Different lives for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

Throughout an election campaign, American voters are bombarded with images of the two candidates – speaking from podiums, greeting crowds and descending flight stairs. Here’s another visual perspective on 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 at three years old.

Decades apart, Democratic presidential candidate Harris spent his early years in Oakland, California, and Republican candidate Trump was raised in the New York borough of Queens.

Harris (left in the left photo 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 took a teaching job at McGill University. She later enrolled at the historically black college, 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 dismissals – four for academic reasons and one for bone spurs.

From an early age, Harris was taught by her mother the importance of the civil rights movement, and she participated in the annual Martin Luther King Jr Freedom March on Washington in 2004.

After earning a degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, 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 its attorney general—and used that momentum to achieve a successful 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 to defeat Hillary Clinton.

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

The end of the Trump presidency and the start of the Biden-Harris period were marked by Covid lockdowns, mask mandates and social unrest following the police killing of George Floyd 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 ended the constitutional right to abortion.

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

It was Trump who had made the Supreme Court more conservative and paved the way for the abortion ruling.

During his time in the Oval Office, he also pulled the United States 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 her charge to reduce the number of Latin American migrants reaching the US’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 US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Trump’s first visit abroad as president was to Saudi Arabia in 2017. Trump advocates isolationist policies that involve removing 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).

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

With his first wife, Ivana, Trump had three children: 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 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 ticket, and went on to address the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

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

Image editing by Phil Coomes

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher opines on the race for the White House in his twice-weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can register here. Those outside the UK can register here.