Harris heads to Nevada to focus on abortion, still front-and-center in neighboring Arizona

(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Las Vegas on Monday afternoon to rally support for a ballot measure to enshrine abortion access in the Nevada Constitution as President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign continues to spotlight her as one of their leading voices on abortion rights — an issue they see as galvanizing to voters across the aisle and country ahead of what’s expected to be a tight general election fight.

Harris, in late afternoon remarks, will call the effort to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade in the battleground state “an important step to protect against extremist state lawmakers who may try to adopt another ‘Trump abortion ban,'” according to a Biden-Harris campaign official, referring to Harris’ repeated criticism that former President Donald Trump is to blame for the various restrictions around the U.S.

Trump has often celebrated his role in ending Roe, through his Supreme Court picks, but maintains that abortion should be decided by each state, not nationally, and should include exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the pregnant woman.

He has criticized some of the more strict bans, including in Arizona, which he said must be addressed by local lawmakers.

But Harris, in Nevada, plans to say that Trump is now attempting to downplay his past support for a national ban — something he has discussed in private, ABC News reported in February — which Harris will amount to “gaslighting,” arguing that he would sign an abortion ban if Republicans in Congress gave him the chance and he is voted back into the White House.

It will be the vice president’s second “reproductive freedoms” campaign event in four days after a trip to Tucson, Arizona, on Friday. That trip was made in the wake of the Arizona Supreme Court ruling last week to uphold an 1864 law which bans all abortions unless to save the life of the mother and carries criminal penalties for doctors who help with abortion care. (The 19th-century ban is temporarily on hold but is expected to go into effect within weeks.)

At the invitation of Harris, Arizona State Sen. Eva Burch, who recently shared her abortion story on the state Senate floor after a wanted pregnancy, will join the vice president in Las Vegas to speak about neighboring Arizona’s abortion landscape.

If Arizona becomes a so-called abortion desert, in which access is essentially banned, Nevada, where abortion is currently legal up to 24 weeks, could end up being a nearby alternative, advocates say.

Biden-Harris campaign staffers and volunteers will also be on-site on Monday to help collect signatures for Nevada’s ballot measure, which aims to protect and strengthen abortion access.

Similar initiatives in other states have galvanized voters, who have uniformly cast ballots in favor of abortion access, in red and blue states.

Under the proposed text of the Nevada ballot measure, abortion access would be enshrined in the state constitution up to fetal viability, which is around 24 weeks of pregnancy. The state would be allowed to legislate on abortion after fetal viability unless a health care provider says abortion is necessary.

Nevada requires more than 102,000 valid signatures by June 26 and of those, at least 25,000 must come from each of Nevada’s four congressional districts, to get the effort on the ballot.

The group collecting signatures, Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, has not announced whether they’ve reached their goal in all districts, but the group said it has collected more than 150,000 signatures and expects to gain momentum with Harris promoting the effort on Monday.

The vice president’s speech on Friday in Tucson, where she mentioned Trump’s name 17 times and labeled abortion bans in 20 other states as “Trump abortion bans,” marked a “new phase,” a campaign official said.

Trump’s own messaging on the issue has shifted, including with his announcement last week — which he repeatedly teased — in which he said abortion should be left to the states. He touted that that view would also neutralize Democrats’ focus on it.

But pressed on Friday by ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Trump would not further explain his reversal, having previously promised as president to sign a national abortion ban.

“We broke Roe v. Wade, and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We gave it back to the states, and the states are working very brilliantly, in some cases conservative, in some case, not conservative,” Trump said, adding, “It’s working the way it’s supposed to.”

Democrats have seized on Trump’s change in tone as part of a broader focus on abortion on the trail, where Trump often hammers Biden over high inflation, immigration and more.

Harris has held more than 80 abortion rights focused events since the U.S. Supreme Court decision overruling Roe in 2022, according to the official, but last week marked the first event, of more to come, led by Harris on the campaign side that was devoted to abortion rights.

