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      Where will abortion be on the ballot in the 2024 US election?

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      This November, abortion will be on the ballot in 10 states, including the states that could determine the next president.In the two years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, abortion has become the kind of issue that decides elections. Outrage over Roe’s demise led Republicans to flounder in the 2022 midterms, and abortion rights supporters have won every post-Roe abortion-related ballot measure, including in red states such as Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas.This year, most of the ballot measures are seeking to amend states’ constitutions to protect abortion rights up until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Because a number of the measures are in states that have outlawed abortion, they could become the first to overturn the post-Roe ban. Others are in states where abortion is legal, but activists say the measures are necessary to cement protections so they can’t be easily overturned if Republicans control the government.These are the states slated to vote on abortion this election day.ArizonaAbortion rights supporters in Arizona, a key battleground state in the presidential election, are vying to pass a measure that would enshrine the right to abortion up until viability in the state constitution. A provider could perform an abortion after viability if the procedure is necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of a patient.Arizona currently bans abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy. Earlier this year, the state supreme court reinstated a 19th-century near-total abortion ban, generating nationwide outrage that prompted the state legislature to quickly repeal it in favor of letting the 15-week ban stand.ColoradoColorado’s measure would amend the state constitution to block the state government from denying, impeding or discriminating against individuals’ “right to abortion”. This measure also includes a one-of-a-kind provision to bar Colorado from prohibiting healthcare coverage for abortion – which could very well pass in the deep-blue state.Because Colorado permits abortion throughout pregnancy and neighbors five states with bans – Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Utah and Nebraska – the state has become a haven for people fleeing abortion bans, especially those seeking abortions later in pregnancy.FloridaOnce the last stronghold of southern abortion access, Florida in May banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they’re pregnant. Its measure, which needs 60% of the vote to pass, would roll back that ban by adding the right to an abortion up until viability to the state’s constitution. Providers could perform an abortion after viability if one is needed to protect a patient’s health.Florida Republicans’ tactics in the fight against the measure has alarmed voting rights and civil rights groups. Law enforcement officials have investigated voters who signed petitions to get the measure onto the ballot, while a state health agency has created a webpage attacking the amendment.MarylandLegislators, rather than citizens, initiated Maryland’s measure, which would amend the state constitution to confirm individuals’ “right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end the individual’s pregnancy”. Like Colorado, Maryland has become an abortion haven because it permits the procedure throughout pregnancy. It is also relatively close to the deep south, which is blanketed in bans. MissouriAbortion opponents went to court to stop Missouri’s measure from appearing on voters’ ballots, but the state supreme court rejected their arguments and agreed to let voters decide whether the Missouri constitution should guarantee the “fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive healthcare, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions”.Missouri, which was the first state to ban abortion after Roe fell, only permits the procedure in medical emergencies. If the measure passes, it is expected to roll back that ban and permit abortion until viability.MontanaIn the years since Roe fell, Montana courts and its Republican-dominated legislature have wrestled over abortion restrictions and whether the right to privacy embedded in Montana’s constitution includes the right to abortion. Abortion remains legal until viability in Montana, but the measure would amend the state constitution to explicitly include “a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion” up until viability. Providers could perform an abortion after viability to protect a patient’s life or health.NebraskaNebraska, which bans abortion past 12 weeks of pregnancy, is the lone state with two competing ballot measures this November. One of the measures would enshrine the right to abortion up until viability into the state constitution, while the other would enshrine the current ban. If both measures pass, the measure that garners the most votes would take effect.NevadaAlongside Arizona, Nevada is one of the most closely watched states in the presidential election. Its measure would amend the state constitution to protect individuals’ right to abortion up until viability, or after viability in cases where a patient’s health or life may be threatened. Nevada already permits abortion up until 26 weeks of pregnancy.New YorkNew York state legislators added a measure to the ballot to broaden the state’s anti-discrimination laws by adding, among other things, protections against discrimination on the basis of “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive health”.Although sky-blue New York passed a law protecting reproductive rights in 2019, advocates say this measure could be used to defend abortion rights against future challenges. However, the ballot language before voters will not include the word “abortion”, leading advocates to fear voters will not understand what they are voting on. Democrats pushed to add the word “abortion” to the description of the measure, but a judge rejected the request, ruling that the amendment poses “complex interpretive questions” and its exact impact on abortion rights is unclear.South DakotaSouth Dakota’s measure is less sweeping than other abortion rights measures, because it would only protect the right to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Under this measure, South Dakota could regulate access to abortion “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman” in the second trimester of pregnancy. In the third trimester, the state could ban abortion except in medical emergencies. Right now, South Dakota only allows abortions in such emergencies.Although this measure will appear on the ballot, there will be a trial over the validity of the signatures that were collected for it. Depending out the outcome of the trial, the measure – and any votes cast for it – could be invalidated. More

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      Kamala Harris decries Trump’s abortion comments in first solo TV interview

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      Kamala Harris sat for her first solo interview as the Democratic presidential nominee on Wednesday, laying out her plan to boost the middle class and condemning her rival Donald Trump on his comments over abortion.During the interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, which was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the vice-president painted Trump as a candidate focused on the rich at the expense of the middle class, and herself as better equipped to handle the economy.“The top economists in our country have compared our plans and say mine would grow the economy, [and] his would shrink it,” she said during the interview.On his economic record, Harris said: “Donald Trump made a whole lot of promises that he did not meet.”Harris also showed disdain over Trump’s comments over abortion, expressing he needs to trust women to make their own reproductive decisions. Her comments came after Trump, at a Pennsylvania rally, called himself a “protector” of women, claiming American women will not be “thinking about abortion” if he is elected.“Donald Trump is also the person who said women should be punished for exercising a decision that they, rightly, should be able to make about their own body and future,” Harris said.On a lighter note, Harris confirmed that she worked at McDonald’s, pushing back against Trump’s allegations that she did not.“Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s who are trying to raise a family,” she said, alluding to her economic policy plan to help working-class families.“I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility, then, is to meet those needs,” Harris added.The interview comes at a time when Harris faces harsh criticism over the lack of media interviews she has done. Earlier this month, Axios reported that the Harris-Walz campaign has so far given fewer interviews than any other candidates in modern history.Trump and JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential pick, have used it as ammunition during their campaign speeches. On X, Vance responded to news of Harris’s interview by saying: “This is legitimately pathetic for a person who wants to be president. Ruhle has explicitly endorsed Harris. She won’t ask hard Qs. Kamala runs from tough questions because she can’t defend her record. If you want open borders and high groceries, vote for status quo Kamala.”In August, Harris was interviewed on CNN alongside Walz. The interview was hosted by Dana Bash and was aired as a one-hour primetime special. After the interview, Republicans criticized the joint interview with Walz for being pre-recorded and not live.Since then, Harris has given a handful of interviews, mostly with local outlets or more niche forums, including an appearance with Stephanie “Chiquibaby” Himonidis, a Spanish-language radio host and podcaster.Harris also appeared in a live-streamed “Unite For America” event with supporters hosted by Oprah Winfrey last week. More

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      ‘One death is too many’: abortion bans usher in US maternal mortality crisis

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      In Louisiana, doctors will no longer be able to carry a lifesaving medication with them during pregnancy emergencies. In Texas, the infant mortality rate is soaring. In Idaho, pregnant people drive hours just to give birth. And in Oklahoma and Georgia, women are bleeding out in hospital parking lots and facing dangerous infections before they can find care – and sometimes, that care comes too late.The limitations and outright bans on abortion that have taken hold in half of the US in the wake of the Dobbs decision have wreaked enormous changes to the reproductive health landscape.The restrictions put a growing burden on the health and wellbeing of patients and providers, even as more Americans find it difficult to find and access care.“The United States is, and has been for quite some time, in the midst of a maternal and infant mortality crisis,” said Dr Jamila Perritt, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist and president of Physicians for Reproductive Health.Banning access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion care, is “directly causing an increase in morbidity and mortality in our community”, she said. “We have really robust evidence that shows us that when people have sought abortion care and are unable to obtain it, their psychological, social, physical and emotional health is harmed.”Maternal and infant mortality will probably increase because of the restrictions – especially if national limitations, like enforcement of the Comstock Act, are put into place.“I expect in the next few years, we’re going to start to see the infant mortality, pre-term birth, maternal mortality, and maternal morbidity numbers rise for everyone, and particularly for folks from racially marginalized and low-socioeconomic communities,” said Rachel Hardeman, professor of reproductive health and founding director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the University of Minnesota.Calculating mortality is often a complicated and controversial endeavor. When maternal mortality dropped in 2022, anti-abortion advocates credited the success to the Dobbs decision.But that’s not the case, according to new research in Jama Network Open.Maternal deaths surged during the first two years of the pandemic, when Covid, a deadly illness during pregnancy, accounted for one-quarter of all maternal deaths. But in 2022, that rate dropped to levels similar to pre-pandemic levels, from 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 to 22.3 in 2022.That rate is still higher than maternal mortality rates in peer nations, and research indicates it will increase if officials clamp down on abortion nationally – which, with the Comstock Act, would require no additional anti-abortion legislation or bans.Right now, “people can still travel to other states, but once there’s a federal ban, that won’t be an option any more,” says Amanda Jean Stevenson, co-author of the new Jama research and a sociologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. “And there could be this very different set of outcomes when people’s options are gone.”In the United States, more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths and more than 60% of infant deaths in the first week are preventable – and those figures were estimated before the Dobbs decision.Because of abortion restrictions, there are already significant challenges to accessing reproductive healthcare – and it’s not just abortion care.In Louisiana, misoprostol – a drug used for medication abortion and other lifesaving purposes – will be labeled a controlled substance beginning on 1 October. One of its uses is keeping patients from bleeding out after childbirth, which is the No 1 cause of postpartum mortality.Yet physicians cannot keep controlled substances in their emergency carts, and they fear they won’t have enough time to fill prescriptions for patients when minutes and even seconds make the difference between life and death.In the year following Texas’s abortion ban, child mortality shot up by 12.9% – compared with a 1.8% increase in the rest of the country, according to a recent study. Congenital anomalies are the leading cause of infant death in the US – but while they went down by 3.1% in the rest of the country, they went up by 22.9% in Texas.“That study was chilling. That is a huge change,” Stevenson said.It echoed previous research finding that states with the most restrictive abortion laws saw 16% more infant deaths between 2014 and 2018.The trauma and costs of carrying to term pregnancies that are incompatible with life inflict an incalculable toll on families and providers.States are closing obstetric units and losing experienced providers who worry about not being able to offer lifesaving care as patients die on the table in front of them, and facing jail time if they provide care.More than two-thirds (68%) of obstetricians and gynecologists say the Dobbs decision has made it harder for them to respond to pregnancy-related emergencies, according to the non-partisan health research organization KFF. They also believe it has worsened mortality in pregnancy while increasing racial and ethnic inequities, and fewer doctors are now interested in entering the field.In 2022, soon after the Dobbs decision, medical residency applications dropped for states with bans.More than half of doctors surveyed in states with bans and limitations said they were very concerned about legal repercussions to providing the standard of care in pregnancy.“That can just exacerbate already pretty large gaps in the workforce,” said Usha Ranji, associate director for women’s health policy at KFF.In the past two years, more than 100 hospitals have closed their obstetric units entirely, according to a new March of Dimes report. More than one-third of US counties are now maternity care deserts, with no obstetricians or places to give birth. North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Oklahoma and Nebraska have the least access to maternity care.The majority of rural hospitals (57%) no longer deliver babies, with more than 100 of the rural hospitals ending labor and delivery services in the past five years.“We’ve created policy and legislation to limit access to abortions and also have closed the exact places that people need to go to get care if they are pregnant,” Hardeman said. That puts pressure on neighboring states that still provide care, she said.“Where you live matters for your health. And I think that the Dobbs decision and the fall of Roe have demonstrated that in a very real and very obvious way, because there are literally places in this country where there is essentially no access to reproductive healthcare,” she said.“It started out in rural spaces, but more and more, there’s reports popping up of labor and delivery units closing in, like, urban Chicago.”In states with restrictions on abortion, women of color and pregnant people from low-income communities often suffer the most, said Hardeman. “Taking away access to reproductive healthcare is exacerbating those disparities.”Black women die because of pregnancy at twice the national rate, and three times more than white women, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“The fact that black women and birthing people are dying at three to four times greater risk than white women is shameful – and it’s preventable,” Perritt said.It’s important to shore up protections for reproductive health for all Americans before health complications and mortality rise even more, she said. “One death is too much. One is too many.” More

