After President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris has become his likeliest successor.
If Harris does secure the Democratic nomination, she will have less than 100 days to make her case against Donald Trump in a race that was already trending in the former president's favor.
Harris has a long record in politics, as a district attorney of San Francisco, attorney general of California, a senator and now vice president. When it comes to policies involving health, technology and the environment, she stresses the importance of "following the science."
So when it comes to key scientific issues, where does Harris stand and where does she disagree with Trump?
Climate Change
During his presidency, Trump repeatedly denounced climate change as a hoax and formally withdrew the U.S. from the United Nations' Paris climate accord to ensure global temperatures do not increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
This time around, Trump has pledged to scrap some of Biden's climate policies if U.S. oil executives donate $1 billion to his reelection campaign, according to The Washington Post. He has also promised to roll back Biden's policies on electric vehicles, which were on course to require that such vehicles account for up to two-thirds of new cars sold in the U.S. by 2032.
Of course, Harris has supported the climate policies of the Biden administration, including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change.
Commenting on the legislation, Harris said: "Every day, around the world, the impact of the climate crisis is stark and it is vivid. We are seeing it in real time."
During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris highlighted the need for an environmental justice framework to address the adverse effects of climate change on poorer communities.
Energy
In several campaign appearances, Trump has promised to reduce energy prices in the United States by increasing domestic oil production and has laid out plans to end delays in federal drilling permits and leases. In February, he also pledged to remove limits on American natural gas exports.
The Republican nominee has also vowed to target offshore wind farms from "Day One," saying that wind turbines "cause tremendous problems with the fish and the whales" and "ruin the environment." (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has dismissed claims that offshore wind farms have resulted in whale deaths.)
In the past, Harris has filed lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, advocated for greenhouse gas emissions reductions by oil and gas companies and suggested a ban on fracking in the U.S.
During her time as VP, she has emphasized the need for an expansion of clean energy production in the U.S.
"President Biden and I have committed nearly $1 trillion to build a thriving, clean energy economy for America," Harris said in a statement at an anniversary celebration of the Inflation Reduction Act. "This work was designed to dramatically expand solar and wind energy production [and] to lower energy costs for working families."
Health Care
Trump's stance on health care, and specifically the Affordable Care Act (ACA), appears to have softened since his time in office. In 2017, the Trump administration tried to dismantle the health reform legislation, often referred to as Obamacare. At the start of his 2024 campaign in January, Trump once again promised to overturn the law.
"We're gonna fight for much better health care than Obamacare. Obamacare is a catastrophe," he said in a speech in Newton, Iowa, in January.
He has since seemingly reversed his position by endorsing the ACA and promising to keep it in place but make it "much, much, much better."
"I'm not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME, I'm running to CLOSE THE BORDER, STOP INFLATION, MAKE OUR ECONOMY GREAT, STRENGTHEN OUR MILITARY, AND MAKE THE ACA, or OBAMACARE, AS IT IS KNOWN, MUCH BETTER, STRONGER, AND FAR LESS EXPENSIVE," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in March.
He went on: "IN OTHER WORDS, MAKE THE ACA MUCH, MUCH, MUCH BETTER FOR FAR LESS MONEY (OR COST) TO OUR GREST [sic] AMERICAN CITIZENS, WHO HAVE BEEN DECIMATED BY BIDEN, HIS RECORD INFLATION, BAD ECONOMY, AFGHANISTAN CATASTROPHE, AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE."
That same month, Biden and Harris made a joint appearance in North Carolina to campaign on health care policy and the need to preserve the ACA. During the 2019 presidential race, Harris expressed her support for expanding Medicare coverage to all Americans.
During her time in the administration, Harris has championed new policies to improve maternal health to create national health and safety standards for maternal care.
Abortion
Since the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, Harris has been an ardent supporter of abortion rights.
"There is nobody who has fought as hard for abortion rights and access, and we are proud to endorse her in this race," Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju said in a statement after Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
In March, Harris became the first vice president (and potential presidential candidate) to visit an abortion provider during her time in office. She has campaigned for federal abortion protections that go beyond Roe and limit state restrictions.
In April, Trump said he would not sign a federal abortion ban and has instead taken the position that abortion laws should be decided individually by each state.
"The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land," he said in a recording on Truth Social.
Artificial Intelligence
During her time as vice president, Harris has raised concerns about the "existential threat" posed by AI, calling for tighter regulatory actions and protecting consumer privacy.
In a statement from the global AI Safety Summit in November 2023, Harris said: "AI has the potential to do profound good to develop powerful new medicines to treat and even cure the diseases that have for generations plagued humanity, to dramatically improve agricultural production to help address global food insecurity, and to save countless lives in the fight against the climate crisis.
"But just as AI has the potential to do profound good, it also has the potential to cause profound harm," she said.
Meanwhile, the 2024 Republican Party platform has pledged to repeal the Biden administration's AI executive order, stating that it "hinders AI innovation."
"We will repeal Joe Biden's dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology," the document states. "In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing."
Trump has also raised concerns about the potential risks posed by this technology, describing it as "very dangerous" in an interview with the Fox Business Network.
During his time as president, Trump signed an executive order establishing the American AI Initiative, which included setting standards for safe and trustworthy AI. However, many industry experts at the time described it as "vague," according to a report in the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
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