Abortion rights group NARAL launches final midterm push

Abortion rights group NARAL Pro Choice America is unveiling its final push to mobilize voters in the home stretch of the midterm elections.

The group is focusing on candidates and ballot initiatives in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, as well as California and Michigan, where voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion rights into their state constitutions.

The campaign will invest in phone banking, door knocking, youth organizing and canvassing, including a pilot program in Michigan with 14 organizers working on seven college campuses to enroll 14,000 voters, make 21,000 voter contacts and recruit more than 400 volunteers.

The Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade in late June ended a nearly half-century legal precedent in which abortion was a federally protected right up to around 24 weeks.

In its place, a complex patchwork of state laws has begun to emerge, with conservatives states, particularly in the South and Midwest, moving swiftly to impose new abortion restrictions and even near-total bans.

Abortion rights activists are seeking to harness Democratic anger over the decision and turn it into an outpouring of support for candidates and pro-abortion rights ballot measures in states that will allow them. 

Earlier this year, NARAL announced a joint effort with Planned Parenthood Action Fund and EMILY’s List to collectively spend $150 million on the 2022 midterms.

Democrats have historically struggled to put abortion front and center in election campaigns, but advocates and strategists think this year will be different. 

“Our message is simple: When you come for our rights, we’ll come for your seats,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju.