For many of us, November 3rd, 2020 was a very tense night. It was election day; after months of anticipating the results, today was the day us Americans would find out who our president will be for the next four years. The days that followed were some of the most nerve-wracking in our lives. Many of us were dreading a repeat of the 2016 presidential election in which Donald Trump was elected president despite almost every single poll predicting a Hillary Clinton victory. The horror of the 2016 presidential election remained, and still remains, ingrained in our memories. 

On November 7th of 2020, many Americans, including myself, breathed a sigh of relief. It was projected that Joe Biden would win Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes on November 7th, therefore pushing him over the required 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. No more hate, chaos, fear, and division, I thought. Finally, America could move forward, away from the mayhem during the Trump administration. 

However, three and a half years after  President Biden’s inauguration on January 20th, 2021, his approval rating dipped to record lows, with his average approval rating standing at 41.4% (as of September 30th), according to FiveThirtyEight. Many Americans, while they did not want a return of Donald Trump to the White House, could not commit to re-electing Joe Biden despite doing so three-and-a-half years ago. 

Some of the biggest issues Americans are prioritizing this election were also some of President Biden’s weakest spots. These issues include the economy and immigration. Despite strong economic numbers relative to the rest of the world, inflation has hit Americans hard. Though inflation rates have cooled, Americans are still reeling from high grocery, gas, and housing prices. 

Thus, when Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, I was initially not very confident in Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. At no time in the past century has the political party in the White House won the presidential election after the incumbent president (especially a historically unpopular one) decided to resign or not seek re-election. However, ever since Biden’s decision to step down as the nominee, the enthusiasm behind Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party has surged. In just over 24 hours after Harris became the presumptive nominee, her campaign raised a record amount of $81 million. She has also set a record for the largest number of small dollar donations. Two weeks after Biden stepped down, the election polls and pundits shifted their forecast from a certain Trump victory to a likely Harris victory. 

Despite the surge in enthusiasm behind Kamala Harris, Trump still has managed to retain large numbers of his base. These include hardcore Republicans and also independent voters who share similar frustrations with Kamala Harris as they did with Joe Biden. 

As a result, this race still remains a toss-up. 

The Republican Party, panicked by Harris’ improving polling numbers, have resorted to an unprecedented disinformation campaign in an attempt to smear her reputation and steal independent and undecided voters. Donald Trump himself has made egregious comments, such as denying Kamala Harris’ race; claiming Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating pets; stating he helped rebuild the economy when he took office only to have Biden and Harris ruin it again; insisting Harris and the Democratic Party support post birth abortions, which is not a thing, and much more. 

Now, I understand what you might be thinking: but  controversial comments are nothing new for Trump. In fact, his entire 2016 and 2020 presidential runs, along with his presidency, were marked by inflammatory statements, conspiracy theories, and disinformation. I know this, this is nothing new. 

But what does Kamala Harris offer for me? Hasn’t Harris been the vice president for the last three-and-a-half years? What has she even done? After all, gas and groceries are too expensive, and I can’t afford to buy a house. And isn’t the current administration more focused on giving money to Ukraine and Israel instead of the American people? Didn’t Trump promise to be America First? Why should I vote for her? 

The Republican Party has capitalized on Americans’ frustration with the economy, immigration, and foreign policy and has convinced the majority of Americans that Trump is the only person who can solve these issues (remember in 2016 when Trump famously said “I alone can fix it”?) The question you will frequently hear Republicans ask is “Are you better off four years ago or now?”

And by and large, Americans seem to believe the same, with roughly 50% of Americans believing Donald Trump would handle the economy better than Kamala Harris (compared to just 39% the other way around). Trump holds even bigger leads on the war in Gaza and Lebanon (48% vs 30%) and on immigration (56% vs 31%). These are some of the biggest issues in the 2024 presidential election. 

The problem is that there is a disconnect between the reality of the economy, immigration, and foreign policy and how most Americans perceive these issues. If you ask Americans how they perceive the state of the economy, just 23% of Americans believe the economy is in good/excellent condition. In addition, 59% of Americans wrongly believe the economy is in a recession. 52% of Americans believe they were better off four years ago compared to today compared to just 39% who say they are better off now. 

Based on these numbers, it’s easy to conclude that the American economy is struggling. However, real economic indicators paint a completely different picture. The reality is, the American economy is booming right now thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s investments into the working and middle class and there is much to be optimistic about. 

Despite fears of a recession, the U.S. economy defied all expectations and has grown by nearly 6% since Biden took office in January 2021. Over 15 million new jobs (including nearly 800,000 new manufacturing jobs) have been created, the most on record in a four year term. The unemployment rate is currently at 4.1%; while higher than at 3.4% in April 2023, is still significantly lower than it was when Trump left office. 

And for the first time since Biden and Harris took over, wage growth has been outpacing inflation, providing middle and working class Americans relief. Gas prices are continuing to trend down and grocery prices have begun stabilizing. The U.S. economy is currently the envy of the world as other developed countries have seen sluggish growth and much higher inflation rates. 

