The two presidential candidates present extreme contrasts in their platforms.
Vice President Kamala Harris stepped up to run for president following President Joe Biden’s resignation. She said she plans to cut costs for working-class families by lowering food, grocery, healthcare and prescription costs.
Harris was a top prosecutor for Alameda County from 2004 to 2011 before becoming California's Attorney General. As AG, she focused on marriage equality, consumer protection and environmental justice.
Her running mate is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
He was elected in 2018 and won reelection in 2022. Walz plans to focus on education and the protection of women’s and disabled people's rights.
Walz served in the military and had been in Congress for 12 years. He supports the right to own a gun, but after the Parkland massacre, he is in favour of tighter gun control, like Harris.
Meanwhile, former President and Republican nominee Donald J. Trump is running for the third time, looking to be only the second president in American history to serve non-consecutive terms.
His campaign focused on immigration and the economy as its pillars, claiming he has plans to “Make America Great Again.”
Leaving the White House in 2020 after being defeated by President Joe Biden, the former president declared his intention to run for a second term after the midterm elections in 2022.
The 78-year-old candidate is a father of five children from three marriages and in early 2024 was convicted of 34 felony counts in a hush money trial. He was also found liable for sex abuse and defamation in a civil trial brought on by E. Jean Carroll.
Trump’s running mate is the Ohio Senator JD Vance.
Vance got famous in 2016 after publishing his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which tells the struggles of the country’s white working class through his own experiences.
He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, where he was deployed to serve in the Iraq War. Vance graduated from Ohio State University in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy.
After years of criticism of Trump, Vance was announced as the former president's running mate on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 15, 202
