US

Kamala Harris to make unexpected campaign stop in Texas

Abortion and reproductive rights likely to be at heart of vice-president’s message in Republican-leaning state

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is supporting Harris's candidacy, at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, on Monday. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is supporting Harris's candidacy, at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, on Monday. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Lauren Fedor in Washington
Tue Oct 22 2024 - 16:57

Kamala Harris will campaign in the Republican stronghold of Texas this week, in the clearest sign yet that the Democratic vice-president is making abortion and reproductive rights a central part of her closing pitch to voters.

With just two weeks to go until election day, a senior Harris campaign official said the vice-president would travel to Houston, Texas, on Friday for an event focused on the state’s hardline abortion laws, which outlaw access to the procedure in almost all cases.

The trip in the final stretch of the presidential campaign underscores how Ms Harris and the Democrats are making reproductive rights one of their key messages heading into polling day on November 5th.

The eleventh-hour trip to Texas will also be seen as a political gamble of sorts, as Ms Harris spends valuable campaign time in a state the non-partisan Cook Political Report newsletter rates as “likely Republican” and where the majority of voters will almost certainly back Donald Trump for president, rather than one of the seven swing states that will determine who wins the White House.

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The vice-president has repeatedly blamed her Republican opponent for strict abortion laws in Texas and across the country, calling them “Trump abortion bans”.

[ US election explained: Could the abortion debate decide the US presidency? ]

Ms Harris’s visit may also provide a boost to Democratic Senate candidate, Colin Allred, who is challenging incumbent Republican senator Ted Cruz in a race that is expected to be close and is arguably the Democrats’ only chance to pick up a Senate seat this November.

[ US election explained: How do the Congressional elections work? ]

The US supreme court struck down Roe v Wade, the 1973 case that enshrined the constitutional right to an abortion, in 2022. Mr Trump at the time took credit for the decision, noting he had appointed three of the justices who voted to overturn the precedent.

Since then, Republican officials at state level have ushered in increasingly prohibitive regulations: more than 20 states now have laws to limit abortion earlier in pregnancy than the viability standard set by Roe. In 13 states, including Texas, abortion is banned in almost all circumstances, including for victims of rape and incest.

Some conservative lawmakers and judges are going further, calling for restrictions on access to contraception and fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilisation.

But the laws are seen as out of step with public opinion, and a backlash at the ballot box has fuelled Democratic wins in the 2022 midterms and several off-year elections.

Mr Trump has tried to moderate his position – rejecting calls from the religious right for a national abortion ban, for example – in an attempt to avoid alienating moderate and centrist voters.

It remains unclear whether the issue will once again reap dividends for the Democrats at the ballot box in November. However, there are signals that it has cost Mr Trump support among female voters of all ages.

While the latest polling shows Ms Harris and Mr Trump virtually tied in the swing states, the former president has a problem with female voters in particular. A recent NBC News poll showed women across the country supporting Ms Harris by a 14-point margin.

At a campaign stop in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday, Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman who is now campaigning for Ms Harris, called on women across the political spectrum to “reject cruelty” and “misogyny”.

“[Abortion] is not an issue that we’re seeing break down across party lines,” Ms Cheney added. “There are many of us around the country who have been pro-life but who have watched ... state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024