Biggest US abortion rights groups back Kamala Harris as effective messenger

The biggest abortion rights groups in US politics are lining up behind Kamala Harris’s bid for president, a show of faith in a politician who has already become the face of the White House’s fight over abortion rights – which is not only one of the election’s biggest issues but one of the few where Democrats have the advantage.

Within hours of Joe Biden’s stunning announcement on Sunday that he would drop out of the presidential race and endorse the vice-president, Emilys List , which champions Democratic women who support abortion rights, and Reproductive Freedom for All , which advocates for abortion access and was previously known as Naral Pro-Choice America, officially endorsed Harris. Emilys List plans to pour at least $20m into the race in support of Harris.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund, whose endorsement must be ratified by local chapters, has not officially weighed in. However, its CEO and president, Alexis McGill Johnson, warmly commended Harris for keeping “the needs and experiences of patients and providers front and center”.

Harris has spent much of this year on a tour of the country in support of abortion rights, where she has proven to be a far more effective messenger on the issue than Biden. The president was infamously reluctant to even say the word “abortion” and fumbled answers to questions about it in the June debate that ultimately cost him his candidacy.

“Just right off the bat, she’s primed to run with the message around abortion rights,” said Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “Her messaging around abortion and being out there forcefully on the issue is going to be a net positive for her.”

Harris, the first sitting vice-president or president to visit an abortion clinic , has described the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade and the abortion bans that now blanket the US south as “a healthcare crisis” and frames abortion rights as an issue of personal freedom.

Related: ‘A healthcare crisis’: Harris takes aim at Trump on anniversary of Roe’s fall

“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body,” she told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, in February.

Democrats hope that outrage over Roe’s downfall, which hobbled Republicans in the 2022 midterms and led GOP strongholds such as Ohio and Kansas to pass ballot measures protecting abortion rights, will boost turnout among their base – especially in battleground states like Nevada and Arizona. Both states are set to hold abortion–related ballot measures this year.

Donald Trump, his running mate, JD Vance, and other Republicans have attempted to neutralize the importance of abortion rights in the 2024 election by downplaying the issue as well as their party’s role in Roe’s demise. During last week’s Republican national convention, the issue was conspicuously missing onstage. Neither Trump, who appointed three of the supreme court justices who overturned Roe, nor Vance, who has previously supported a national abortion ban , mentioned abortion.

“Trump and Vance can downplay the abortion message all they want, but the political reality speaks for itself,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.

Deckman suspects that a Harris candidacy will invigorate young women, young women of color and suburban women.

“We see in our polling that young women in particular are the most staunchly supportive of abortion rights,” Deckman said. “I think it’s gonna be an extremely close election. But I think the benefit for the Democrats is now they have a new narrative. There’s some enthusiasm happening, where there wasn’t with the Biden campaign.”

Before Roe fell, anti-abortion Republicans were far more likely than pro-abortion rights Democrats to identify as single-issue abortion voters.

That picture has changed somewhat. One in eight voters say abortion is the “most important issue” to their vote, while more than half say that it is “very important issue but not the most important”, according to polling from KFF conducted before Biden’s departure from the race. Two-thirds of the voters who describe abortion as their most important issue say it should be legal in all or most cases. The voters who think it should be legal in all cases tend to be Democratic, Black, female or between the ages of 18 and 29.

But voters are also deeply concerned with the economy and immigration – issues where, polls indicate, Trump is seen as the stronger candidate. Although six in 10 Democrats think Harris would make a good president, only about three in 10 overall adults feel the same, according to polling released by the Associated Press on Friday.

As vice-president, Harris has backed Biden’s promise to codify abortion rights into law.

“Here’s what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” Harris said in a May speech . “But we are not going to let that happen.”

While abortion rights groups are backing Harris, anti-abortion activists are already mobilizing against her. SBA Pro-Life America, which plans to spend $92m across eight states this election cycle, has started calling Harris “the “abortion czar”.