Pro-Harris Super PAC Launches Abortion Ads in Swing States

Kamala Harris’s backers are trying to capitalize on one of the vice president’s strongest issues, in a new abortion-focused ad aimed at key battleground states.
On Thursday, a Democratic Super PAC launched a series of ads aiming to draw a contrast between the records of Harris and former President Donald Trump on reproductive rights.
In one of these ads, a nurse practitioner from Pennsylvania speaks to the camera and says: “Donald Trump seems dedicated to taking us backwards.”
Another, airing in Michigan, features an OB-GYN speaking about her own experiences with abortion.
“When my pregnancy was in crisis, and the child I wanted and loved had a devastating diagnosis, we chose to have an abortion,” she says. “Politicians like Donald Trump have no right to make that medical decision for me and my family.”
It comes as a poll from Focaldata showed that Trump, while being on track to lose the popular vote (45.9 percent to Harris’s 47.5 percent), is set to flip Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and crucially, Pennsylvania.
The appeals in the ads, interlayed with footage of Trump, urge voters to support Harris in November, who they claim, “believes its women, and not politicians, who should be making their own healthcare decisions.”
Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for their response to the ads.
The $15 million ad campaign has been orchestrated by American Bridge 21st Century, a D.C.-based Super PAC that supports Democratic candidates in gubernatorial, senate and presidential elections.
The group has said that its total budget for this election cycle is expected to reach $200 million and, in May, launched a $140 million ad campaign attacking Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riots.
However, the latest abortion-focused ads, airing in the critical swing states, hone in on an issue that has become a key Democratic strength leading into the final weeks of the campaign.
According to the latest New York Times-Siena College poll of registered voters, abortion is the second-biggest topic in this election, listed by 14 percent of respondents as the most important issue deciding their vote in November, behind the economy at 21 percent and ahead of immigration at 12 percent.
Polled voters also indicated that they trusted Harris more on abortion than Donald Trump, 55 percent to 38, with 8 percent undecided or refusing to answer.
However, Trump is currently besting Harris on the other two issues, leading Harris 56 percent to 40 percent on the economy (4 percent don’t know/refused), and 53 percent to 42 percent on immigration (8 percent don’t know/refused).
63 percent of the U.S. public currently believes abortion should be legal “in all or most cases,” according to Pew, and Trump’s record on reproductive rights has therefore been a thorn in the side of his campaign.
Trump has embraced his role selecting the three Supreme Court justices who were instrumental in the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision which protected the constitutional right to abortion.
“After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump posted to his social media platform, Truth Social, in May.
During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, the former president said he would not sign a federal abortion ban because “we’ve gotten what everyone wanted,” but refused to commit to vetoing a national ban if this landed on his desk.
“American Bridge’s program to defeat Donald Trump has always been about three things: abortion, democracy, and freedom,” Bradley Beychok, co-founder of American Bridge 21st Century, said in a statement shared with Newsweek. “Today, voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will continue to hear from women in their own communities about how devastating another Donald Trump administration would be for anyone who values their rights, their freedoms, and our democracy.”
The geography of the ads themselves – airing in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – also reflect Democratic anxieties over the critical swing states in this election.
A Tuesday poll from Focaldata showed that Trump, despite being currently on track to lose the popular vote (45.9 percent to Harris’s 47.5 percent), is set to flip Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Alongside the predictable Red states, these four states – together carrying 56 electoral college votes – would be enough to win Trump the White House, taking 291 electoral votes to Harris’s 247.
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