WASHINGTON (AP) — Planned Parenthood will spend $40 million ahead of November's elections to bolster President Joe Biden and leading congressional Democrats, betting that voters angry at Republican-led efforts to further restrict access to abortion can be the difference in key races around the country.
The political and advocacy arms of the nation's leading reproductive health-care provider and abortion rights advocacy organization shared the announcement with The Associated Press before its wider release Monday.
The group will initially target eight states: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Biden is seeking to defend 2020 victories, as well as North Carolina, which the Democratic president's campaign hopes to flip after Republican Donald Trump won it four years ago, and Montana, New Hampshire and New York, which have races that could help determine control of the Senate and House.
The push will try to reach voters with volunteer and paid canvassing programs, phone banking and digital, TV, and mail advertising.
“Abortion will be the message of this election, and it will be how we energize voters," said Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes. “It will be what enables us to win.”
The spending plan is not an election cycle record for the group. It spent $45 million ahead of Biden defeating Trump in 2020 and $50 million before the 2022 midterms.
Planned Parenthood's advocacy arms focused on pouring money into contests where access to abortion was on the ballot after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that created a constitutional right to have an abortion, a decision handed down two years ago Monday.
“We continue to see the devastation that comes when anti-abortion politicians have power,” Lawson said of the years since. “It’s just gotten worse.”
Abortion continues to be one of the nation’s most important political issues, but dynamics around it have changed since the Supreme Court ruling. After the ruling, most Republican-controlled states imposed new abortion restrictions, including some bans at every stage of pregnancy.
Meanwhile, voters in seven states — California, Michigan and Vermont, as well as usually reliably Republican Kansas, Kentucky, Montana and Ohio — sided with abortion-rights supporters on ballot measures.
In November, voters in several other states, including battleground Arizona and Nevada, will have abortion referendums on the ballot, as will Florida, a onetime presidential bellwether that has gotten increasingly Republican in recent cycles but where Biden’s campaign is hoping turnout for the abortion ballot initiative can make things closer.
SBA Pro-Life America, one of the country’s most prominent groups opposed to abortion rights, announced in February that it plans to spend $92 million targeting voters in eight battleground states: Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Montana and Georgia.
In addition to national efforts, local Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations in California, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio are planning advocacy campaigns ahead of November.
Planned Parenthood advocacy efforts also will focus on some down-ballot rates, like aiding Democrats seeking a supermajority in the Nevada statehouse, or opposing two state supreme court justices up for reelection in Arizona after they voted to allow officials to enforce an 1864 law criminalizing nearly all abortions, which the state legislature has since voted to repeal.
“We can’t just vote for ballot initiatives," said Lindsey Harmon, executive director for Nevada Advocates for Planned Parenthood Affiliates PAC. “We also have to support the infrastructure that makes abortion access possible.”
FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Planned Parenthood, March. 14, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn. Planned Parenthood will spend $40 million ahead of November's elections to bolster President Joe Biden and leading congressional Democrats. It will initially target eight states: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Montana, New Hampshire and New York. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher, File)
FILE - The Planned Parenthood Health Center located in Chapel Hill, N.C., is seen, May 3, 2024. Planned Parenthood will spend $40 million ahead of November's elections to bolster President Joe Biden and leading congressional Democrats. It will initially target eight states: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Montana, New Hampshire and New York. (AP Photo/Makiya Seminera, File)
Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech Friday focused squarely on abortion rights to voters in Georgia, where news reports have documented women’s deaths in the face of the state’s six-week ban.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are scrambling to ensure that the U.S. Secret Service has enough money and resources to keep the nation’s presidential candidates safe amid repeated threats of violence. The efforts follow a July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally and after a second apparent attempt last weekend at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
With early voting beginning Friday in three states, voters are split on whether Harris or Trump would better handle the economy, a new AP-NORC poll finds.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
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Harris will speak at an evening rally in the heavily Democratic state capital of Madison, where some voters said they’re eager to hear more about where she stands on issues.
“I’d like to hear more details,” said Rabindra Upreti, 51, of Madison. He said he especially wanted to hear her talk more about her plans for the economy, especially how she will bring down housing costs.
“I don’t know how she’s going to cover that,” Upreti said. “I want her to break down more details.”
Brittany Thompson, 34, of Madison, also wants more information about her plans for affordable housing.
“Her story is compelling, but I would like to hear more,” Thompson said.
While Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin, is a Democratic stronghold, the race statewide in Wisconsin is expected to be tight.