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      Bernie Moreno Under Fire Over Comments About Suburban Women

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      Bernie Moreno, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, is facing criticism over demeaning remarks he made last week against women who support abortion rights, including from Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential candidate and one of the most prominent women in her party.Speaking on Friday at a town hall in Warren County, Ohio, Mr. Moreno characterized many suburban women as “single-issue voters” on abortion rights, suggesting that older women should not care about abortion because they were too old to have children.“It’s a little crazy, by the way — especially for women that are like past 50,” Mr. Moreno said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I’m thinking to myself: I don’t think that’s an issue for you.”In a social media post on Tuesday morning quoting Mr. Moreno’s remarks, Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, addressed the Senate candidate: “Are you trying to lose the election? Asking for a friend.”Ms. Haley, who was former President Donald J. Trump’s top rival in the Republican presidential primaries this year, has endorsed his candidacy even as she has offered advice and criticism to him and the party from the sidelines.In interviews on Fox News, Ms. Haley has said that the party needs a “serious shift” to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris, saying this month that Mr. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, “need to change the way they speak about women.”“You don’t need to call Kamala dumb,” Ms. Haley said, adding that “she didn’t get this far, you know, just by accident” and that “she’s a prosecutor. You don’t need to go and talk about intelligence or looks or anything else.”She added that “when you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up, too.”Democrats have embraced abortion rights as an issue that they see as advantageous to them, spotlighting Mr. Trump’s bragging about appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to end the constitutional right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade, and pinning their hopes of winning control of the Senate on abortion initiatives. Voters, by a wide margin, say they trust Ms. Harris to handle abortion over Mr. Trump. More

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      Harris calls for end to Senate filibuster to restore US abortion rights

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      Kamala Harris has called for an end to the Senate filibuster to make good on her pledge to restore the right to abortion through legislation.The US vice-president, herself a former senator, told a radio station in Wisconsin that eliminating the filibuster – which sets a 60-vote threshold in the 100-seat upper chamber of the US Congress – would be necessary to codify the rights that were enshrined in Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court ruling that upheld the right to legal abortion throughout the US until it was overturned by a ruling two years ago.“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom, and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body – and not have their government tell them what to do,” Harris told WPR, an affiliate of National Public Radio, on a campaign trip to Wisconsin, a key midwestern swing state where she has a wafer-thin lead over Donald Trump, according to recent polls.Her remarks accentuated her determination to put abortion rights at the heart of her campaign message amid polling evidence that it is a priority for many women voters.However, it cost her the support of the outgoing West Virginia senator, Joe Manchin – a former Democrat who left the party this year to become an independent – who said he would not endorse her candidacy because of her pledge.“Shame on her,” Manchin, who is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, told CNN. “She knows the filibuster is the holy grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”Trump has been on the defensive on abortion because the 2022 supreme court ruling was achieved with the votes of three conservative justices he appointed to the bench when he was president. Harris has claimed that Trump would sign a nationwide ban if he re-captured the White House, although he insists he would leave it to individual states.Harris’s use of a radio interview to underline her commitment follows criticism that she was deliberately avoiding high-profile interviews – a charge Harris has sought to counter by making herself available to selected media in battleground states.Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday that he would be women’s “protectors” and that they would not “be thinking about abortion” if he won a second term.Harris’s filibuster remarks echoed a similar comment by Joe Biden immediately after Roe v Wade was struck down, when he said an exception to the time-honoured Senate rule had to be made to guarantee abortion rights.“I believe we have to codify Roe v Wade in the law,” he said. “And the way to do that is to make sure the Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights – it should be (that) we provide an exception to this … requiring an exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the supreme court decision.”Harris has previously advocated overriding the filibuster to pass additional voting rights laws and Green New Deal legislation.In 2020, Barack Obama described the filibuster as a “Jim Crow relic” from America’s racially segregated past and argued that it should be eliminated if used to block voting reform.The filibuster describes the use of prolonged debate to delay or prevent a vote on a bill. It can be invoked by any senator objecting to a bill and has been used with increasing regularity in recent decades.It can only be overridden by triggering “cloture”, which requires a three-fifths majority vote – or 60 of the 100 senators. If cloture passes, it enables a vote on the original measure the filibuster was designed to block.The longest filibuster in Senate history was achieved by Strom Thurmond, the pro-segregationist South Carolina senator, when he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an effort to block civil rights legislation in 1957.Thurmond’s speech – described by his biographer as a “urological mystery” – was reportedly achieved with help of prior steam baths to dehydrate his body and preclude the need for regular bathroom breaks. He was also reported by a staffer to have had himself fitted with a catheter to relieve himself while he spoke. More

