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Former President Donald Trump, when asked Thursday at the Economic Club of New York about child care policies, went on at length about tariffs and taxing foreign nations, occasionally linking that to the topic at hand. He did, however, point out that “child care is child care.” 

It’s a reminder that, after years of being siloed as a “women’s issue,” kids and care are everywhere, as both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris aim to convince parents and families that they understand their needs — and have a plan on how to ease their caregiving loads if elected. But the style and content of the messages from both campaigns varies greatly. 

Harris, her running mate and campaign surrogates have  begun to lay out the details of how she would support parents in particular. On the GOP side, the candidate and campaign often have different messages, as Trump free associates in response to questions about his policies. 

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the executive director and co-founder of MomsRising, an organization focused on mobilizing mothers to advocate for policies that support women and families, said many moms she talks to routinely express the overwhelm they feel around child care and its costs.  

“All mom voters are experiencing a similar crisis at the same time: Child care costs more than college. We’re one of only seven countries on Planet Earth without paid family medical leave for when the new baby arrives or a serious health crisis strikes, care workers aren’t earning living wages, and aging and disability care is often out of reach,” Rowe-Finkbeiner said. For the 94 million “mom voters,” she said, talking about the economy is talking about care.

When Vice President Kamala Harris outlined her vision for the country’s future at a rally in Savannah, Georgia, on August 29, affordable child care and paid leave were first on the list. They are key to what she calls the “opportunity economy.” 

Earlier that month, addressing rally-goers in North Carolina, Harris laid out her main child care policies: “Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans will get a tax cut and we will do this by restoring two tax cuts designed to help middle-class and working Americans: the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. … As president, not only will I restore that tax cut but expand it. We will provide $6,000 in tax relief to families during the first year of a child’s life.”

In addition to the tax credit for parents of newborns, Harris has said she intends  to bring back the pandemic-era expanded child tax credit, allowing for a credit of up to $3,600 a child per family, even for the lowest-income families. A measure to do this failed to pass the Senate last month — without enough Republicans voting in support of it. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, did not show up for the vote. 

Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, is well-known for the paid leave policy that he implemented while governor of Minnesota; though details of a paid leave plan have not been released by the Harris campaign, many believe that her choice of Walz as running mate is a nod toward future work on that issue. 

The Biden-Harris administration has also pushed to secure a federal policy guaranteeing four weeks of paid family and medical leave for all American workers; advocates expect Harris to embrace that plan, as well as the proposed funding, via higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations.  

Trump, meanwhile, has not given clear answers on policies aimed at helping families. When asked Thursday if he could commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and, if so, what the specific piece of legislation would be, his response was rambling. We transcribed it and are sharing it verbatim: 

“Well I would do that, and we’re sitting down, and you know I was somebody — we had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about — that because — the — child care is child care, couldn’t, you know, it’s something, you have to have it, in this country you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly — and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about including child care that it’s going to take care — we’re gonna have, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country because I have to stay with child care, I want to stay with child care — but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kinds of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people. And then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we are going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about make America great again. We have to do it because right now we are a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it.”

People in the crowd applauded this answer.

Both the conservative American Action Forum and the progressive Center for American Progress believe that Trump’s tariff plan would cost middle-class families roughly $4,000 a year.

Trump and Vance have repeatedly mentioned their desire to see more Americans have more children — and have more financial incentives and support for doing so, though details on their plans remain scarce. Vance has suggested raising the child tax credit to $5,000 per child. The campaign has not clarified whether that would be available to the lowest-income Americans, those who do not file tax returns. Trump has said he supports his running mate’s ideas, but at rallies, he’s more likely to go on at length about the fictional Hannibal Lecter than policy plans. 

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on their caregiving policy proposals. 

On Thursday, while Trump spoke in New York, Vance addressed child care in Mesa, Arizona, with a solution that was not focused on what a Trump-Vance administration would do, but rather on what families could do on their own to reduce their child care costs. 

“One of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for day care is, maybe grandma and grandpa wants to help out a little bit more. Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all of the resources that we’re spending on day care.”

Part of the coalition who could respond to these messages is caregivers themselves. Dionne Davis is an organizer with Care in Action, a nonprofit nonpartisan grassroots group organizing domestic workers in the United States and a nanny in Atlanta. Davis said she hopes more and more people will realize that part of what’s on the ballot is the “state of crisis” when it comes to caregiving in America — especially in a battleground state like hers.

She’s concerned about the lack of young people interested in care work because of the poor wages and work conditions throughout the industry. “It’s a trickle down effect, right? If we don’t have care workers, the people who need care won’t have people to take care of them. We all depend on each other. This is not an individual issue,” Davis said. 

For some caregivers, how Harris talks about her care policies has resonated. She has regularly shared stories about being raised by a single mother and their downstairs neighbor Mrs. Shelton, who ran a day care center in her home and acted as a second mother to Harris and her sister. 

“Kamala Harris gets me,” Emma Biggs, a daycare director from North Carolina and volunteer with Care in Action, told The 19th. She said most politicians don’t understand the daily issues she and her employees face, especially in terms of economic challenges. “She understands firsthand the experience. And I believe having a woman, it helps to be able to empathize more than sometimes men can. Sometimes with men, there’s a disconnect. But with her being a woman and a woman of color and understanding those struggles that have been stacked up against her … I feel like I have a voice.”

The Biden-Harris administration has already worked to increase pay for care workers and cut child care costs for low-income families and military families. 

According to the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, more than 600,000 domestic workers are employed directly by private households in the United States; 97 percent of domestic child care providers are women, with women of color disproportionately represented. 

Parents of all economic and racial groups are impacted by the current child care crisis. Over half of all Americans live in what’s considered a “child care desert,” and lower-income households are least likely to have child care.

It’s something Crystal Quade has seen first-hand in her campaign for governor in Missouri. The Democratic nominee is a long shot in a state where Trump won 56.8 percent of the vote and all but four counties in 2020. But as Quade, the state House minority leader, has traveled the state, in rural and urban and red and blue areas, she has seen one thing unite women voters: child care. 

“I’m having hundreds of people reach out to us because they don’t have a place to send their kids right now. Accessibility and affordability in the child care space is huge,” Quade said. “Folks are so focused on just trying to make ends meet and then have to scramble when their child’s daycare closes. The reality is regardless of whether I’m in Kansas City or Fordland, Missouri — we are hearing these same issues.”

Jackie Payne, the founder and executive director of Galvanize Action, which connects with and surveys moderate women around issues like the care economy, told The 19th that for moderate White women, their number one issue is the economy and this often means addressing child care. It’s a demographic both campaigns are going after — and one that has moved toward Harris since she entered the race, Payne said, noteworthy because these White women often trust Republicans more than Democrats on the economy. 

“The more that the candidates are talking about health care and child care, the more these voters see this as a positive for parents,” Payne said.