During her speech Friday in battleground Georgia, Harris shared the story of Amber Thurman, a mother who decided to have an abortion after she became pregnant again. She developed sepsis and died while waiting more than 20 hours at the hospital for a routine medical procedure after taking abortion pills.
The vice president said Thurman “should be alive today.”
Harris blasted Donald Trump as a threat to women's freedoms and their very lives, warning Georgia voters that he would choke off access to abortion if he returns to the White House.
The Democratic vice president’s visit came days after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died after they did not get proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies.
Such deaths, Harris said, were not only preventable but predictable because of laws that have been implemented since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Although Georgia’s six-week ban allows abortions in early pregnancy to save a mother’s life, critics say the law has created dangerous confusion for doctors about when they’re allowed to provide care.
A Beverly Hills fundraiser featuring Barack Obama is expected to bring in over $4 million for Kamala Harris' election effort.
The Friday event is intended to be smaller than other blowout fundraisers for the Democratic ticket over the past year in the beating heart of America’s entertainment industry, which have featured entertainers such as Lenny Kravitz. The minimum donation for a ticket is $50,000, according to a Los Angeles-based consultant.
It will be held at the home of James Costos, the former president’s ambassador to Spain, and his partner Michael Smith. It’s not the only fundraiser for Harris to be held in the Los Angeles area on Friday. Hillary Clinton was slated to appear at an event hosted by Sybil and Matthew Orr, said the consultant, who insisted on anonymity to provide private details for the events.
Nearly eight years removed from office, the $4 million figure raised by Obama suggests he has still has lasting star power in Hollywood.
Harris’ campaign is airing a new ad in battleground North Carolina, aiming to highlight Trump’s ties to the embattled GOP gubernatorial nominee and top Trump surrogate.
The ad alternates between Trump’s praise for Robinson and the lieutenant governor’s comments in support of a statewide abortion ban without exceptions. It comes as Harris is set to give a speech Friday focused squarely on abortion rights in Georgia, where news reports have documented women’s deaths in the face of the state’s six-week ban.
Her campaign says Harris’ ad is its first to link Trump to a down-ballot candidate. The rollout follows a CNN report Thursday about Robinson’s alleged posts on a pornography website’s message board. Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments. He said wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.”
Trump campaigns in Wilmington on Saturday, but a person on the Trump campaign, and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, told AP that Robinson will not be with him.
The Harris campaign says the ad is part of its $370 million in digital and television advertising reservations between Labor Day and Election Day.
In addition, the Democratic National Committee is running billboards in nine places across North Carolina, including Robinson’s hometown of Greensboro, showing a photo of him standing alongside Trump. There’s also text of positive things the Republican presidential nominee and former president has said about Robinson.
President Joe Biden invited a special guest to his meeting with his Cabinet on Friday: his wife, Jill Biden. It was her first time attending.
Biden called on her to update the group on a new White House effort to change the approach to and boost funding for research into women’s health issues.
The first lady said “incredible progress” had been made since she and the president launched the initiative in November after she learned about “huge gaps in our understanding of women’s health.”
She called out several departments and agencies, including Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health, for committing hundreds of millions of dollars to spur research and innovation.
The first lady said she’ll be making a new announcement on Monday in New York.
She said the steps taken so far are “building momentum for this research” but added, “We have to keep moving forward.”
In-person voting for this year’s presidential election has officially begun, kicking off the six-week sprint to Election Day.
Voters lined up Friday to cast their ballots in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia, the states with the first early in-person voting opportunities. About a dozen more states will follow by mid-October.
Some of the voters who cast ballots Friday suggested that they didn’t want to wait, hoping to avoid the potential for trouble or chaos at the polls after a summer of political turmoil.
Other early voters might opt for early in-person balloting instead of mail-in absentee ballots to ensure their votes get counted, given the ongoing struggles of the U.S. Postal Service.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has often sought to sow doubt about mail voting and encouraged voters to cast ballots in person on Election Day. But this year, Trump and the Republican National Committee, which he now controls, have begun to embrace early and mail voting as a way to lock in GOP votes before Election Day, just as Democrats have done for years.
At a polling site in Minneapolis, Jason Miller arrived well before the polls opened at 8 a.m. and was first in line. He was among roughly 75 people who cast ballots in the first hour at the city’s early voting center.
“Why not try to be first? That’s kind of fun, right?” said the 37-year-old house painter.
The Teamsters Rail Conference, which represents 70,000 members, endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Friday.
