Tue Jul 23

6 in 10 Americans support abortion rights. This could be the advantage Kamala Harris needs against Donald Trump

Written by Prudence Flowers, Senior Lecturer in US History, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Flinders University

Vice President Kamala Harris had only just been endorsed by Joe Biden to take his spot as the Democratic nominee for president when she forcefully reminded ^[1] Americans “what’s at stake in November” in a post on X:

Let’s be clear: Donald Trump would sign a national abortion ban and restrict access to contraception if given the chance.

Abortion has long been a hot-button election issue in the United States, but in the first presidential election since Roe v Wade was overturned ^[2], it could be the defining issue.

With Harris now the presumptive Democratic nominee ^[3], former President Donald Trump could be more vulnerable on the issue, particularly given his selection of J.D. Vance as his Republican running mate.

Kamala Harris speaking on reproductive rights in 2023.

Kamala Harris speaks on reproductive rights at Howard University in Washington, DC, in April 2023. Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Pool

What Americans think about abortion

In June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned ^[4] Roe v Wade, finding there was no constitutional right to abortion and returning regulation to the states.

Since then, public anger ^[5] has resulted in Democratic successes in multiple state elections. Every time reproductive rights have been on the ballot, abortion opponents have lost ^[6], even in conservative states like Kansas and Kentucky.

Although some of the initial fury has diminished, polls this year show a majority of voters still support reproductive rights ^[7].

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 63% of Americans ^[8] believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, which is up four percentage points from 2021. Notably, two-thirds of moderate Republicans also say they support abortion rights.

In another poll by Gallup, nearly a third ^[9] of registered voters said they would “only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion”. This is the highest percentage since Gallup began tracking voter sentiment on abortion in 1992. Back then, only 13% of voters agreed with the statement.

And in key battleground states for this year’s presidential election, 64% of residents ^[10] agreed abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Harris’s stance on abortion

Democrats are keenly aware abortion matters. In the presidential debate last month, however, Biden floundered ^[11] on the issue. Trump set the terms of the discussion, and Biden failed to convincingly defend reproductive rights or rebut falsehoods ^[12] about later abortion care that Trump has been recycling ^[13] since 2016.

Harris, by contrast, is far more assertive and confident when talking about abortion.

After she was elected to the US Senate in 2017 – the same year Trump entered the White House – she was the only senator ^[14] who had a reproductive rights lawyer on staff, according to one activist.

She voted regularly against anti-abortion bills ^[15] and cosponsored abortion rights legislation ^[16]. A leading right-to-life group gives her Senate record an “F” grade.

During Supreme Court nomination hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, Harris displayed the rhetorical talents she honed as a prosecutor and California’s attorney general. She repeatedly challenged him to name “any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body ^[17]”. Trump later complained that Harris was “the meanest, the most horrible, most disrespectful ^[18]” senator.

Harris was central ^[19] to the Biden administration’s response after the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v Wade – both as the public face speaking to Americans, and as the leader in policy discussions about how to claw back protections.

And she was the point person on abortion in Biden’s re-election campaign. On January 22, the anniversary of the 1973 Roe decision, Harris embarked on a “fight for reproductive freedom ^[20]” tour, giving stump speeches on abortion in multiple battleground states.

Then, in March, she toured a Minnesota abortion clinic ^[21], the first US president or vice president to do so.

Kamala Harris speaking at a Planned Parenthood in Minnesota in March. Adam Bettcher/AP

Republicans’ shifting tone

Republicans, meanwhile, have radically revamped their usual electoral strategies.

At the 2020 Republican National Convention, abortion was a prominent theme in Trump’s speech and right-to-life leaders were given coveted speaking slots.

But at this year’s convention, almost no one mentioned the topic. That included Trump and Vance ^[22], who has been outspoken in his opposition to abortion.

The Republican Party platform has also significantly trimmed back its language on the issue, abandoning ^[23] a more than 40-year-old promise to support national restrictions on abortion. (The platform instead contains language about the 14th Amendment, which is a veiled nod to the argument that fetuses have personhood rights ^[24]).

Trump is manoeuvring awkwardly on the issue, as well. He has claimed to be the “MOST pro-life President in history ^[25],” taking sole credit for the end of Roe.

Yet, simultaneously, he has eschewed responsibility for the abortion bans now in place in almost half the country ^[26].

Trump has spent the last year casting himself as an abortion “moderate”, arguing that regulation should be left to the states ^[27]. But he has angered some anti-abortion groups ^[28] by refusing to endorse a national ban and by describing Florida’s six-week ban as “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance at a campaign rally in Michigan. Evan Vucci/AP

Contrasting views on the Trump-Vance ticket

Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate has made things more complicated. Vance’s stances on reproductive health care are extreme even for a Republican.

Vance voted ^[29] against a law protecting in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) rights. He also called on the attorney general’s office to enforce a 151-year-old “zombie law” that would criminalise the delivery of medication abortion ^[30] through the mail.

Trump, meanwhile, has said he “strongly supports ^[31]” IVF, and has promised he would “not block ^[32]” medication abortion.

Vance said in 2022 he would like “abortion to be illegal nationally ^[33]”, and has argued against rape and incest exceptions ^[34] in abortion law.

Trump compares himself to former President Ronald Reagan in his support for abortion exceptions ^[35].

Vance now claims to share Trump’s approach to abortion but given both of them have such shifting views, it’s impossible to gauge what this means in practice. As Trump has repeatedly told his right-to-life supporters, “you got to win elections ^[36]”.

If he does win, however, it seems almost certain ^[37] he will attempt to advance the anti-abortion agenda outlined in Project 2025 ^[38]. Central to this is a multi-pronged attack ^[39] on medication abortion.

Harris has the capacity to bring the abortion fight to Trump and wage it with a prosecutor’s zeal. It will likely be a crucial part of her arsenal if she becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.