Harris Makes Bet on Turnout Among Women
PHOENIX—Kamala Harris is making a bet in the final days of a deadlocked election campaign that turning out women voters is her best path to the presidency.
In a race that has been defined by gender politics, getting women to the polls is a crucial task for Harris. The Democratic vice president, who remains neck-and-neck with former President Donald Trump, has made abortion rights and the importance of giving women freedom over their bodies a central part of her final message. She has stressed Trump’s role appointing three justices to the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, and seized on Trump’s recent remark that he would “protect” women.
Helping Harris in the closing stretch is Michelle Obama, typically a reluctant campaigner, who last week delivered a blistering address in which she detailed in graphic terms how abortion bans and limits to reproductive healthcare affect women’s bodies, and made an impassioned plea to men to “take our lives seriously.”
Rallying supporters
The former first lady was to continue to make her case Saturday in Pennsylvania. She held a get out the vote rally this past week focused on getting young people to participate. Harris, for her part, was set to spend Saturday rallying voters in Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta. First lady Jill Biden will also be campaigning in Pennsylvania, and other surrogates such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will be working to get out the vote.
A Harris adviser said that if she wins, it will be due to a large turnout among women— especially younger, college educated and suburban women— and limiting the losses among men. The Harris camp says it has managed to shift some Trump-supporting women by detailing his past statements on abortion.
Since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, women have turned out in midterms, special elections and for ballot referendums on abortion to power Democratic victories. Both parties are now scouring polls and data about people who have already voted for any signs of supercharged turnout among women.
National and swing-state polls have consistently shown Trump enjoying a strong advantage with men, but struggling to land a winning message with women. He has run a campaign featuring a hypermasculine message, at times defined by coarse and sexist language.
Trump has tried to moderate his stance on abortion, saying he wouldn’t support a national ban. He recently offered a tax break for people who take care of a parent or loved one, after Harris rolled out a plan to have Medicare cover in-home healthcare.
The former president has also argued that women’s safety is under threat, promising to protect them. In Wisconsin this week, Trump said his advisers had told him to stop casting himself as a protector of women. “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not,’ ” said Trump. “I’m going to protect them.”
Response to Trump
Democrats and Harris highlighted those remarks, with the vice president declaring in Phoenix: “There’s a saying that you gotta listen to people when they tell you who you are or who they are. And this is not the first time he has told us he does not believe women should have the agency and authority to make decisions about their own bodies.”
“We trust women,” said Harris to cheers.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt asked, “Why does Kamala Harris take issue with President Trump wanting to protect women, men, and children from migrant crime and foreign adversaries?”
Trump’s campaign has also pushed back by highlighting a comment from Harris-supporting billionaire Mark Cuban, who said that Trump doesn’t surround himself with smart women. Some of Trump’s fe-male advisers promptly shared photos of themselves with the former president on social media.
But Trump soon gave the Harris campaign fresh material, saying he would have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “work on health and women’s health.” Kennedy— who endorsed Trump after ending an independent bid for president—has questioned the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccine and other government- endorsed vaccines. Kennedy has also expressed conflicting views on abortion access. Harris responded to the suggestion with a one-word social- media post: “No.”
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said the campaign is focused on winning the election, but said Trump has made clear Kennedy will play an important role.
A campaign official also said that the abortion issue will be left to the states.
On Thursday, Trump went after GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney, a frequent critic who has endorsed Harris, during an interview with Tucker Carlson. “She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said, suggesting Cheney should be sent into battle. “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Trump has a long history of making crude and disparaging remarks about women. In 2023, a federal jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store 30 years ago. He denied the accusations.
Women’s stories
Over the course of the presidential race, women campaigning for Democrats have come forward with harrowing stories of pregnancy complications and healthcare struggles, speaking in detail about miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and fertility care in a way that was once unheard of in public life.
A recent ad featured a Texas woman who couldn’t receive an abortion during a miscarriage and developed a lifethreatening infection. She shows a scar on her abdomen from an emergency surgery, and the ad states she might never be able to have children.
Delaney Tunstall, 21 years old, of Scottsdale, Ariz., said abortion was an important reason she was backing Harris. The Arizona State University student said she had an abortion in May 2022—before the Dobbs decision—and that if she had not had the option “it would have had a drastic impact on my life.”
One challenge for Harris is that some women in battleground states who support abortion rights say they plan to support Trump. A recent Wall Street Journal national poll found that 33% of Trump voters say they want abortion to be legal with some or no restrictions, compared with 62% who want it to be illegal with some or no exceptions. A total of 92% of Harris voters support legal abortion some or all of the time, while 6% say it should be illegal.
