Kamala Harris and Tim Walz (D)

Kamala Harris (D)

Kamala Harris is the current Vice President of the United States and has been serving under President Joe Biden since 2021. Her ascendancy as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate came after Biden withdrew from the race in July.

Harris previously represented California in the U.S. Senate from 2017 to 2021, and was first elected California Attorney General in 2010. As vice president, she cast a record 33 tie-breaking votes in the Senate, including the tie-breaking vote. to send the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 to Biden’s desk.

Harris was born in Oakland, California, and is the daughter of immigrant parents: her father immigrated from Jamaica and her mother immigrated from India. She earned degrees from Howard University and the University of California Hastings College of Law and pursued a career in law, first as an Alameda County district attorney and later as San Francisco district attorney.

The vice president has campaigned on lowering costs and taxes for working families and protecting access to abortions and contraception. More information about her policy positions is available on her campaign website.

If elected, Harris would become the first female president and the first president of South Asian descent.

– Kyle Brown

Tim Walz (D)

Tim Walz is currently governor of Minnesota and was first elected to the position in 2018.

According to the Harris-Walz campaign websiteWalz enlisted in the National Guard at age 17 and served for 24 years. He was also a teacher for about twenty years, according to the website.

Walz was also elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota’s First Congressional District in 2006 and served until 2019.

As governor of Minnesota, Walz oversaw the state’s response to COVID-19, using his emergency powers to sign controversial executive orders that limited capacity at restaurants and required masks in public places. He also faced criticism for his handling of the civil unrest that unfolded in the Twin Cities following the killing of George Floyd.

Since winning re-election in 2022, Walz signed bills legalizing recreational marijuana, codifying the right to abortion, guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch for K-12 students, and establishing paid family and medical leave.

—Morgan Reddekopp

Donald Trump and JD Vance (R)

Donald Trump (R)

Donald Trump served as the 45e president of the United States from 2017-2021. It is the third time in a row for Trump to run for Republican president.

Despite losing the 2020 election, Trump has repeatedly claimed to have won. He has also denied allegations that he incited a mob of supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a last-ditch effort to stop the certification of the 2020 election.

The Trump administration took a tough approach to immigration and foreign trade, building hundreds of miles of walls along the southern border with Mexico, replacing NAFTA with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and imposing tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese imports.

President Trump also signed the first major overhaul of the US tax code in decades, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The law permanently lowered the corporate tax rate and significantly increased the standard deduction for individuals, while limiting state and local income tax deductions.

Perhaps his most lasting impact was Trump’s overhaul of the federal judiciary, confirming more than 200 federal judges, 54 appellate judges, and three Supreme Court justices to strengthen a 6-3 conservative majority.

The coronavirus pandemic dominated the final year of Trump’s term. He discouraged mask mandates and lockdowns but paved the way for the accelerated development of two FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines.

Trump is the only president to have been impeached twice. This year, a jury in New York convicted him of 34 crimes for falsifying company records. Sentencing in that case has been postponed until after the election; Three other misdemeanor charges are pending.

Born in Queens, New York, Trump rose to prominence as a luxury real estate mogul and gained further fame through his book “The Art of the Deal” and his reality TV show “The Apprentice.” He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and Commerce.

If elected, Trump would join Grover Cleveland as the second president to serve two non-consecutive terms. Read more about his policy platform on his campaign website.

– Kyle Brown

J.D. Vance (right)

Ohioans first elected JD Vance to the U.S. Senate in 2022. His seat was previously held by retiring Republican Rob Portman. reports the Associated Press.

Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps around 2005 and served in Iraq. He completed his undergraduate studies at The Ohio State University and then graduated from Yale Law School. He also worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

He also wrote “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir about his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio. adapted into a Netflix film.

Although he was a “never Trump” Republican in 2016, he reversed his views by the time Trump endorsed him in 2021.

AP also reports that Vance sometimes embraces bipartisanship, such as when he co-sponsored a railroad safety bill after the train derailment in the small Ohio town of East Palestine. He also sponsored legislation to expand and increase funding for Great Lakes restoration and has supported bipartisan legislation to provide a boost to workers and families.

—Morgan Reddekopp

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