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      Abortion measures are on the ballot in 10 states this year. Democrats can win them | Katrina vanden Heuvel

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      If you’re tired of breathlessly following the horserace polling of the presidential and congressional races, you might consider instead breathlessly following the horserace polling of ballot initiatives to protect reproductive rights. In a sense, they’re more revealing.Pending some outstanding court challenges from Republicans – whose dogged commitment to “leaving this issue to the states” curiously disappears when they realize they’re going to lose – up to 10 states will have abortion referendums on the ballot this year. And it happens that they’ll share that ballot with competitive Senate races in states like Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Maryland.In Nevada and Arizona, which could also play a decisive role in the presidential race, a Fox News poll found that over 70% of voters in both states plan to vote in favor of codifying abortion rights.Giving voters the opportunity to vote directly on abortion rights is a strategic win for progressives on a few levels. Of course, in a time when 22 state legislatures have acted to restrict abortion access since Dobbs, it’s a powerfully effective way to protect the right to choose. It also helps keep the subject in headlines when the Trump campaign would prefer voters to be distracted by mythical, racist claims about Haitian immigrants. And perhaps most significantly, it could motivate otherwise unenthusiastic voters to show up for what seems to be yet another excruciatingly close election.Ballot initiatives are a useful exercise in revealed preference. It has long been observed that millions of Americans end up voting against their economic self-interest each election cycle. In presidential elections, voters choose candidates, not policy papers. It’s why swing voters were not compelled by the argument that Joe Biden could serve four more years as president because he “surrounds himself with the right people”.Yet when voters have the chance to vote up or down on an issue that will directly impact their lives, they aren’t in the habit of denying themselves civil rights or quality of life improvements. And in the wake of Roe v Wade getting overturned, that has proved especially true.In 2022, every state referendum on abortion was a victory for pro-choice advocates. Voters in California, Michigan and Vermont voted to enshrine reproductive rights in their respective constitutions, while voters in Kentucky and Montana decisively voted down measures that would have restricted them. This coincided with progressive overperformance in gubernatorial and congressional races, where abortion proved highly salient.Ballot initiatives on other issues have also demonstrated sizable majorities for the right progressive priorities, even in so-called conservative states. Since 2012, measures to legalize recreational marijuana have passed in over a dozen states – including Alaska, Montana, Missouri and Ohio. Meanwhile, per Ballotpedia, there have been 22 statewide measures to raise the minimum wage since 1998; they’ve all passed.In this election, too, there are opportunities for waves of support for progress in unexpected places.Take Florida (please). The citizen-led group Floridians Protecting Freedom has been tirelessly pushing for amendment 4, which would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution if it can garner 60% of the vote. One poll found that the initiative is positioned nicely to pass, with 69% support.Meanwhile, Florida amendment 3, which would legalize marijuana in the state, has already broken the record for the most money spent on any state cannabis measure, with more than $100m raised and counting. On that issue, the Republican party seems to recognize which way the smoke is blowing, since Trump has come out in favor of it.For all the talk of Florida falling out of reach for progressives, these amendments could serve as yet another signal that the left shouldn’t give up on the state. This is the same state that voted to restore the voting rights of more than 1 million felons in 2018 (despite immediate efforts that followed by the Republican government to subvert the will of the people). There is such a sizable bloc for progress, in fact, that despite Florida’s 60% threshold for constitutional amendments being the highest in the country, Republicans have proposed raising it even higher, to 66.67%.Beyond the Sunshine state, putting abortion rights front and center could also help address the Harris campaign’s nationwide challenges with younger voters. While Kamala Harris has managed to earn back some of the support that Biden lost among voters under 30, she still isn’t matching his 2020 performance.Sure, maybe touting Taylor Swift’s endorsement on Instagram or sending Barack Obama to juice voter registration on TikTok will move the needle. But with women under 45 citing abortion as their most motivating issue this election, it would seem wise to keep spotlighting a rare issue that is both persuasive to swing voters and galvanizing for young activists.At the St Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida, the 20-year-old college senior Alexis Hobbs can be found wearing a pink T-shirt behind a pink table recruiting her peers to vote “Yes on 4.”In an interview with New York Magazine, Hobbs shared just how motivated her fellow young people are to fight this fight: “They don’t want to live out their entire adulthood this way.”

      Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has contributed to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times More

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      Gretchen Whitmer calls Trump ‘deranged’ after comments on abortion

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      Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, called Donald Trump “just deranged” on Sunday after he said women would no longer be thinking about abortion if he is elected as president in November.“This guy just doesn’t understand what the average woman is confronting in her life in this country, and how could he? He’s not lived a normal life,” Whitmer said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union.Whitmer also reaffirmed her support for Kamala Harris, describing her as a person “who has worked hourly jobs, who knows how important it is that women have healthcare and access to the medical care that they need”.Whitmer was asked to comment about a speech the former president delivered on Saturday, saying women “will be happy, healthy, confident, and free” if he is elected president.“He’s just deranged,” the governor of Michigan said.On Friday, Trump made similar comments about women on his Truth Social platform.“WOMEN ARE POORER THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO … AND ARE LESS OPTIMISTIC AND CONFIDENT IN THE FUTURE THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO!” Trump said.Harris is a staunch supporter of abortion rights. The vice-president delivered two speeches on Friday, first in Georgia and then Wisconsin, highlighting the case of Amber Thurman, who died in Georgia due to a strict abortion ban.Whitmer’s comments on Sunday come a week after participating in an online campaign event with TV host, producer and author Oprah Winfrey, which was livestreamed nationally from Michigan.The Michigan governor was previously named as a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for president before ruling herself out in July. Michigan is a must-win prize for candidates, a state that has voted for the presidential winner in the last four national elections.Joe Biden took Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020. Two years later, Whitmer defeated a Trump-backed candidate and Democrats took full control for the first time in 45 years. More

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      Rallying in Two Key States, Harris Presses Her Case on Abortion Rights

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      Rallying supporters in two battleground states, Vice President Kamala Harris signaled on Friday that her closing campaign message would focus on the life-or-death risks that abortion bans pose to American women — and on the argument that former President Donald J. Trump is to blame.In Madison, Wis., a crowd that had been ebullient suddenly grew hushed as Ms. Harris spoke about her visit with the family of a Georgia woman who died of sepsis after waiting for more than 20 hours for medical care to treat an incomplete medication abortion.“She was a vibrant 28-year-old,” Ms. Harris said. “Her name, Amber Nicole Thurman, and I promised her mother I would say her name every time.”Earlier in the day, Ms. Harris traveled to Georgia, where Ms. Thurman and another woman, Candi Miller, died after delays in medical care tied to state abortion restrictions, according to reporting by ProPublica. Their deaths occurred in the months after Georgia passed a six-week ban made possible by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.In Atlanta, Ms. Harris condemned the deaths of the two women in an impassioned speech, saying that Mr. Trump had caused a “health care crisis” and that women were being made to feel as “though they are criminals.”Ms. Harris’s stops in the two battleground states capped a relatively smooth week for her campaign as Mr. Trump again caused or confronted several politically unhelpful headlines and controversies. Most strikingly, the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, whom Mr. Trump has praised as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” was found to have called himself a “Black Nazi” and praised slavery in a pornographic chat room.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More