How Rich Are Donald Trump and Kamala Harris?

She’s a lawyer who’s worked entirely in government. He’s a billionaire businessman who, except for his four years as president, has spent his entire career at his family’s real estate firm.

She’s disclosed her tax returns and other details about her personal finances to little controversy. Bucking tradition, he’s never released his tax returns and often pushes back against — and even sues — those who report his net worth to be less than he asserts.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are as different in their finances, and how they publicly reveal them, as they are in their politics. If the two have anything in common when it comes to their financial lives, it’s the role of their families in elevating their wealth.

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Although Harris is a lawyer, her decades of work — as public defender, state attorney general, federal senator and then vice president — yielded far less wealth than Trump, or comparably prominent lawyers, for that matter. Her financial means soared after 2014, when she married Doug Emhoff, a lawyer in private practice, and his far-larger income and assets became part of the marriage.

In the 1970s, after Trump started leading his family firm, he received money from his father. Trump has variously stated the “small loan” amount as $1 million or $9 million; the New York Times places it in excess of $400 million in current dollars.

Here’s how the two candidates compare in net worth and taxable income, as well as a summary of the same for their running mates. The data draws from that released by the U.S. Federal Election Commission, with whom candidates for president must file public financial disclosure reports, along with news reporting and Harris’ voluntary release of her tax returns.

Kamala Harris

Net worth

Harris' net worth is currently estimated by Forbes to be $8 million. Reported holdings by Harris and her husband include a multimillion-dollar home in Los Angeles — and Harris’ latest disclosure includes holding a mortgage of between $1 million and $5 million. The couple also have more than $2 million in investments, including diversified index funds, some of which are partly obscured from public view through a trust, according to Barron’s.

Income and taxes

Harris’ tax returns show a leap in annual income from the low hundreds of thousands, when she filed as an individual, to between $1 million to $3.5 million in her joint filings with Emhoff.

Beginning in 2021, the couple’s earnings declined, in part because Emhoff stepped down from private law practice to teach law at Georgetown University, according to ABC News. The couple’s latest tax return, from 2023, reveals a total gross income of $450,299, including about $50,000 in taxable interest from Wells Fargo bank accounts.

She will earn a $284,600 salary in 2024 for being vice president.

Fun finance fact

Harris’ most recent tax return reported a gift of $1,655 in concert tickets from Beyoncé — whose song “Freedom” serves as the vice president’s customary music for walking to the podium at her rallies.

The numbers for her running mate

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s finances are as modest and unfancy as his political image. He and his wife, Gwen, own no property and have a net worth of no more than $330,000. The value of his federal pension benefit could add roughly $800,000 to the Walzes’ net worth, based on an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.

Walz draws a gross annual income of $210,287 for his duties as governor.

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Donald Trump

Net worth

Pinning down what Trump is actually worth is challenging due to the volatile value of his assets and his accumulation of as-yet-unpaid legal penalties.

One of the more recent calculations of Trump's net worth, from a March 2024 analysis by Bloomberg, reached an unprecedented high figure of $6.5 billion. The rise is attributed in large part to the value of Trump’s majority ownership of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the entity that owns his social media site, Truth Social. Trump’s 115 million TMTG shares were worth nearly $4 billion at the company’s mid-October share price.

Trump also owns up to $5 million of the cryptocurrency ethereum, according to the documents.

Income and taxes

In his latest financial disclosure, released in August by the Federal Election Commission, Trump reported revenue of more than $57 million from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, along with an income of over $12 million from licensing and royalty deals on books, sneakers and trading cards.

Offsetting his income are at least $600 million in debts from the judgments rendered against Trump, including a civil fraud judgment brought by the New York state attorney general and judgments from two successful libel suits by writer E. Jean Carroll.

Since Trump has not released his tax returns, information about his taxes have come from two main third-party sources. The New York Times revealed in 2020 that he paid no federal income taxes at all in 11 of 18 years that the Times examined and paid just $750 in 2017. The House Ways and Means Committee, which released seven years of Trump’s tax returns in 2022, has flagged concerns about Trump’s unsubstantiated tax deductions and loans, among other issues.

Fun finance fact

As a one-time member of the Screen Actors Guild, which he joined for his hit show The Apprentice, Trump receives an annual pension of $90,776 from the union, according to his August financial disclosure.

The numbers for his running mate

In his latest financial disclosure, from 2022, Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, reported between $4 million and $11 million in assets. Those holdings include a Schwab brokerage account worth as much as $7.5 million — with its investments largely in passively managed exchange-traded stock and bond funds, according to CNN.

Vance’s 2022 earnings included roughly $1 million from salaries from the U.S. Senate ($174,000) and his venture capital firm along with book royalties and investment income, according to ABC.

As for his taxes, Vance appears to be following Trump’s lead and is yet to release any tax returns.

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