The 2024 election will be the first presidential contest since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and erased the national abortion rights it established.
And for the first time in my years of covering politics, one voter after another at Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Atlanta told me Saturday that women’s rights, and specifically abortion rights, is their number one issue in this election. It’s also their top reason for supporting Harris over former President Donald Trump.
When I asked Courtney Britton, 27, why she’s supporting Harris, she said, “Because I’m a childless cat lady.”
She was referring to Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance’s remark in 2021 that the Democratic Party is run by corporate oligarchs and childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Britton said she likes what Harris is saying in the campaign, “Especially about women’s rights. I think it’s important that we have somebody in office who makes sure that we’re gaining more rights than we’re losing.”
Nicole Adrienne, also 27, wore a “Childless Cat Lady” T-shirt to Harris’ rally Saturday. She called “women’s bodily autonomy” her top issue and said the reversal of Roe v. Wade makes it “terrifying” to be a young woman in America today.
In the campaign, Harris has pledged to sign a bill restoring women’s abortion rights that had federal protections under Roe v. Wade. Former President Donald Trump, in the meantime, has said he won’t sign a national abortion ban. But a majority of states in America, including Georgia, have enacted abortion bans and restrictions after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned Roe. Trump appointed three of the justices in that majority.
Partially because of the abortion issue, an enormous gender gap has emerged in this presidential contest. Trump was leading men with 59% of the vote in the AJC’s latest poll, while Harris is leading women with 55% support. In the same poll, women were twice as likely as men to call abortion rights their top issue.
But plenty of men at the Harris rally listed women’s rights as their top issue this election, too. Michael Thuerk from Dallas, Ga. brought his grandson, Jackson to the event and had already voted for Harris because, “I support women’s rights and I think all men should.”
Kevin Cromwell, a song writer and soccer coach from Lawrenceville, said the same thing, He also said Harris would be “a return to common sense and decorum.”
“I tell the kids I coach, ‘When we lose, we reach across and shake the other guys’ hands.’ We couldn’t even get that from the other side last time.”
The polls in Georgia heading into the final weekend of polling show Trump and Harris in a race that’s essentially tied. A majority of voters across the state said the economy and inflation are top issues for them.
Michaela Moore, 26, said she thinks the days of abortion rights not being a top issue for voters are over. “I think that it will be the primary reason Kamala Harris wins.”
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