In the home stretch of the election, Democrats are stepping up their warnings about abortion and reproductive rights, hoping that an issue that has so moved the party can get them over the finish line.
Abortion has been banned since the overturn of Roe v. Wade is one of the Democrats’ biggest appeals to their base and has helped the party achieve unexpected success in the 2022 midterm elections. Since then, the party has won victories in special elections, referendums and off-year elections, a trend largely attributed to anger over the dissolution of Roe.
Now Harris is putting a lot of pressure on the issue in the final days of the campaign with a stop in Texas on Friday as there are signs that former President Trump is one step ahead of her.
“Because Democrats know that the abortion issue is the issue on which they have the best vote with the broader electorate, the key is to find those pro-choice voters who are concerned about abortion bans and get them to do so “to go to the ballot box,” he told Democratic strategist Adrian Hemond.
Reproductive rights have been one of the top issues in US politics over the past two years, and Democrats have scored success after success, directly or indirectly. Of all the issues on voters’ minds, it is one of the party’s highest-rated issues.
While Harris and other Democrats have reiterated what they believe is at stake in this election for full-cycle abortion access, they are particularly emphasizing this as one of the final messages before the public heads to the polls.
Harris made a stop in Atlanta last month, where she referred Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old woman from Georgia who died of an infection resulting from a infrequent complication due to a medication abortion. Thurman reportedly waited 20 hours in a hospital after seeking medical attention for an incomplete abortion before seeking treatment. A review by the state medical board called her death “preventable” and blamed the delay Thurman suffered.
Georgia currently has a six-week abortion ban that Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed into law in 2019 and took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
And Harris will try point out The impact of abortion bans during a trip to Texas on Friday, a break from her series of visits to states considered more likely to be battlegrounds in 2024. She will speak in Houston and join women affected by abortion bans like the one in Texas, where abortion is almost exclusively available forbidden unless the woman’s life or health is at risk. Beyonce, a Houston native, is also expected to attend, in a sign that she is trying to make this event one of the key moments of her campaign.
Democratic strategists said the effort is a key issue for many voters, particularly women, who make up a key part of the party’s coalition.
“It’s a bipartisan issue,” said Democratic strategist Marj Halperin. “The majority of voters in this country want women to have access to abortion care.”
An ad for Harris that first aired on CNN during her town hall Features a woman who almost died from an infection after being denied an emergency abortion in Texas.
And the Democrats are also pushing the Republicans into voting on the issue of abortion. The topic was prominent Special feature of Senate and House debates for key seats, and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, announced Monday a nearly $2 million investment in abortion-related ads in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Harris’ push comes as 10 states are set to vote on abortion-related ballot measures that, in most cases, could enshrine access to the procedure in their state constitutions until it becomes feasible.
This is just the latest round of such measures, after some states had them on the ballot in 2022 and 2023, and the side defending abortion rights has a mighty track record.
In each of the seven states that have had an abortion measure on the ballot in the last two years, voters voted to protect access each time. These include the conservative states of Kansas and Ohio.
The measures will be a particular focus in battleground states like Arizona and Nevada, where Harris and Trump are neck-and-neck and Democratic and Republican Senate candidates are competing against each other.
Arizona-based Democratic strategist Stacy Pearson said she believes the measure could appeal to Democrats, particularly at the top of the ticket in a state like hers.
After Roe was overturned, a 15-week law went into effect, but the state Supreme Court earlier this year revived an 1864 law that almost completely banned abortions. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) shortly afterwards signed a Bill to repeal the 1864 Act and restore the 15 week time limit.
Pearson said she’s particularly not as concerned about the mighty reaction to overturning Roe waning starting in 2022 in a state like Arizona because of “volatile” changes in access. She pointed out that women have so far overtaken men in early voting there, while the numbers are usually more balanced.
“Women understand the task [the measure] enshrines abortion access in the Arizona Constitution, and Donald Trump is the person who took those protections away from us,” she said.
But strategists also acknowledged the wide range of issues facing voters that will ultimately play a role in voters’ decisions about the election, and some urged the party to focus more on other issues such as the economy and immigration , voters have consistently cited issues they believe the country is facing at the top of polls.
A Democratic strategist argued that Harris has already won the support she will receive on abortion and that she would be better served by reaching out to the center with an economics-oriented message.
They said Democrats did what they could to keep abortion as a central issue, but over time enthusiasm for the issue has waned.
“Given time and people’s attention spans, it’s challenging to hold people’s attention for that long. So I think it will be a key factor, but I don’t think it will be the crazy deciding factor that it would have been if the election had been several months ago,” they said.
They said local ballot measures defending abortion access remained popular and should continue to perform well, but some voters would vote for an abortion measure and for a Republican at the same time.
But Hemond insisted that voter turnout was key and more needed to be achieved on the issue.
“At this point, you’re not convincing anyone of anything,” he said. “Everything is priced in at this point. Now it just depends on who votes.”
“If this motivates voting behavior in Kansas, I think we can say it will have some impact no matter where it is,” he said. “The only question is the size of the effect.”
