabotaging a border control bill that was negotiated with Republicans and pledged to sign it if elected.
Trump has criticized Harris, falsely calling her the “border czar” because she led the administration’s efforts to improve economic and security conditions in Central America and stem the arrival of migrants from the region. Harris’s tough talk indicates she recognizes political vulnerability.
It also shows that Harris “as president would be willing to put her stamp of leadership” on immigration reform, said Doris Meissner, director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a left-leaning, nonpartisan think tank. “I would say that’s different than how Biden treated it.”