Consider the circumstances as well. When Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the U.S. economy was flourishing, with the unemployment rate at 4.7% and 11.5 million new jobs created. 

By the time Donald Trump left office, the unemployment rate rose to 6.3% (after peaking at 14.8% in April 2020, the highest unemployment rate in the U.S. since the Great Depression). Trump left office with 2.7 million fewer jobs available compared to when he took office, making him the only president since Herbert Hoover in 1932 to leave office with fewer jobs. 

Despite promising to bring manufacturing jobs back home, Trump left office with 178,000 fewer manufacturing jobs compared to when he took office and the U.S. trade deficit soared 36.3%, to the highest level since 2008 during the height of the Great Recession. Companies continued to offshore jobs to countries such as China despite Trump’s promises. 

And this doesn’t even cover Donald Trump’s atrocious handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump repeatedly ignored the  advice of health experts, claiming that the virus is a Democratic “hoax” and COVID-19 would go away in just two weeks. He also insisted hydroxychloroquine, injecting disinfectant, and shoving UV light down your body would treat COVID-19, despite experts warning that these techniques were both extremely dangerous and ineffective at treating or preventing COVID-19.

 As the 2020 election ramped up, Trump began holding superspreader rallies, with thousands of maskless attendees cramped together in enclosed spaces, despite the risk of the spread of the disease that was tragically killing thousands of Americans every single day. By the time Donald Trump left office, over 400,000 Americans had lost their lives due to the virus. 

In addition, when Donald Trump lost the free and fair 2020 presidential election, he spent the following months falsely claiming the election was stolen. His campaign filed over 60 lawsuits across the country, alleging fraud had taken place, with almost all being rejected by judges, even those appointed by Trump himself. 

He allied himself with controversial figures such as Rudy Giuliani (who would later be disbarred by the New York Bar for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election) and Sidney Powell, who has made unfounded claims such as Dominion voting machines colluding with Biden to rig the election against Trump. His allies organized slates of fake electors when the Electoral College went to vote, who are now being convicted of filing false documents. Trump posted a whopping 900 tweets claiming that the election had been stolen, some of them being long, incoherent rants. 

And of course, we cannot forget about the insurrection on January 6th, 2021. Thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, breaking windows, assaulting police officers, entering representatives’ offices, and setting up gallows while chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” Donald Trump, who held a rally just before the insurrection, once again repeated his false claims about the 2020 election being stolen. In fact, it was alleged that he did not care about the news that his vice president, Mike Pence, may be in danger during the riot, saying “So what?” 

When President Biden and Vice President Harris took the oath of office on January 20th, 2021, America was in a dark and tumultuous place. After recovering from the first insurrection committed by American citizens in American history, four years of constant lies (30,573 to be exact), hate, chaos, and division, and a butchered COVID-19 response, Americans were eager to move on. The former president was impeached for the second time, which had the support of 56% of Americans at the time.

Immediately after swearing in, Biden and Harris had a huge mess to clean up. The country was in the midst of its biggest and deadliest wave of COVID-19, peaking at nearly 300,000 new cases a day along with over 4,000 new fatalities a day. The COVID-19 vaccines were finally released, yet delivery was slow under Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed.” The economy was still not fully reopened and millions of Americans were still unemployed. Americans were struggling to make ends meet and keep sane during tough times. The country was still healing from Donald Trump’s dangerous attacks on democracy following the insurrection and Biden and Harris needed to bridge the gap and cool down political tensions. 

The Biden-Harris administration wasted absolutely no time. Throughout the Biden-Harris administration, here is a list of just some of their accomplishments. 

• Signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law, which provided $1400 stimulus checks to Americans, expanded the child tax credit (which was responsible for cutting child poverty in half), extended unemployment benefits, invested into schools to reopen safely and quickly, invested into public transportation agencies, invested into the USDA, and more. Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for this bill in the Senate.
• Distributed over 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, a significant ramp up from Trump’s Operation Warp Speed.
• Signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill), a $1.2 trillion bill which is investing in rebuilding roads, bridges, houses, railroads, clean energy,  replacing lead pipes, and more. 
• Signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in the 21st century. The bill allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time, resulting in the price of many prescription drugs becoming more affordable for Medicare recipients. The price of insulin was dropped to $35 a month for Medicare recipients. The bill also implemented a 15% minimum corporate tax for companies with higher than $1 billion annual financial statement income. The bill also includes the largest investment into clean energy in American history. The bill includes investments into the Affordable Care Act and includes $80 billion in funding to hire 87,000 new IRS employees to enforce taxes on the top 1% who often evade their taxes. Vice President Harris cast the tie breaking vote in the Senate.
• Signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law, the first major gun safety bill in 30 years. The law expanded background checks for firearm purchases under the age of 21, clarified Federal Firearms License requirements, provided funding for states with red flag laws and other crisis intervention programs, further criminalized arms trafficking and straw purchases, provided funding for mental health services, and partially closed the gun show loophole and boyfriend loophole. 
• Signed the PACT Act into law, authorizing $797 billion in spending to provide healthcare benefits to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their military service. 
• Signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law, which allocated $280 billion in new funding to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductor devices. This has been attributed to the recent surge in manufacturing jobs in the United States, with dozens of companies announcing they were building new manufacturing plants here. 
• Signed the ADVANCE Act into law, which aims to boost nuclear reactor deployment (nuclear energy) in the United States. 
• Rejoined the Paris Climate Accord, putting us back on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• Rejoined the World Health Organization
• Extended foreclosures and eviction moratoriums
• Froze collection of student loan debt
• Provided limited forgiveness of student loans (a much more comprehensive plan was struck down by the Courts)
• Revoked the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, resulting in cleaner air and land (contrary to popular belief, this was not responsible for increasing gas prices as the pipeline would have taken years to begin operating. Even then, very little of that gas would have gone to Americans).
• Eliminated the 1776 Commission, an attempt from the Trump administration to promote a more conservative, revisionist view of American history. 
• Strengthen legal protections for DREAMERS 
• Abolished the “Muslim Ban,” which was implemented during the Trump administration, banning people from 7 majority Muslim countries from immigrating to the U.S.
• Signed an executive order expanding voting rights
• Signed an executive order protecting access to reproductive health care services (after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade)

One very common claim I hear is that Kamala Harris hasn’t accomplished much throughout her career but as shown above, this is simply not the case. In fact, Kamala Harris has set the record for being the most active vice president in American history, casting 33 tie-breaking votes in the U.S. Senate for important legislation such as the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. 

In fact, Kamala Harris has an 82 page policy proposal, which tackles many issues ranging from tax cuts for the working class to cost of groceries, healthcare, energy, and prescription drugs. Some of her proposals include

• Restoring the $3600 child tax credit from the American Rescue Plan 
• Implementing a new $6000 tax credit to help parents raise a child during their first year 
• Expanding the earned income tax credit 
• Providing tax credits to small businesses
• Passing the first ever federal ban on price gouging 
• Expanding the Affordable Care Act 
• Strengthening health care access for veterans
• Expanding the $35 insulin to all Americans
• Expanding the $2000 a year cap on prescription drugs to all Americans
• Accelerating the speed of Medicare drug negotiations
• Building 3 million new homes 
• Offering  $25,000 down payment assistance for first time homeowners 
• Cracking down on algorithmic price fixing on homes 
• Cracking down on Wall Street investors from buying up single family homes in bulk
• Codifying Roe v Wade into federal law
• Signing into law the bipartisan border security bill that Trump tried to derail 
• Banning assault weapons and expanding background checks for gun purchases while protecting law abiding citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights

Another common frustration Americans have about Kamala Harris is that she hasn’t been tough on illegal immigration while Donald Trump has. “Many known convicted illegal immigrants have been released into the United States, making many communities unsafe. Democrats have often also passed unsafe laws like the ‘no bail law’ in New York,” said Eric Chen ’28. While it is true that border crossings have risen under the current administration, the reality is that the crisis at the southern border has long been an issue for decades and neither party has been successful in combating this issue. 

In addition, Donald Trump does not have a fantastic record on the border. Border crossings were not significantly different under Donald Trump compared to under Barack Obama. Border crossings are actually lower today than they were at the same time in 2020. And most importantly, there was a bipartisan effort to pass a comprehensive immigration reform back in May. It was crafted by Republican Senator James Lankford, one of the most conservative senators. It appeared that there was enough support to have the bill passed, but Donald Trump, determined to sabotage Biden’s re-election bid, pressured Republicans to vote against the bill so it could remain an issue for this election.

All of this reveals that Donald Trump does not actually care about addressing the border crisis (evidenced by the fact that he did not pursue any legislative action to address the issue while he was president). Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has promised to sign the bipartisan border bill into law if it passes through Congress. She has also prosecuted transnational gangs as California attorney general. Her experience proves she is capable of handling this crisis. 

This has been an incredibly historic and stressful election for many Americans. As Election Day continues to inch by, many of us want this election to be over. The stakes have never been higher. A second Trump presidency will be marred with incompetence, corruption, and elements of authoritarianism as we have seen from his first four years in office. Meanwhile, a Kamala Harris presidency will continue the progress made by the Biden-Harris administration while restoring hope and faith in the United States. Her administration will put working and middle class Americans first. Harris will fight for democracy and freedom. Under her leadership, America will continue to shine on the world stage. 

As Harris said, “When we fight, we win!” Now, it is your time to fight. If you are eligible, please make a plan to go vote. If you are not eligible, please encourage your friends and family to go vote. 

Based on these numbers, it’s easy to conclude that the American economy is struggling. However, real economic indicators paint a completely different picture. The reality is, the American economy is booming right now thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s investments into the working and middle class and there is much to be optimistic about.