Democrats Hammer a Simple Attack on Abortion: Donald Trump Did This
In a meeting with her staff last week, Vice President Kamala Harris offered a prediction: Former President Donald J. Trump would not support a national abortion ban. Instead, she said, he would take a position that would muddy the waters on an issue that she believed could be deeply damaging for his campaign.
We need to make him own this, she told her aides.
Days later, as rumors circulated that a court ruling was coming on Arizona’s abortion ban, Ms. Harris instructed that an event in Tucson about student loans should instead focus on abortion rights, according to three Democratic officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.
On Tuesday, Arizona’s top court upheld an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions. And on Friday, before more than 100 abortion rights activists and supporters, Ms. Harris plans to deliver a simple message: Blame Donald Trump.
From campaigns for state legislatures to the race for the White House, Democrats have unified around a central message of protecting what remains of abortion access in the United States, along with the availability of long-established reproductive health measures like contraception and fertility treatments.
The Democratic effort underscores how the 2022 Supreme Court decision ending federal abortion rights remade American politics. Four years ago, Joseph R. Biden Jr. rarely mentioned abortion rights in his general-election campaign, fearing the issue could alienate moderate voters and would not sufficiently energize his base. Now, after the fall of Roe v. Wade, abortion rights are a centerpiece of his re-election bid, the first time that an American presidential campaign has focused so intensely on women’s reproductive health.
After largely abandoning an effort to brand economic progress under the banner of Bidenomics, the president’s team has found a simpler, easier-to-understand slogan to use wherever states are restricting abortion.