She said in Tucson that the state court ruling upholding the 19th-century ban “demonstrated once and for all that overturning Roe was just the opening act.”

“Just the opening act of a larger strategy to take women’s rights and freedoms — part of a full-on attack state by state on reproductive freedom,” she said. “And we all must understand who is to blame. Former President Donald Trump did this.”

‘Mad as well’: Hundreds rally for abortion access in nearby battleground

In neighboring Arizona, abortion continues to roil the state’s politics.

On Sunday in Scottsdale, at least 500 people spanned four corners of a busy intersection for two hours under the desert sun to rally support for a similar ballot initiative as in Nevada enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution come November.

Supporters of all generations lined the sidewalks of Camelback and Scottsdale Roads with colorful signs — sending Old Town Scottsdale into a horn-honking frenzy of support — coupled with cheers and chants: “This is what democracy looks like.”

“This P.F. Chang’s is lit right now with people who are angry — as they should be,” said Hannah Tighe, 35, standing on the commercial strip.

“There’s families, there’s older women, there’s women who have used signs that they’ve had at other protests past,” Tighe said, describing that as both “awful” and “beautiful.”

Tighe said the state Supreme Court’s decision last week to uphold the abortion ban crafted before Arizona established statehood left her feeling “angry, shocked and embarrassed.”

“Arizona is a really cool, special state, and to live here [now] is embarrassing, to have that come through. And all my friends from other states are concerned — they want to make sure the women here are safe,” she added.

And though abortion opponents celebrated the revived ban — “the compassion of the pro-life movement won in court,” one said — supporters of abortion access were no less vocal, and some top state Republicans who had called themselves “100% pro-life” mirrored Trump in pushing back on the ruling.

Laura Levine, 65, was at the Scottsdale rally on Sunday and echoed others “angry” at both the decision and the state Legislature for failing to take quick action last week, saying she showed up with her with her two adult daughters in mind.

“I had an abortion a long time ago after being raped in the parking lot in the snow around Christmas, and I don’t want my daughters to experience anything like that, and it just blows my mind that we’re going so backward in this country,” she said.

“You can’t leave it up to the states,” she added. “You see what the states are doing.”

Chris Love, spokesperson at Arizona for Abortion Access, the group that is gathering signatures for the abortion access ballot initiative, said the effort has gained greater momentum in the last week.

“It’s unfortunate that it took the Supreme Court in 2024 deciding to uphold a ban in 1864 to get folks motivated — but they’re mad as hell,” Love said at the rally, as horns blared behind her. “For anybody who was kind of sitting on the sidelines, they’re here now.”

While Love said that organizers have already surpassed the state’s required signature threshold in favor of adding the measure to the ballot, the coalition will continue collecting every signature possible until the July 3 deadline “so that we stand the perfect chance of getting on the ballot.”

“We’re gonna keep collecting signatures until the wheels fall off, quite frankly,” Love said.

Paula Medina, 25, signed the petition for the ballot initiative and plans to support it in November but said she’s not sure she’ll vote for President Joe Biden, who is running with Harris on restoring the protections of Roe, despite the challenges that vote faces in Congress.

“I’m still working through it,” Medina said of her vote, explaining she voted for Biden and Harris in 2020 but isn’t comfortable with how the Israel-Hamas war is being handled. “I know there’s a third-party candidate who is coming up hot, but it’s so confusing. I don’t feel confident in my vote come this November’s election outside of this.”

Meanwhile lawmakers are set to reconvene in Arizona on Wednesday, though it’s unclear if the Republican-led Legislature has reached consensus with Democrats on how to address the 19th-century ban.

Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma said in a statement to ABC News last week, in part: “We as an elected body are going to take the time needed to listen to our constituents and carefully consider appropriate actions, rather than rush legislation on a topic of this magnitude without a larger discussion.”

ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Soo Rin Kim and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.

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