Different lives of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

During a campaign, U.S. voters are bombarded with images of the two candidates speaking from podiums, greeting rally participants, and descending airplane stairs. Here’s a different 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.

Several 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 picture 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 at the New York Military Academy at age 13.

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

Trump said his five years at the academy, which began in 1959, provided him with military training and helped develop his leadership skills. He later had to sit out the Vietnam War due to deferments – four for academic reasons and one for bone spurs.

At a young age, Harris learned about the importance of the civil rights movement from her mother and she took part in the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom March in Washington in 2004.

After graduating from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Trump was seen as his father’s successor 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 successfully run for the U.S. Senate in 2016.

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

Three years later, Harris ran a lackluster presidential campaign but was chosen as his running mate by Democratic winner Joe Biden. They turned out to be winners, defeating Trump and Mike Pence.

The end of the Trump presidency and the beginning of the Biden-Harris term were marked by corona lockdowns, mask requirements and social unrest after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

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

President Biden was pleased that she became the champion of the pro-choice movement in the White House.

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 led the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and took steps to curb immigration.

Harris’ first international visit as vice president was to Guatemala in 2021 as part of the responsibility she was given to reduce the number of Latin American migrants reaching America’s southern border with Mexico.

The foreign policy issues that have dominated her time in office include the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Trump’s first foreign visit as president was to Saudi Arabia in 2017. Trump advocates a policy of isolation that aims to free his country from foreign conflicts and promote American industry.

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

Various members of Donald Trump’s family have played roles in his political career, although appearances by his wife, former first lady Melania Trump, have been limited in the 2024 campaign.

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

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

She made history as the first Black and Asian American woman to lead a major party’s presidential nomination and went on to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

In the same election, Donald Trump achieved the rare distinction of having his party nominate him as its presidential candidate for the third time. He spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – with his ear bandaged after surviving an assassination attempt during the campaign.

Photo editing by Phil Coomes

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher breaks down the race for the White House in his twice-weekly newsletter, US Election Unspun. Readers in the UK can Register here. People outside the UK can do this Register here.