Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will spar head-to-head Tuesday evening for the first time during a live televised debate.
The debate, moderated by ABC News, will be 90 minutes of discussion with two commercial breaks and will feature muted mics after each candidate finishes speaking.
Boundless hot-button issues will come up, but recent Google Search trends on politics and elections offer a window into what topics Americans currently care most about or are the most interested in.
Those top seven topics, according to the Associated Press and Google Trends, in order from most to least searched, include Social Security, crime, healthcare, unemployment, economy, immigration, and abortion.
Here’s where Harris and Trump stand on each of those subjects heading into their first debate. Harris’s record and stated positions on some policies are limited, and her campaign website lacks a policy platform.
Social Security
Both candidates have vowed not to cut benefits that tens of millions of elderly people rely upon. But neither has been forthcoming on details about how to save the vital retirement program from going bankrupt in less than a decade.
Any significant changes would need to be approved by Congress.
Trump has vowed not to raise the retirement age for benefits, which can begin as early as 62. He’s suggested a stronger economy, and thus more taxes paid toward Social Security would be his main strategy to ensure its financial solvency. He also supports ending federal tax on recipient benefits, which would move up the program’s bankruptcy timeline.
Harris has previously supported expanding the Social Security payroll tax to incomes over $250,000 a year. The current cap is $168,600.
Crime
Trump took a more tough-on-crime approach as president. He’s blamed illegal immigration, defund the police efforts, and racial justice initiatives for violent crime. He’s accused the Biden administration and Democrats in cities and states of failing to crack down on violent criminals while shouldering blame for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Trump pushed through bipartisan criminal justice reform during his term known as the First Step Act, which sought to reduce nonviolent sentences.
Harris has promoted her former prosecutor chops to portray herself as tough on crime but someone who will emphasize racial justice. She’s previously described herself as a “progressive prosecutor” and has promoted the administration’s gun violence prevention platform that includes an assault weapons ban.
Healthcare
Trump no longer runs on repealing the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. Instead, he’s offered vague promises to bring down healthcare and prescription drug costs. The GOP platform says he and Republicans will increase transparency, promote competition, and expand access to new plans and drugs. Trump also says he’ll support Medicare.
As president, Trump used executive actions to loosen some ACA policies.
In 2019 during her presidential run, then-California Sen. Kamala Harris supported Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) Medicare for All Act. Her stance has since morphed to support ACA expansions. The Biden White House has called for extending ACA subsidies set to expire next year that he signed into law.
Unemployment
Although the unemployment rate has ticked up slightly to 4.2% in recent months, it remains at a historically low number. Prior to COVID-19 hammering the workforce, the unemployment rate in February 2020 under Trump was 3.5%.
Trump, without evidence, has claimed virtually all new jobs are being taken by migrants illegally entering the country.
Both Trump and Biden saw historically long periods of sub-4% unemployment rate, a number the Federal Reserve has sought to move slightly upward over the past year to fight record inflation.
Economy
Inflation dipped in August to 2.9%, the lowest since March 2021. But affordability remains a major flashpoint of the presidential race despite average wage growth slightly outpacing or matching inflation in recent years.
Trump has promised an array of tax cuts and tariffs on imported goods, which economics experts predict would send inflation back up.
Harris has focused on bringing down costs of specific items or sectors rather than across-the-board prices. Those areas include housing, healthcare, childcare, and groceries. One proposal calls for $25,000 in down payment support to first-time homebuyers, which could have the unintended effect of raising housing costs. Harris has also proposed tax cuts or subsidies, which her campaign has said would be offset by raising taxes on U.S. corporations.
Immigration
Illegal border crossing encounters have soared under Biden, averaging 2 million per year from 2021 to 2023. Trump averaged around 750,000 per year from 2017-2020.
Trump has vowed a sweeping crackdown. That includes mass deportation, ending catch and release, restoring “Remain in Mexico,” and eliminating asylum fraud.
“In cooperative states, President Trump will deputize the National Guard and local law enforcement to assist with rapidly removing illegal alien gang members and criminals,” his campaign site states.
Harris was tapped by Biden in 2021 to study the “root causes” of an influx of migrants from Central America, a position Trump and Republicans have used to pan her as a failed border czar.
She had initially opposed Trump’s border wall but appears to have flipped to support some wall construction and has advocated a defeated bipartisan Senate border deal that would’ve increased requirements for asylum-seekers and made it easier for Biden to close the border if crossings reached a certain threshold.
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Abortion
Harris supports restoring Roe v. Wade and has credited Trump for its demise by installing conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned it.
For his part, Trump proudly takes credit for the ruling but has distanced himself from strict abortion bans in states. However, after initially criticizing the six-week ban in his home state of Florida, Trump said he’d voted against a ballot measure that would overturn the restriction. He supports states’ rights on abortion rather than a federal policy and favors exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.
