Happy Monday!

We’re just a day away from the debate that could change the shape of the presidential election — the most important face-off since the June debate that led to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race. Now, as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump meet in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, they are essentially tied in national elections. In a new one investigation by The New York Times and Siena College, Trump has a one-point lead, 48% to 47%, in a head-to-head matchup, well within the margin of error of about 3 percentage points. CBS News/YouGov Vote In key Electoral College battleground states, Harris is slightly ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin and the candidates are tied in Pennsylvania. The race is a toss-up, and tomorrow’s debate gives both candidates their best chance to change that.

Here’s what else you should know.

Harris rolls out more of his political agenda ahead of debate

Vice President Kamala Harris outlined a policy platform on her campaign website this past weekend, filling in some of the details of how she proposes to tackle specific issues, including taxes, the economy, health care and foreign policy. The release comes just days before the Democratic nominee faces his Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump, in a debate on Tuesday night.

Harris has struggled to define his campaign since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21. In many cases, she has adopted the platform laid out by the man she hopes to succeed in the White House, but she has also tried to put her own stamp on key issues like corporate tax rates and housing benefits, even as she has moved away from some of the more liberal the ideas like Medicare for All that she embraced during her run for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

The platform overview is divided into four sections — economy, personal rights, public security and foreign policy — each of which includes a comparison to what it calls “Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda,” a reference to an in-depth policy report created by the conservative Heritage Foundation for Trump to follow if he wins the election, though Trump has tried to distance himself from that effort.

The economics section of Harris’ website provides the most detailed information, with 10 specific policy prescriptions, some of which she has already discussed. Harris says she wants to cut taxes for 100 million working and middle-class Americans by expanding the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, while raising taxes on the wealthiest. She proposes giving first-time home buyers up to $25,000 to help with down payments and giving new tax breaks to startups and small business owners.

Without giving much detail, Harris also says she wants to lower child care costs, ban corporate pricing on groceries, raise the minimum wage and tackle the climate crisis while lowering energy prices.

Comparing her economic platform to her opponent’s, Harris says her cost-cutting agenda is a stark contrast to Donald Trump’s plans to raise prices, weaken the middle class, cut Social Security and Medicare, eliminate the Department of Education and preschool programs like Head Start, and end Affordable Care Act.”

Voters are still learning: Some undecided voters say they want to hear more about what Harris proposes to do in the White House. In it New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,695 likely voters released Sunday, 28% of respondents said they need to know more about Harris, compared to just 9% who said the same about Trump. Two-thirds of those who wanted to learn more about Harris said they were particularly interested in her policies.

Some supporters say Harris is trying to walk a line between politics that is universally popular and politics that is realistic, though her message may not be getting through to voters. “I think she doesn’t get enough credit for being an astute technocrat,” Ben Harris, a senior Treasury secretary under Biden, told Washington Post. “She’s a combination of populist concerns and a healthy dose of centrism, while trying to be fairly fiscally conservative and realistic by keeping her plans on target.”

At the same time, critics believe that the Harris agenda threatens to destroy the American economy. Late. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, attacked the Harris platform a little further social mediaand argued that it would fail to help ordinary Americans. A Trump campaign spokesperson said Harris’ policies “rival some of the most socialist and authoritarian models in world history.” And Newt Gingrich, the fire-breathing former House speaker who now serves as an adviser to Trump, said Harris is just trying to cover her tracks. “It’s not complicated: You have a radical in San Francisco who believes in big government socialism, who has three and a half years of experience destroying the economy,” he told the Post. “Her consultants have told her she needs to move to the middle, so she’s trying to think of things to do that would somehow make it work better.”

The bottom line: Harris has offered more details about her agenda, debunking accusations that she is trying to win the presidency without telling voters where she stands. But it’s not yet clear whether the effort will be enough to convince undecided voters that she offers a viable alternative to Trump — or a change from Biden.

Congress is back, with little time to stave off a shutdown

Congress is back after a six-week summer break; it has been 46 days since the House last held a roll call vote. Lawmakers now have just a few weeks to prevent a government shutdown when current federal funding expires at the end of the month.

The House will vote this week on a bipartisan Republican bill that would extend funding through March 28 and require proof of citizenship from people registering to vote in federal elections. Democrats have made it clear that the GOP funding plan is going nowhere, and the voting legislation is cynical and unnecessary because it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. The White House said Monday that the president would veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

“Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to keep the government open and provide emergency funding for disaster needs, House Republicans have opted for brinksmanship,” the Office of Management and Budget said. “This continuing resolution (CR) would place agencies at inadequately low levels — both defense and non-defense — for a full half-year, rather than providing a short-term pause to give Congress more time to work on full-year bills. The CR is the opposite of an efficient government that serves the American people and should always be as short as possible to allow work on year-round bills.”

Both the White House and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warn that a long gap would hurt the military, impair readiness and erode the U.S.’s advantage vis-à-vis China, among a host of other concerns.

Democratic congressional leaders also opposed the GOP bill. “Speaker Johnson is making the same mistake former Speaker McCarthy made a year ago, wasting precious time pandering to the hardline MAGA right,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray said in a joint statement Friday . “If Speaker Johnson pushes House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown increase greatly, and Americans will know that the responsibility for a shutdown will rest in the hands of House Republicans.”

In a letter to his colleagues on Sunday, Schumer said the Senate would try to avoid a “senseless and painful” shutdown by passing a bill without “poison pills or Republican extremism.”

Republican leaders also face some resistance from their own members, at least four of them has publicly spoken out against the bill.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News he believes the chamber will be able to pass the legislation. Asked what his backup position is, reportedly said“There is no fallback position. This is a righteous fight.”

The bottom line: Johnson is also fighting for keep his job and avoid a revolt from other Republicans who want him to play hardball with Democrats. “Johnson has two choices: Lean toward conservative priorities and risk chaos weeks before the election, or work on a bipartisan basis to keep the government running, likely infuriating his right wing,” Politico reports. “Johnson has chosen the former, at least as his opening move.”

But it’s hard to see how this plan does anything more than start a time-consuming battle ahead of the end-of-month deadline — and test the nerves of those in both parties who want to avoid a shutdown.