Vice President Kamala Harris is pinning her hopes for the White House on her track record as an advocate for abortion access.
Just as former President Donald Trump rose to political prominence with a focus on immigration, so too Harris is building her campaign on restoring national abortion protections in the aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. It's a change from her brief 2019 campaign for the White House, in which she attempted to court both the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party and failed to persuade either one.
As Harris seeks to benefit from the abortion debate, the Republican Party writ large is seemingly distancing itself from what Trump has classified as a losing issue. Social conservatives are growing increasingly discontented with the Republican Party’s changes to the platform, which include dropping any reference to national-level restrictions on the procedure and eliminating language about the sanctity of life.
The would-be first female president is promising voters that, if elected along with a Democrat majority in Congress, she will sign a national-level abortion rights bill that would go farther than Roe v. Wade, allowing abortion post-viability based upon a physician’s recommendation.
Although Harris’s position on abortion is far to the left of the pre-2008 Democratic policy of “safe, legal, and rare,” her current party base is supportive, with 82% of Democratic women saying they trust Harris to lead the helm on this issue, according to a recent poll by healthcare think tank KFF.
If strategic, Harris could use her long track record on abortion to her advantage.
Abortion as prosecutor and senator
As California attorney general, Harris took on abortion rights advocacy well before the overturning of Roe.
In 2015, Harris advocated legislation targeting crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, as purveyors of misinformation–a position that has gained favor among Democrats across the country in recent years.
The law required CPCs to disclose to women that they were not licensed medical facilities and mandated that other clinics could provide abortions. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legislation in 2018.
Harris also rose to national-level prominence in 2016 while leading the investigation into anti-abortion activist David Daleiden .
Daleiden, head of the group Center for Medical Progress, used controversial undercover recording techniques to document conversations with Planned Parenthood staff in northern California discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue for research purposes.
Harris drew fire from anti-abortion organizations, including SBA Pro-Life America, following her decision to raid Daleiden's home, during which officers took his personal laptop and multiple hard drives.
Harris went on to win her Senate race and incoming Attorney General Xavier Becerra went on to continue the case.
As a senator and during her 2019 campaign, Harris supported legislation that would have codified national-level abortion protections, similar to what she has proposed following the overturning of Roe.
Biden-Harris administration abortion spokeswoman
Since the Dobbs decision, Harris has made over 100 state trips across the country, prioritizing swing states where abortion is a key issue, including Michigan , North Carolina , and Arizona .
She also was the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic, going to a facility in Minnesota this March, ahead of the Supreme Court’s hearing its first case on abortion since Dobbs, one that involved access to the abortion pill.
Although both Trump and vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) have tried to run to the middle on abortion, neither has shied away from the fact that Trump appointed three of the six Supreme Court justices that struck down Roe.
Harris has been able to use this to her advantage, labeling the abortion regulations in 25 states implemented since Dobbs “Trump abortion bans.”
Unburdened by likeability
Although Harris has struggled with poor approval ratings on the national stage, she comes across as authentic and passionate when speaking about abortion.
Harris has said on multiple occasions that she pursued a career in criminal justice largely because a friend of hers in high school was the victim of sexual violence from her father.
But, when Harris speaks about abortion, she frames it not just in terms of women’s rights but also quintessential American ideals of freedom and individual autonomy.
“I think there is something that’s very basic in terms of who we are as Americans and our founding principles which include the founding principle that we believe in freedom,” Harris said in Michigan at her first public speaking event following the assassination attempt on Trump earlier this month. “We believe in freedom from the government telling us what to do about matters of heart and home.”
She also emphasizes stories of women who have struggled with miscarriage or have been denied procedures in states with abortion bans due to confusion about the state law.
Harris said at the abortion clinic in Minnesota that many women are “silently suffering” and that she has “the responsibility of uplifting these stories.”
“The vast majority of Americans do have empathy,” Harris said. “Even if they don’t agree that this would be the best decision for them, [they] would agree that other people should not be suffering the way they are.”
Is abortion that important?
Although Harris’s campaign will do her best to make abortion the primary issue until November, polling data from this year suggests that the issue pales in comparison to both the economy and immigration, two issues that advantage Republicans.
Only 1-in-8 voters ranked abortion as their most important issue in a March KFF poll. Another 52% surveyed said the issue was a “very important issue but not most important.”
By contrast, about 80% of voters in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, each battleground states essential for an electoral victory, said the economy was their most important issue.
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Even the left-leaning polling group Data for Progress found abortion to rank eighth in a list of nine policy areas of interest to voters this fall. Jobs and the economy as well as immigration outranked abortion.
If Harris is able to drag the abortion debate to center stage for voters, she could put the Trump-Vance ticket in a difficult position. But, if she is unable to shift the priorities of voters, Harris might not be able to rely upon her strong suit.
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