‘If Harris Wins, It’ll Be Because of Abortion’: The Electoral Test Impact of Roe’s Reversal

Leslie Lemus’ most important issue in the 2024 election is likely the economy. But she has a close second: “They fuck with abortion.”

For the 26-year-old Arizona native, the two problems are actually one and the same. On Monday, she had an abortion at Camelback Family Planning, one of the last abortion clinics in Arizona, largely because Lemus doesn’t feel she can currently financially care for a child.

“I look at the world and it’s not very beautiful. I am not ready for that yet, to bring a child into the world now, where the economy is not in good shape,” says Lemus, who says she lives from paycheck to paycheck. For several months, she has to choose between paying her car payments and paying off her credit card debt. “Everyone is having a hard time left and right.”

Lemus is registered to vote in Maricopa County, which is home to 60% of Arizona’s electorate and could determine whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the valuable swing state. Harris has made access to reproductive rights a key part of her policy platform — especially in contrast to Trump, who appointed three U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v Wade and who has alternated between billing herself as a champion of reproductive rights and as “the most pro-life president.”

Lemus is a passionate supporter of Harris, whom she calls “my home girl.”

A majority of Americans have supported abortion access and Roe v Wade for decades, but it has rarely been their top issue in the voting booth. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe and allowed more than a dozen states to ban nearly all abortions, and several more states to ban abortions after six, twelve, or – as in Arizona – fifteen weeks, abortion could be the decisive issue of the 2024 elections. election. It is now the most important issue for women under 45, like Lemus.

“If Harris wins the election, it will be because of abortion and women voting for her in large part because of that issue,” said Tresa Undem, a pollster who has been polling people about abortion for more than two decades.

On Monday, Camelback saw about 40 patients; At least one had come from Texas, where almost all abortions are banned. Visitors to the lobby were greeted by a sign urging them to register to vote while they waited for their abortion. The sign advised: “The health of our democracy is in our hands.”

‘That gives me hope’

On Tuesday, Arizona will become one of 10 states where voters will decide whether to amend their state constitutions to add or expand abortion protections. (In one of those states, Nebraska, voters will vote on both a ballot measure that could expand abortion rights and the nation’s only anti-abortion measure.) Five of those states, including Arizona, have some sort of abortion ban on the books to stand. . If any of the measures supporting abortion rights pass, it would be the first time a state has overturned a post-Roe v. Wade ban.

Democrats have long hoped these measures would increase turnout among their base, but rosy polling for the measures in staunchly red states indicates that a significant share of voters are actually splitting their votes by supporting both abortion rights and Republicans , the party that helped build Roe’s support. downfall. While it seems likely that the measure will pass in Arizona, polls suggest Trump will win the state.

Julio Morera helped collect signatures at the Arizona state fair to get the measure on the ballot. His group’s booth, he recalled, was set up next to a man selling right-wing memorabilia decorated with eagles, guns and the slogan “Don’t Tread on Me.” When asked to sign the petition, the man objected. “I got customers thinking,” he said.

But at the very end of the fair, Morera said, the man signed his name.

“That gives me hope that this will pass,” Morera said. “There are quite a few people who may not be Democrats or left-leaning who would support this access to abortion.”

However, a vote for Trump could ultimately cancel out a vote for a ballot measure. If Trump wins the presidency, he will be able to bypass Congress and use a 19th century anti-vice law known as the Comstock Act to ban the transmission of all abortion-related materials — which would result in a de facto national abortion ban and make the successes of these measures questionable.

Project 2025, an influential policy manual for the next conservative administration, proposes using the Comstock Act to at least ban the shipment of abortion pills, which account for roughly two-thirds of U.S. abortions. It also suggests rolling back privacy protections for abortion patients and reforming the nation’s largest family planning program, which would limit access to contraception, among a slew of other anti-abortion policies.

Harris, meanwhile, has vigorously defended abortion rights. “Over the past two years, the impact of Trump’s abortion ban has been devastating,” she told a rally in Texas in October. “We see the horrific reality that women and families face every day.”

For Lemus, abortion bans all come down to one thing: “Men have power over women.”

The economy wasn’t the only reason Lemus wanted an abortion on Monday. She also worries about the mental toll of having a child. At the age of 18, Lemus gave birth to a son who was born prematurely and died just a month after birth.

“I was there with all the medical stuff and saw my child in the incubator until he died,” she said calmly. Eight years later, Lemus isn’t ready for another one.

“We fought so hard to have choices,” she said. “Why do they feel like we have no choice?”

Read more about the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage