WASHINGTON — Two years after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade forced abortion rights advocates to reconsider their message, Democrats are digging into the issue, hoping to convince enough swing voters to propel the president forward . Joe Biden to a second term.
But in a close election that could decide a slew of issues, including some that voters consider more important than abortion, it is unclear whether Democrats can tap enough conservative votes to keep them in the Oval Office.
Nearly 28 million women of childbearing age live in states with partial or total bans on abortion, according to data from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund provided to NBC News. Several states with partial bans could be decisive for the presidential candidates in November, including Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
Democrats have seen pro-abortion rights candidates and positions win time and time again in purple and even red states. Now, with less than five months until voters cast their ballots, abortion rights advocates are trying to replicate these successes nationally.
Campaigns try to create a contrast
Biden on Monday placed the blame for the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling on the former president Donald Trump‘s feet, saying in a statement that Trump “is the only person responsible for this nightmare.”
“The consequences have been devastating: In states across the country, Trump’s allies have passed extreme and dangerous abortion bans — many with no exceptions for rape or incest — that endanger women’s lives and threaten doctors with prison time,” Biden said .
Biden’s re-election campaign is in full swing on its second anniversary, hosting dozens of campaign events in swing states. These events all mean that November’s election will be seen as a decision between one candidate who will protect abortion rights and the other who will attack them.
First lady Jill Biden made a trip through the vital swing state of Pennsylvania on Sunday, which she will continue on Monday. Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a campaign event on Monday in Arizona, the state she and the president won by just over 10,000 votes in 2020.
The Democratic National Committee also announced it is investing at least $8.3 million in state parties this year, according to a memo shared with NBC News.
The budget has been increased by 25% since 2020 “to ensure voters are aware of Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans’ attack on reproductive rights,” the memo said.
In a split-screen moment, Trump embraced his role in Saturday’s Dobbs ruling. He also praised the three Supreme Court justices he nominated — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — all of whom sided with Roe’s precedent.
“We have done a great thing,” Trump said in a speech to the Christian Faith & Freedom Coalition in Washington, DC, on Saturday. “The big problem was that it was tied up in the federal government, but the people will decide, and that’s the way it should be.”
Trump has shifted his position on abortion for decades, at one point calling himself “very pro-choice” and at another suggesting that women should be punished for seeking abortions. He has also questioned whether he would support a national abortion ban. On Saturday, he reiterated that he supports exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest or when the woman’s life is at stake.
John Conway, the strategy director for Republican Voters Against Trump, told NBC News that some voters believe Trump “will move where it is politically expedient on the issue of abortion.”
“I think some of them have certainly recognized that Trump’s justices were responsible for overturning Roe versus Wade,” Conway said, referring to conversations he observed in focus groups.
“But I do think the Biden campaign needs to continue to emphasize the salience of that particular point in order to really make the case against Donald Trump when it comes to abortion, just because it’s so much harder to pin down where his personal position about state. abortion at any time,” he added.
Democrats are trying to turn swing voters
Abortion has proven to be a mobilizing issue even in red-leaning states. Since the Dobbs decision, abortion rights activists have won victories in Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas and other states.
But in a closely contested presidential race, it is unclear whether Biden will have a similar level of success. An NBC News poll in April found that only 6% of registered voters considered abortion the most important issue facing the country.
Twenty-three percent of voters named inflation as the most important problem, followed by immigration and the situation at the border, threats to democracy, and to jobs and the economy.
In the Engagious Swing Voter Project’s focus groups of North Carolinians who would vote for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, eleven of the twelve participants agreed that abortion would determine a significant part of their decision about who to vote in November. supports.
“I have a daughter and I’ve been through that experience myself and I’m a big supporter of women,” said one of the focus group participants, Michelle, 55, of Candler, North Carolina. “And I think once they take that away, they’re going to demand a whole different set of women’s rights afterward.”
But Michelle, whose last name is not used in the focus group, said she would vote for Biden “if that’s the only choice I have,” adding that she wouldn’t be happy about it. Michelle said that in a five-way race between Biden, Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein, she would choose Kennedy.
“The question comes down to what is more unpalatable to them: the Dobbs decision or the prospect of four more years of Biden,” Rich Thau, the moderator of the Swing Voter Project, told NBC News. “So if it’s Dobbs’ decision they hate more, they’ll hold their noses and vote for Biden. If it is Biden they dislike more, they will tolerate the Dobbs decision even though they say they oppose it.”
Advertisements highlight prominent cases
Democrats and abortion rights groups have funneled money into shedding light on the impact of the Dobbs decision, with some ads credited with making or breaking a candidate’s prospects.
Hadley Duvall was featured in a viral ad last year for Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s re-election bid. In the ad, Duvall said she had been raped by her stepfather and spoke out in favor of access to abortion.
Beshear won and thanked her in his victory speech. Now Duvall is speaking out again in the run-up to the November elections.
“If you have a woman in your life who means something to you, her life is at stake” in the election, she said in an MSNBC interview alongside the vice president.
Like Duvall, Amanda Zurawski became a prominent example of the impact of abortion bans after, she said, she nearly died when doctors denied her an abortion when her waters broke at 18 weeks.
Zurawski lived in Texas, where abortion is banned with few exceptions. Now her parents are speaking out in new advertisements from the abortion rights organization Free & Just.
In two ads, first shared with NBC News, Zurawski’s parents, Mike and Cheri Eid, described feeling like they were “about to lose their daughter.” The couple emphasized that “a national abortion ban would be devastating to all families.”
“You can’t change what happened in their story,” Zurawski’s mother told NBC News. She added that she hopes that by speaking out, we can “change the narrative and the stories of others.”
The ad is part of the group’s $1.5 million investment in television and radio advertising in Wisconsin and Ohio.
“Our granddaughter was tortured for three days,” Zurawski’s father told NBC News, referring to the fact that Zurawski was denied an abortion despite extreme complications. ‘Is that pro-life? Is that compassion?”
In the ad, Zurawski’s parents say they are conservative. Mike Eid told NBC News that he thinks “Republicans need to wake up” on the issue of abortion.
The issue includes political parties, said Veronica Ingham, Free & Just’s senior campaign director.
“When you see people from your community talking about this, I think it makes it easier to relate to each other,” Ingham said. “And I think again that’s why it’s very important to have a wide variety of messengers.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
