President Biden and Democrats are focusing on former President Trump’s role in restricting access to abortion, using the anniversary of the Dobbs ruling to attack him on the issue.
“Today, our daughters know fewer rights than their grandmothers. This is a health crisis and we all know who to blame: Donald Trump,” Vice President Harris said at a campaign event in Maryland on Monday.
She placed the blame squarely on Trump, saying he “intended” the three Supreme Court justices he appointed to overturn Roe, calling it “premeditated.”
Separately, in a campaign video, Biden declared that “decades of progress” were “destroyed just because the last man spent four years in the White House.”
The Democrats’ effort to use abortion rights to their advantage is not a surprise or a new campaign tactic. The party credited the Supreme Court’s electoral victories in the last cycle with energizing Democrats on the issue of abortion rights.
Trump also doubled down on credit for the Supreme Court’s action, and Biden’s campaign is telegraphing its intention to make the issue a major point in this week’s first presidential debate between the candidates.
Trump said Saturday that “we did an incredible thing” by confirming conservative judges to the court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Wade, which had been in force for half a century. But the former president sought to deliver a balanced message on abortion, a possible sign of the issue’s political danger for his campaign.
Trump has said he opposes a national abortion ban, and after the Supreme Court upheld access to the abortion pill mifepristone earlier this month, Trump’s campaign said “the matter is resolved.”
At the same time, Trump won confirmations from three justices who voted to overturn Roe. Since his decision, several states have struck down abortion rights and it has become much more difficult for women in large swaths of the country to get an abortion.
Democrats, including Biden and Harris, have warned that Trump and the Republican Party could go further in a new term, targeting birth control, in vitro fertilization, medical abortion or pursuing a national abortion ban.
“Let’s be clear: Donald Trump owns every abortion ban and policy that deprives women across the country of essential reproductive health care,” Rosemary Boeglin, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said Monday.
Democrats think the strategy of blaming Trump by tying him to state-level bans is a smart way to communicate with voters on the issue.
“Trump will go down in history as the only president to turn back the clock and take away freedoms, and he brags about it at every step. It is imperative that Americans associate Trump with this legacy and understand that putting him back in the White House means they are putting other rights at risk,” said Alexandra LaManna, Biden’s former White House press secretary on reproductive rights.
Public polls are largely on the Democrats’ side when it comes to abortion access. About 6 in 10 Americans said last month they think abortion should be legal in most cases, according to a studyPew Research Centersurvey. Furthermore, aFox News Pollin March found that 59% of Americans think abortion should be legal.
Although Biden trails Trump in national polls and in swing states, Democrats believe they can energize their supporters with their abortion message.
Still, polls also show that Democrats have some work to do.
A New York Times/Siena Collegepoll last month found that 1 in 5 voters in swing states think Biden, rather than Trump, is responsible for ending Roe.
Although Trump appointed the judges who made the decision, the change happened in 2022, when Biden was in the Oval Office.
It’s true that Biden and Harris have made every effort to convey that Trump is responsible.
“Let’s be very clear. There is one person responsible for this nightmare. And he is recognized and boasts about it. Donald Trump,” Biden said in April comments condemning Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
Harris doubled down on her comments at the EMILY’s List national gala in May, saying Trump “handpicked three members of the United States Supreme Court because he intended them to overturn Roe. And as he intended, they did.”
As Biden struggles to win over voters on other issues such as inflation and the economy, Democratic strategists say the abortion messaging campaign is the right strategy.
“They are doing the right thing by holding Trump accountable for an outcome that two-thirds of all voters disagree with,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist and donor.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
