Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign on Tuesday launched a bus tour from Palm Beach County, Florida, focused on abortion rights , just miles down the road from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Democrats made clear that their proximity to the GOP presidential nominee, who they say is to blame for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, was by no accident.
“What better place to kick off the Harris-Walz reproductive freedom bus tour than in Donald Trump's backyard?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said. “I was sort of hoping that we would just pull the bus right up to Mar-a-Lago and actually be in his backyard.”
The tour will include 50 stops across battleground states in a bid to gin up support for Harris and state ballot initiatives to expand access to abortion. Democrats say Florida’s Amendment 4 to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and roll back its six-week ban will buoy their candidates at the polls in a state that has trended increasingly red in recent elections.
“Freedom is on the ballot this November,” said former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democratic Senate nominee running against Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL). “If we want to stop these extreme bans, we have to stop the politicians who are pushing them.”
Democrats insist the race is among the most competitive Senate contests in the country. However, nonpartisan election forecasters consider it a safe Republican seat, and neither national political party is spending in the state.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison envisioned a day in the near future when the Sunshine State takes back the national spotlight as a swing state.
“On election night, when they flip over to Fox News, this is what I want them to see: Florida, Florida, Florida,” Harrison told supporters. “It is always good to be back in battleground Florida.”
The bus tour, dubbed the “reproductive freedom” tour, heads to Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday then Savannah, Georgia, on Thursday. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz are expected to join the tour in other cities. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, and Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) also attended Tuesday’s opener.
“It is not lost on us that we are just 10 miles from Mar-a-Lago, home of one Donald J. Trump,” Klobuchar said. “He calls it the winter White House. I call it his retirement home.”
The tour comes in the wake of Harris and Gov. Tim Walz's (D-MN) two-day bus tour in Georgia, a swing state responsible for Democrats winning the White House and the Senate in 2020. Harris and Walz were not part of Tuesday’s bus tour launch.
Democrats said national access to abortion is on the ballot this fall, accusing Trump and Republicans of wanting to severely limit access to the procedure at just six weeks. Trump has said he prefers to leave the matter to the states but has taken credit for the overturning of Roe thanks to his installment of three conservative Supreme Court justices to give the high court its 6-3 rightward slant.
There are also signs Harris is widening the gender gap. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll this week showed Harris leading Trump among women by 13 points with 54% to his 41%. Among men, Trump led by 5 points with 51% to her 46%. It is in part thanks to abortion access measures, which are giving Democrats hope in places that may otherwise be out of reach.
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After initially angering abortion opponents and some of his evangelical supporters for saying he does not agree with Florida’s six-week ban, Trump confirmed last week he will not support the abortion amendment on the ballot in November. He has since floated a new plan for the federal government or private health insurance companies to fully fund in vitro fertilization treatments if he wins.
“We are reminding Trump of the fact that by pulling our reproductive freedom and putting it on the ballot, he is going to have an incredible amount of energy and organizing that he is going to have to contend with," Chavez Rodriguez said.
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