How Kamala Harris Plans to Reconnect with Voters Who Abandoned Biden

Kamala Harris could specifically engage in issues that would bring in more support from people who are pro-abortion. Having been the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has had the ability to be a better messenger on the issue than President Joe Biden.

Support for Biden among voters who support legal abortion has dropped, probably out of concern for his advanced age and other factors. Harris offers a way for Democrats to gain back the abortion rights voters from whom Biden has lost ground.

In 2020 and 2022, voters who were backing legal abortion were sharply Behind Biden and other Democrats. But recent polling shows that Biden is not getting nearly as much support from voters who back abortion rights now as he was in the last election cycle.

The drop is a significant change in the political landscape. Although millions have been spent on ad campaigns centered on abortion, Biden’s messages aren’t striking a chord with those supporting abortion.

One reason Biden has lost ground with abortion rights voters is that many of the same things that trouble them about his candidacy trouble the broader electorate—with his age, the way he’s handling the economy.

And then there’s Biden on abortion, which as a Catholic has often been murky. On the other side stands Harris, who has emerged as a champion on the abortion rights side, leading in defending them after the Dobbs decision.

It resonates with voters by virtue of her passion and commitment to the issue. Harris did a great job linking the abortion debate to larger concerns about rights and liberties, pointing out the greater rollbacks women have been fighting for in society.

This could resonate with white female voters in older age brackets who may be concerned they are not only losing their rights but those of their daughters and granddaughters as well, or young female voters who felt a sense of alienation from the Biden campaign.

The messaging on abortion rights from Harris was quite consistent with a growing sense of urgency women were feeling about the protection of their rights. While Republicans say Harris can’t fully restore the levels that Democrats had in previous elections with abortion rights voters, they privately acknowledge that her messaging is powerful.

Trump’s posture on leaving decisions on abortion up to the states put some abortion rights backers less on guard about him on the matter. But Democrats aren’t letting up on highlighting what they see as the danger of a GOP-imposed national abortion ban.

Harris faces some of the same challenges as Biden did, including anxiety over the rising cost of living. But it is her potential to make a Democratic case more clearly on abortion and rights that might represent an important first step toward eroding Trump’s advantages in November.

While there’s no clear-cut way for Harris to win with this focusing on abortion rights, it is a strategic step in place to extend its outreach and energize an important vote bloc.