Kamala Harris’s 2024 Role Crystallizes Around Abortion Rights

On Saturday, June 24—the one-year anniversary of the day the Supreme Court gutted federal abortion protections—Kamala Harris is scheduled to be in Charlotte, North Carolina to address reproductive rights advocates and Democratic leaders. It will be one of many campaign stops she is expected to make across the country on the issue; a natural progression from the abortion rights rally she headlined in Washington DC on the same day Joe Biden announced his reelection bid, and the MSNBC roundtable discussion she participated in this week on the subject. As the Biden-Harris ticket begins to rev up its 2024 game plan, Harris’s role in the campaign is taking clearer shape as the face of one of Democrats’ biggest rallying cries: abortion rights. “This will clearly be a continued focus for her,” a senior Harris adviser tells me.

It’s telling that she’ll be in North Carolina, a purplish state that Biden came within a point and a half of winning in 2020, and where Republicans recently passed a 12-week abortion ban, overriding Democratic governor Roy Cooper’s veto. Harris is expected to call for codifying Roe v. Wade into law and electing enough Democrats in 2024 to ensure that’s even a remote possibility. On Friday, the eve of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization anniversary, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and Emily’s List all endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket; Biden and Harris are scheduled to hold an event with the groups Friday in Washington, DC. The hope is that abortion rights are a strong enough message to overpower any other reservations Democratic voters have with their leading ticket. “It’s a fairly easy decision, right?” Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, told VF, adding “You can speak unapologetically about protecting freedoms and rights—like abortion access—and the electorate will be with you.”

Though, there have been plenty of reservations: Voters have repeatedly cited Biden’s age, questioned his ability to serve, and raised concerns about the direction the country is headed. Moreover, polling has shown Harris as a potential drag; ever since being tasked with handling immigration, her favorability among the American public has dropped. She’s lagged behind all of her recent predecessors in the vice presidency when it comes to popularity. Still, abortion advocates have welcomed her as a leading voice on reproductive rights for the White House. “She’s remarkably well-suited,” Laphonza Butler, the president of EMILY’s List, said. “She clearly is showing up as the convener, the leader, the empathizer and the fighter that we need, that the American people really need to lean on and be able to believe in.” She cited Harris’s background as a prosecutor and senator. Perhaps the greatest portent of the role Harris can play on the campaign trail comes from the latter—specifically the time she questioned Brett Kavanaugh on the issue.

Harris: Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?

Kavanaugh: I’m happy to answer a more specific question.

Harris: Male versus female.

Kavanaugh: I’m not thinking of any right now, senator.

“My colleagues call her Auntie Kamala cause she just shows up with the truth, right?” McGill Johnson said, with a laugh.

The Biden administration drew early criticism for what was perceived as a sluggish response to the Dobbs decision, raising skepticism that Biden, who, himself, was once openly conflicted on the issue, could carry a strong message on reproductive rights. At the time, sources lamented that the White House’s initial actions, forming a task force on reproductive rights, didn’t “go far enough.” That sentiment has largely shifted among advocates after Biden signed a series of executive orders aimed at broadening access to contraceptives and protecting abortion providers from prosecution, and of course, because of the Justice Department’s fight to keep mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions, on the shelves. Harris has played a role in that, meeting the stakeholders both at the national and state level, as well as campaigning on the issue, tying abortion rights to the assaults on voting rights and LGBTQ+ Americans’ rights. “Vice President Harris really is the closing argument for why this ticket matters and how much we could lose if we don’t elect them,” Mini Timmaraju, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said.

The White House expects the issue to be a major driver in the 2024 election, Neera Tanden, the head of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, told reporters in a briefing this week. Already the Democratic Party credits Republicans’ hard-line anti-abortion positions with preventing a “red wave” midterms election, and securing several pro-abortion rights ballot measure wins in red states. The Democratic Party has launched an ad campaign with billboards in swing states, including North Carolina and Georgia. On them, per Politico, a photo of Biden and Harris, and the text “NO to Republican Abortion Bans! YES to a Women’s Right to Choose!” The polling reflects the saliency of the issue. As GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country have imposed abortion bans, in some cases without any exceptions, one-in-four Americans say their support for abortion rights has only grown, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll. By an almost two-to-one margin—58% to 30%—of those polled say they oppose the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “Abortion is no longer a social issue. It is a core life or death, democracy, kitchen table issue… That is how American voters are seeing it,” Timmaraju said.

Nationally, Republicans haven’t backed down either; Donald Trump has boasted about being the impetus for Roe’s demise (by appointing conservative Supreme Court justices), Mike Pence is apparently convinced most Americans actually do want a federal ban on abortion (there’s no polling to indicate such a thing); Nikki Haley has said a national ban is “not realistic” but hasn’t ruled out supporting one; Tim Scott has said he would “definitely” sign a 20-week federal abortion ban if president. “The contrast is really clear,” Jennifer Klein, the Director of the White House Gender Policy Council, told reporters Wednesday. “If given the opportunity, Republicans in Congress would pass the national abortion ban and this president, this administration is about trying to restore the protections of Roe—and that is completely consistent with where the majority of American people are.”