November will mark the first presidential election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, representing the biggest test yet of how women’s reproductive health will impact the ballot.
Democrats parlayed their anger over the overturning of Roe, which legalized abortion federally, into a surprise victory in the 2022 midterm elections. And the party has racked up additional victories in competitive races since then, with their success due in enormous part to the continued power of the topic.
Now, two years after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, Democrats are hoping the issue will gain enough traction to catapult Vice President Harris into the White House.
“Very rarely is an election decided on a single issue,” said Christina Reynolds, senior vice president of EMILY’s List, a group dedicated to elected Democratic women who support abortion rights.
“[But] There is a clear bias towards one side, and that side is the Democrats,” she added. “People actually understand and see what’s happening, and the best way to deal with it is to elect the people who will protect your rights.”
Anti-abortion advocates reject that argument, pointing to governors with anti-abortion policies in Georgia and Texas.
“In 2022, no incumbent pro-life governor or senator lost, despite running against very vocal abortion advocates like Stacey Abrams and Beto O’Rourke,” said Emily Erin Davis, vice president of communications at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America .
“Since the 2022 midterm elections, SBA Pro-Life America has invested significant resources in focus groups and surveys to identify the most effective political messages for 2024,” she said.
In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, the issue has largely been relegated to the states where conservatives and abortion opponents say it belongs.
“Democrats will no longer get the best bang for their buck on this issue after this election just because each state has set its own rules,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.
But Democrats point to polls that show the issue is to their advantage in November. A majority of voters have consistently opposed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. According to a Marquette Law School Survey Published last month, 67 percent of respondents said they opposed the decision, while 33 percent said they supported it.
Meanwhile a CNN poll The study released earlier this week found that 52 percent of likely voters said they approved of Harris’ approach to voters nationally, while 31 percent said they felt the same way about Trump’s approach.
“We’re working with an electorate that really understands the harm that comes from these Trump abortion bans,” said Olivia Cappello of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
But Republicans note that abortion isn’t the only issue voters are voting on.
“The issue is important,” said Republican strategist Zack Roday. “But I believe this election will determine who people believe can do a better job of reducing costs and keeping us safe.”
According to the Pew Research Center, 81 percent of voters said the economy was their most significant issue, followed by 65 percent who said the same about health care. 51 percent said the same about abortion.
Democrats point to their success so far in the 2022 midterm elections after overturning Roe. This year’s midterm elections failed to produce the expected red wave, with a number of abortion-related ballot measures in red and blue states voting in favor of maintaining abortion access.
This year, abortion measures are on the ballot in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, Maryland, New York and Florida.
“When it comes to ballot measures, voters recognize that in states with direct democracy they have the opportunity to quickly change the state of abortion access in their state,” Cappello said.
And unlike 2022, access to in vitro fertilization is a central part of the reproductive health care discussion. Democrats have tried to tie Republicans to efforts in states like Alabama to restrict or limit access to the procedure.
But many Republicans, including Trump, have expressed support for the procedure. On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign said the former president would support “universal access” to IVF if elected.
“The stance that Trump has taken is the majority opinion within the Republican Party because at the end of the day, IVF is about life,” O’Connell said.
But both candidates have addressed abortion and reproductive health. During a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this week, Trump predicted that women “will be happy, healthy, confident and free” under his administration. They will no longer think about abortion.”
Harris has repeatedly criticized Trump on the issue, citing his appointment of conservative justices to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, she called for eliminating the filibuster to codify abortion rights in the Constitution.
Earlier this month, during a campaign stop in the battleground state of Georgia, Harris highlighted the stories of two women who Harris said died as a result of the state’s abortion ban, which Republicans enacted after overturning Roe v. Wade.
ProPublica first reported the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller. Thurman waited 20 hours in a suburban Atlanta hospital after seeking medical care for an incomplete abortion and died largely because of the hospital’s delays in treatment, according to a review by the state medical board. Miller died after failing to seek medical attention due to complications from abortion medications. Her family said she was afraid to seek medical treatment when it was clear the abortion was incomplete.
“Good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying ‘a health care provider will not begin providing that care until you are about to die?'” Harris said.
Georgia’s six-week ban on the procedure does allow for exceptions to save the mother’s life, but opponents of the ban say it creates confusion among doctors.
Earlier this week, SBA Pro-Life America’s partner, the Women Speak Out PAC, launched a $500,000 donation Television and digital advertising campaign in Georgia, in response to Harris. The group accused Democrats, including Vice President Harris, of spreading “lethal misinformation” about the women’s deaths.
Conservatives and groups like SBA Pro-Life America are pushing Republicans to portray their Democratic colleagues as radical and extreme on the issue, which they have worked for in the past.
“Many GOP candidates even won by double digits. Republicans will see more victories in the future if they emphasize their support for pro-life protections, communicate compassionately about the issue, and contrast their position with deeply held opinions unpopular “Democratic agenda for unlimited abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months of pregnancy,” Davis said.
Roday noted that both sides are in “uncertain territory” on the issue this cycle given the cap on the ticket.
“Simply because it’s a presidential election campaign [election]“I really think it’s a whole new dynamic,” he said.
