Harris banks on abortion ballot measures for Southwest path to victory

As Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) campaign in Arizona and Nevada, they see an opportunity for victory with two pending ballot measures that would guarantee abortion access in the Southwestern states.

A growing number of states, including Nevada, have certified ballot measures in November to vote on a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights into their state constitution.

Efforts are underway to secure ballot questions in other states, including Arizona, where activists have submitted the required number of signatures and are awaiting approval. The office of Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, has until Aug. 27 to review the signatures and certify the measure.

During Harris and Walz’s visit to Arizona and Nevada on Friday and Saturday, respectively, the two intend to highlight abortion ballot measures with the hope that it will mobilize the base and drive turnout. In some cases, abortion could also be a motivating factor for unaffiliated voters and even Republicans to support Harris — which is critical in swing states such as Arizona.

Peggy Neely, the former Republican vice mayor of Phoenix, recently joined a new Republican Arizona task force to organize support for Harris, specifically citing the fall of Roe v. Wade as part of her reasoning this week.

“Donald Trump’s radical and regressive agenda poses the biggest threat to women’s rights in decades, not just in Arizona, but across the entire country,” Neely wrote. “Donald Trump must be unequivocally defeated at the ballot box to safeguard our future.”

Harris’s Southwest swing will mark her seventh visit to Nevada and fourth to Arizona this year — but her first as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. It also comes after the Cook Political Report shifted these two critical swing states from “lean Republican” to “toss up.” In 2020, Biden won these two states by narrow margins: 33,596 votes in Nevada and by fewer than 11,000 votes in Arizona.

When it comes to ballot measures, there’s no guarantee that their success will rub off on Democratic candidates, especially in the Grand Canyon State. Arizona voters have a history of voting for candidates from both political parties. In 2018, voters elected Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and also sent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who was a Democrat at the time, to the Senate. Most recently, in 2022, Arizonans voted against Republican election-denying allies of the former president while continuing to vote for other Republicans downballot.

Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist based in Phoenix, said he’s unsure if voters in favor of a constitutional right to abortion in Arizona will also cast their votes for Harris and the Democratic candidate for Senate, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

“There are a couple of unknowns, and one of them is the fact that we’ve got, almost definitely, going to have an abortion initiative on the ballot,” Marson said. “Do young people turn out for that? I am guessing that they will, and then when they do turn out for that, do they also vote for Ruben and Harris? And I’m not sure about that.” 

“I think this is a big thing we’ve got to watch over the next 90 days,” Marson added.

In Arizona, in particular, the topic of abortion is fresh for voters after Arizona’s Supreme Court voted to uphold a 160-year-old near-total abortion ban that provided no exceptions for rape or incest and allowed abortions only if the mother’s life is in jeopardy this past April. The law caused significant controversy for Republicans especially ahead of a critical election year — and state lawmakers later repealed the bill, putting back in place a 2022 state law that restricted most abortions after 15 weeks gestation. 

Before the law was repealed, it put the issue of abortion back in the national spotlight and forced former President Donald Trump to clarify his stance. The former president asked the Arizona State Legislature to “act immediately” to change abortion laws in the same week that he had also stated the topic should be left to the states.  

At the time, Senate GOP hopeful Kari Lake had also been calling state lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, urging them to repeal the law. Even though the near-total abortion ban was not put into place, there are fears that it could have implications for Republicans on Election Day. As a result of the ban, a movement began calling for the constitutional amendment to cement abortion rights. 

“That entire exercise this spring was just terrible for the party in general, and even though the law was repealed, it’s still fresh for voters,” said a GOP operative with ties to Arizona, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

“Democrats are mounting one of their most aggressive campaigns ever to flip the state legislature. All they need to do is pick up a couple seats in both chambers, and they’ll have the majority,” the person said. “A strategy they’ve been using includes I’ve seen messaging on abortion and that train wreck we saw.”

A May poll of Arizona voters found that 65% supported a measure to add a right to an abortion in the state constitution. 

The issue has the potential to drive up turnout. A KFF survey found that roughly half of female voters in Arizona answered they would be more motivated to vote if the initiative appeared on the ballot. 

Harris last stumped in Phoenix at a reproductive rights event, marking two years since the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion rights in June. 

“The idea that the so-called leaders would say to a survivor of a crime of violence to their body, a survivor of a violation of their body, that that survivor has no right or authority to make a decision about what happens to their body next, that’s immoral. And that’s what’s happening in our country,” Harris said at the event. 

“Donald Trump says he is proudly responsible for what he’s done,” Harris added at the time.

However, focusing on abortion is not a silver bullet for Democrats. Immigration, the economy, inflation, and foreign policy are major topics, too. 

“The economy is going to play a much greater role in how people vote — try to get a mortgage around here, try to get a car loan at a reasonable rate. People are unhappy with those metrics right now,” Marson said.

During his Mar-a-Lago press conference on Thursday, Trump said that voters are not as motivated by abortion rights.

“I think that abortion has become much less of an issue. … It’s actually going to be a very small issue,” he later added.

Republicans are also working to highlight failed policies of the Biden-Harris administration, specifically immigration. GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance was in Arizona last week, where he rallied in Glendale, Arizona, and then traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border. 

An outside political group that supports Trump just recently released a new attack ad across multiple battleground states, slamming Harris’s work leading the Biden administration’s response to the southern border crisis.

Harris intends to combat the criticism by pointing to a border bipartisan compromise bill that Sinema, Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Murphy (D-CT), and officials from the White House put together in February, which ultimately died under political pressure from Trump. 

She also will focus her message on her experience as a former border-state prosecutor going after transnational gangs and drug traffickers.