Anti-abortion activists say Kamala Harris’ ease in talking about abortion makes her easy to paint as an extremist. Republicans just aren’t very eager to brush.
“Harris is so committed to abortion that she can’t see anything else,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, in a memo the group sent to Republicans. “GOP candidates must use this to their advantage and define Harris as the real extremist on abortion — not them.”
President Joe Biden, SBA’s memo states, “could barely utter the word abortion and for decades supported at least some basic limits, such as limits on taxpayer-funded abortions, Harris shouts abortion.”
Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, told NOTUS that policy-wise, she does not expect Harris to differ from Biden, but “she can put words and sentences together and not stumble, and it’s going to, you know, just come across better,” she said.
“I think the more she talks about it, the more that gives us an opportunity to get people’s attention to say, ‘Look how extreme she really is,’” Tobias said, adding that Republicans “definitely have to talk about” the Democratic Party’s “extremism.”
However, it doesn’t look like Republicans are feeling the pressure to be more outspoken.
“I think politicians don’t want to talk about it,” Sen. Josh Hawley said. “They’re like, ‘We don’t know what to do, we don’t know what to say, we just don’t want to have anything to do with the issue.’”
Hawley said that while he believes that the Republican Party overall should be “advocating for life,” it should depend on the “conviction” of each individual elected official whether to message on it because some might not “really care.”
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the GOP has struggled to keep a cohesive message on abortion, while Democrats have campaigned heavily on abortion this election cycle. Abortion rights advocates have lauded Harris, arguing she is a better communicator on the issue than the president, who has been criticized for rarely saying the word “abortion” and for his seemingly uncomfortable approach to the topic.
When Biden announced he was dropping out, Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, said that whoever became the new Democratic nominee would be “worse” than Biden. She said at the time that the GOP “must step up” and “must stand strong” in opposing Democrats’ abortion rights agenda.
Republicans have remained quiet both before and after Biden dropped out. Abortion was not mentioned at the Republican National Convention, for example, and now multiple GOP senators argue that it’s not a priority for their constituents.
Sen. Chuck Grassley said that while Republicans “have to be ready to talk about it all the time,” abortion only came up once during a trip across about a dozen counties in Iowa in July.
“We may have to talk more about it,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, but ultimately, “the southern border and inflation,” not abortion, “are the big issues in people’s minds.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer said even with Harris likely on the Democratic ticket, candidates and officials should only increase anti-abortion messaging depending “on where they live.”
“If we want to have a debate on who’s more extreme, I suppose we could welcome that,” Cramer told NOTUS. “But I don’t see [abortion] as a big issue. … It’s not a top two, three or four issue for most Republicans.”
Polls have shown that most people in the U.S. believe that abortion should remain legal and disapprove of the decision to overturn Roe.
Liz Mair, a longtime GOP strategist and former top staffer for the Republican National Committee, said that Republicans could focus on messaging against Democrats’ “outlandish and crazy” abortion position, but “I just don’t know that Republicans are considered by enough people to be operating in good faith where abortion debates are concerned to even put that out there and have it read credibly.”
“Probably, if I were them, I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on it,” Mair said.
While some abortion opponents said Harris risks losing more moderate voters with her vocal support for abortion access, abortion rights advocates and strategists don’t see that as an issue.
“We saw campaigns run on abortion successfully in Kansas, in Kentucky,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILYs List, on a recent press call. “This is an issue that resonates with people all over the country, and it is because voters overwhelmingly agree with us that these are personal health care decisions that should be made by individuals with their doctors that should be completely free of government interference.”
Christina Reynolds, EMILYs List senior vice president of communications, told NOTUS that the Harris campaign’s focus on “freedom” and privacy resonates with voters across the political spectrum.
“The reality is, for some people, it’s not that they are interested in abortion themselves, it’s that … they don’t think the government should get to decide,” she said.
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.