As Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and their aides scheme out their strategies for this week’s much-anticipated debate, one big question is how the two candidates will approach a great strength for Democrats and a major weakness for Republicans: abortion rights.
Harris has made the issue a guiding light, and it has benefited her party at the polls since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Trump, who for years took credit for that decision, has tried to dodge its political blowback, making contradictory statements meant to help him appeal to voters turned off by total or near-total abortion bans in many Republican states.
The candidates are all but certain to clash over abortion on Tuesday at the debate, the first time that they will directly confront each other and contrast their visions for the reproductive future of America.
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A rising share of voters in battleground states, especially women, say that abortion will be critical to their decision in November, according to recent New York Times/Siena College polls. Roughly as many voters list abortion as their top issue as those who chose immigration, though the economy remains the leading priority for Americans. For women younger than 45, abortion ranks as the most pressing concern. And those surveys also found that more voters said they trusted Harris over Trump on abortion.
Harris is expected to lean into that advantage during the debate, drawing attention to Trump’s role in appointing conservative Supreme Court justices who were instrumental in eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.
Harris’ Approach: ‘Donald Trump Did This’
In an effort to mobilize the Democratic base and sway some moderate Republican women and independents, the vice president has argued pointedly that the end of Roe and the resulting fallout are Trump’s fault.
“Donald Trump did this,” Harris often proclaims at her rallies, a line of attack she is likely to press on the debate stage.
She frequently refers to the abortion restrictions enacted in 22 states since the fall of Roe as “Trump abortion bans.” She holds him accountable for legal threats to in vitro fertilization and accuses him of wanting to ban mifepristone, a commonly prescribed abortion drug. She also highlights the accounts of pregnant women who have suffered serious harm after being denied access to medical care, saying their stories represent a wider Republican assault on American freedoms.
Those were arguments that President Joe Biden, an 81-year-old Catholic who has long been reluctant to even utter the word “abortion,” failed to pursue at his debate against Trump in June. Harris is decades younger and talks about the issue with ease.
“The fact that she’s done this work over her entire career means that she understands it in a unique way,” said Jessica Mackler, the president of Emily’s List, a group that works to elect women who support abortion rights and has energetically backed Harris for years. “She’s long understood that this is deeply personal. It’s intuitive for most voters. That’s the reason it has so much power.”
How Trump Has Shifted on the Issue
Harris is likely to seize on Trump’s years of contortions on abortion rights.
Since beginning his third campaign for the White House, the former president has been all over the map with his public and private comments about abortion. He has sought to persuade social conservatives and anti-abortion activists of his loyalty to their cause, while also trying not to lose support from moderates who support abortion rights.
In 2016, he won after promising that he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe. Now, both on the campaign trail and in interviews, he has frequently boasted about his role in appointing them. But in an effort to contain the political fallout, he has also falsely claimed that Democrats wanted to see Roe overturned as much as Republicans did.
After months of hedging, Trump said in the spring that he believed abortion laws should be left to the states, noting that he was “proud” of his role in ending Roe. But he has also repeatedly voiced opposition to a six-week abortion ban enacted in Florida, his adopted home state. And days after claiming that abortion rights were best left to the states, he denounced an Arizona court ruling that reinstated a 160-year-old ban and then successfully leaned on Republicans in the state to repeal it.
Late last month, Trump in just 24 hours embodied his contradictions on the issue. First, he suggested in an interview that he might support a Florida ballot measure that would allow abortion for up to 24 weeks, drawing the anger of social conservatives already frustrated by his attempts to distance himself from anti-abortion efforts.
The next day, he told Fox News that he would personally vote against the ballot measure, which would leave in place the same six-week ban that he has repeatedly insisted is too stringent.
And Trump, responding to Democrats’ attacks at their convention over his position on abortion rights, said on social media that his administration would be “great” for women’s “reproductive rights.”
Asked how Trump might respond to criticisms of his positions on abortion, Karoline Leavitt, a campaign spokesperson, sent a statement that accused Harris of having a “radical record” and said that Trump looked “forward to the opportunity to hold Kamala accountable for her dangerously liberal lies.”
On the campaign trail, Trump has accused Harris of being overly liberal on abortion, falsely claiming that she and other Democrats support abortions “after birth.” No state law permits executing newborn children. He made the same claim during his debate against Biden in June.
Biden struggled to address abortion on that stage. Asked about it, he gave a muddled answer in which he tried to pivot to immigration and then gave an incorrect explanation of Roe v. Wade.
Will the Muted Mics Play a Role?
Harris has emerged as a far more effective messenger on the issue. In March, she made the first official visit to an abortion clinic by a president or vice president.
Still, some Democrats worry that the debate rules may hamper the ability of Harris, a former prosecutor, to go after Trump on abortion because the candidates will have their microphones turned off when they are not speaking.
Harris has had some of her strongest debate moments in sharp back-and-forth exchanges. In something of an attempt to lower expectations, her campaign has publicly expressed concerns that she will not be able to take full advantage of a powerful emotional issue if she cannot challenge and fact-check Trump in real time.
“It is unfortunate that she won’t be able to go after him with that sort of prosecutorial line of questioning to hold him accountable,” Ian Sams, a senior spokesperson for the Harris campaign, told MSNBC on Thursday. “We know he’s going to try to mislead the country about where he stands.”
The Harris campaign had fought to have the mics on at all times but ultimately agreed to the original rules that Biden had secured for the first debate.
What’s at Stake in 2025 and Beyond
Harris has promised that, if elected, she would push for a federal law that would enshrine the protections once guaranteed by Roe. But without a stunning series of Democratic victories in November, Congress would almost certainly be unable to pass such legislation.
She has also reached out to more moderate voters with some of her language from the stump, framing the issue as protecting a woman’s personal liberty from government overreach.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body,” Harris said at a recent campaign event.
Molly Murphy, a pollster for the Harris campaign, said that Americans, especially younger women and people of color, were responding to the message that Trump would go further in restricting abortion in a second term.
The former president has signaled that he is open to letting states monitor the pregnancies of women and prosecute those who have abortions. And Project 2025 — the conservative governing blueprint drawn up by allies of Trump that Democrats are trying to link to the former president — contains detailed proposals for curtailing abortion rights.
“It reminds voters about how bad it’s been,” Murphy said. “And it reminds them that this is very much at stake in this election.”
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