The announcement comes as a flurry of Teamsters locals back the Democratic ticket even though the national union declined to make an endorsement in the presidential race.
“The lives and livelihoods of railroaders are more dependent than most workers on decisions made by the federal government,” said the Teamsters Rail Conference, which cited Democrats’ support for worker-friendly regulations like paid sick leave.
The rail workers’ endorsement differs from a previous statement from the Teamsters’ national leadership, which cited Harris’ stance on rail strikes as a reason not to endorse her.
Vice President Kamala Harris said she’s “very proud” to have earned Taylor Swift’s endorsement but poked at the pop superstar over the Super Bowl in a new video interview released Friday.
The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 to win February’s game.
Harris and Swift supported opposing teams. Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, is a 49ers fan, while Swift backs the Chiefs. Her boyfriend is Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
In WIRED’s Autocomplete Interview, which Harris sat for earlier this week, she noted the split with Swift over the Super Bowl but said, “Who’s mad at anyone for being loyal to their team?”
On Swift’s endorsement, Harris said, “I am very proud to have the support of Taylor Swift” and described the singer-songwriter as “an incredible artist.”
“I really respect the courage that she has had in her career to stand up for what she believes is right,” the vice president said.
Swift announced her endorsement shortly after the conclusion of Harris’ debate on Sept. 10 with Republican Donald Trump.
Swift has a dedicated following among young women, a key demographic in the November election, and her latest tour has generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales
Washington, D.C., has a new tourist stop that surely will be made over once the next president settles into office.
“The Peoples’s House: A Washington Experience” is set to open on Monday, covering three floors in an office building a block from the White House.
The education center boasts a full-scale replica of the Oval Office decorated just as President Joe Biden’s currently is — right down to his desk, the armchairs in front of the fireplace and the weathered family Bible resting on a side table.
But it won’t look that way for long.
The plan is to update the replica Oval next year after either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump is elected in November and assumes office, and the décor is set.
The replica will always mirror the Oval Office of the sitting president, so it will be updated regularly, said Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association.
The nonprofit organization raised money to open the education center.
Admission is free; timed tickets are required.
Vice President Kamala Harris has grown more open about her gun ownership in recent weeks, but on Thursday she for the first time said what she’d do with the handgun she owns.
Speaking during a campaign event hosted by the talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Harris was addressing her efforts to cut down on violence and pass a new ban on assault-style weapons, when she referenced owning a handgun — surprising Winfrey.
“If somebody’s breaking into my house they’re gettin shot,” Harris added. She continued: “I probably shouldn’t have said that. My staff will deal with that later.”
A live stream with Vice President Kamala Harris and talk show host Oprah Winfrey billed as a “Unite for America” rally kicked off Thursday night with more than 230,000 viewers on YouTube alone even before Harris joined, as the Democrat looks to digital-first events to reach voters.
The event was hosted by Winfrey from suburban Michigan, one of this election’s key battlegrounds, and leaned on celebrities like Brian Cranston, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, and Meryl Streep, but also the stories of ordinary voters to promote Harris’s message.
“I want to bring my daughters to the White House to meet this Black woman president,” said comedian Chris Rock.
Donald Trump appeared before Jewish leaders in Washington D.C. on Thursday to talk about antisemitism.
But as the former president is wont to do, he took a large detour at the top of his speech, name-checking his Republican allies in the crowd, discussing the Green New Deal “scam” and pontificating about his polling numbers at length.
Trump was roughly an hour late to his speech, which was slated to begin around 6 p.m.
“Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you, or protect your children, or even protect you with words... I’m here to tell you today that this ugly kind of antisemitic hate for all of us — bigotry and hate — will be turned back ... starting at noon on Jan. 23rd," he said.
"With your vote, I will be your protector and defender and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Minneapolis residents cast their votes at the City of Minneapolis early voting center, Friday, September 20, 2024, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Minneapolis voter Jason Miller casts his ballot at the City of Minneapolis early voting center, Friday, September 20, 2024, in Minneapolis, Minn. Miller was the first resident in line to cast his vote. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz speaks to supporters at a Democratic campaign office in Macon, Ga., Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris joins Oprah Winfrey at Oprah's Unite for America Live Streaming event Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024 in Farmington Hills, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris listens as she joins Oprah Winfrey at Oprah's Unite for America Live Streaming event Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024 in Farmington Hills, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Israeli American Council National Summit, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd after speaking at the Israeli American Council National Summit, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
