During an election campaign, American voters are bombarded with images of the two candidates – speaking from podiums, greeting the crowds and stepping down the plane steps. Here’s another visual perspective of who they are and where they come from.

Long before they even knew what the White House was… Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are pictured above both, aged three.

Decades apart, Democratic presidential candidate Harris spent her early years in Oakland, California, and Republican candidate Trump grew up in the New York borough of Queens.

Harris (left in the left image below) and her sister Maya (center) were raised primarily by their Indian mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and social activist.

Trump’s father Fred Trump was the son of German immigrants and his mother Mary Anne MacLeod Trump was born in Scotland. They enrolled him in the New York Military Academy at the age of 13.

Harris spent five years in high school in Montreal, Canada, where her mother got a teaching job at McGill University. She later enrolled at the historically black university, Howard University in Washington DC.

Trump has said his five years at the academy, which began in 1959, gave him military training and helped shape his leadership skills. He later sat out the Vietnam War due to deferrals — four for academic reasons and one because of bone spurs.

At an early age, Harris learned the importance of the civil rights movement from her mother and in 2004 she attended the annual Martin Luther King Jr Freedom March on Washington.

After graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Trump was favored to succeed his father at the helm of the family business.

Harris returned to California, where she quickly rose to the top of the state’s criminal justice system — taking a job as attorney general — and used that momentum to run for the U.S. Senate in 2016.

At the same time she entered Congress, Trump entered the White House for the first time after stunning the world by defeating Hillary Clinton.

Three years later, Harris ran a mediocre presidential campaign, but was selected as his running mate by the winner of the Democratic race, Joe Biden. They turned out to be the winning ticket, beating Trump and Mike Pence.

The end of the Trump presidency and the beginning of the Biden-Harris term were marked by Covid lockdowns, mask mandates and social unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Harris sometimes struggled to make her mark as vice president, but found her voice in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion.

President Biden was happy to see her become the White House champion for the pro-choice movement.

It was Trump who made the Supreme Court more conservative, paving the way for the abortion ruling.

During his time in the Oval Office, he also pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and took steps to reduce immigration.

Harris’ debut international visit as vice president was to Guatemala in 2021, as part of the responsibility given to her to reduce the number of Latin American migrants reaching the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

Foreign policy issues that have dominated her time in office include the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Trump’s first foreign visit as president was to Saudi Arabia in 2017. Trump advocates isolationist policies that entail extricating his country from foreign conflicts and promoting American industry.

Harris is married to Doug Emhoff (pictured below), who regularly campaigns on her behalf. She is stepmother – or “Momala,” as she says – to Emhoff’s children from his first marriage, Cole (left) and Ella (right).

Several members of Donald Trump’s family have played a role in his political career, although the appearances of his wife, former First Lady Melania Trump, in the 2024 campaign were limited.

Trump had three children with his first wife, Ivana: Donald Jr. (second left in bottom photo), Ivanka (second right) and Eric (right). He had a daughter, Tiffany (left), with his second wife, Marla Maples. He married his third wife Melania (third from left) in 2005, with whom he has a son, Barron.

Harris entered the 2024 presidential race relatively late in the process, replacing Joe Biden who withdrew.

She made history as the first Black and Asian American woman to lead a major party’s presidential campaign, then delivered a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

In the same election, Donald Trump earned the rare distinction of receiving a third presidential nomination from his party. He spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – with a bandaged ear after surviving an assassination attempt during the campaign.

Image editing by Phil Coomes

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher provides insight into the race for the White House in his biweekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in Britain can sign up here. Those outside Britain can sign up here.