Democrats lean into abortion with closing pitch to voters

Democrats are stepping up their warnings over abortion and reproductive rights in the home stretch of the election, hoping that an issue that has been a galvanizing one for the party can pull them across the finish line.

Abortion has been one of Democrats’ biggest motivators for their base since Roe v. Wade was overturned and helped the party pull off unexpected success during the 2022 midterms. Since then, the party has racked up wins in special elections, referenda and off-year elections, a trend that has largely been attributed to anger over the dismantling of Roe.

Now Harris is making a full press on the issue in the final days of the campaign with a stop in Texas on Friday amid signs that former President Trump is edging ahead of her.

“For Democrats, knowing that the abortion issue is the issue on which they poll the best with the electorate at large, it’s all about finding those pro-choice voters that are concerned about abortion bans and getting them to come out and vote,” said Democratic strategist Adrian Hemond.

Reproductive rights has been one of the top issues in U.S. politics for the past two years with Democratic success after success directly or indirectly on the issue. It has been one of the party’s top-rated issues of all that are on voters’ minds.

While Harris and other Democrats have reiterated what they view are the stakes of this election for abortion access throughout the cycle, they are particularly zeroing in on it as one of the last messages before the public goes to the polls.

Harris made a stop in Atlanta last month during which she referenced Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old woman from Georgia who died from an infection following a rare complication stemming from a medication abortion. Thurman reportedly waited 20 hours at a hospital after seeking medical assistance for an incomplete abortion before receiving treatment, and a review from the state medical board called her death “preventable,” blaming the delay that Thurman experienced.

Georgia currently has a six-week abortion ban in place that Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed into law in 2019 and went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

And Harris will seek to highlight the effects of abortion bans during a trip to Texas on Friday, a break from her series of visits to states seen more as battlegrounds in 2024. She will speak in Houston and be joined by women who have been affected by abortion bans like the one in Texas, where abortions are almost entirely prohibited except for when the life or health of the woman is at risk. She is also expected to be joined by Beyonce, a Houston native, in a sign of how she’s seeking to make this event one of the key moments of her campaign.

Democratic strategists said the effort is critical as a top-of-mind issue for many voters, especially 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 do want women to have access to abortion care.”

An ad for Harris that first ran during her town hall with CNN features a woman who almost died from an infection after being denied an emergency abortion in Texas.

And Democrats are also hammering Republicans on abortion in down-ballot races. The topic was a prominent feature of Senate and House debates for key seats, and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, announced on Monday a nearly $2 million investment in ads focused on abortion targeting Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Harris’s push comes as ten states are set to vote on abortion-related ballot measures that could enshrine access to the procedure, in most cases up to the point of viability, in their state constitutions.

These are only the latest round of such measures after a few states had them on the ballot in 2022 and 2023, and the side in favor of defending abortion rights has had a strong track record.

In each of the seven states where an abortion-related measure was on the ballot in the past two years, voters have voted in favor of protecting access each time. That includes the conservative-leaning states of Kansas and Ohio.

Eyes will especially be on the measures in battleground states like Arizona and Nevada, where Harris and Trump are neck and neck and Democratic and Republican Senate candidates are facing off in competitive races.

Arizona-based Democratic strategist Stacy Pearson said she believes the measure could held pull up Democrats, especially 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 a law from 1864 that banned abortion almost entirely. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) soon after signed into law a bill to repeal the 1864 law and restore 15 weeks as the limit.

Pearson said she especially isn’t as concerned about the strong reaction to Roe’s overturn from 2022 fading in a state like Arizona because of the “volatile” changes in access. She noted that women have outpaced men in early voting totals there so far, when the numbers are usually more even.

“Women understand the assignment that [the measure] enshrines abortion access to Arizona's constitution, and Donald Trump is the person who removed those protections from us,” she said.

But strategists also acknowledged the wide range of issues facing voters that will ultimately come into play in voters’ decisions on the elections and some urged the party to further address other issues like the economy and immigration, which voters have consistently listed in polls as the top issues they see facing the country.

One Democratic strategist argued that Harris has already won over the support she will receive on abortion, and she would be better served by addressing those in the middle with an economic-focused message.

They said Democrats did what they could to keep abortion as a central issue, but the passage of time has lessened passions on the issue.

“With the passage of time and people's attention spans, it's hard to keep people focused for that long. So I think it's going to be a key factor, but I don't think it's going to be the crazy deciding factor that it would have been had the election been several months ago,” they said.

They said the local ballot measures to defend abortion access remain popular and should still perform well, but some voters will vote in favor of an abortion measure and for a Republican at the same time.

But Hemond maintained that turnout is the key and more remains to be gained on the issue.

“You're not persuading anyone at this point about anything,” he said. “It's all priced in at this point. Now it's just a matter of who votes.”

“If this is motivating electoral behavior in Kansas, I think we can say this’ll have some effect no matter where it is,” he said. “The question is just the size of the effect.”